Results, conclusions; and implications of the SEAFP-2 programme

Fusion power stations inherently will have no actinides or fission products , extremely low levels of nuclear energy, and low levels of decay heat powe r. With appropriate design and material selection, these favourable inheren t features could five rise to substantial safety and environmental advantag es. Analyses performed within the SEAFP-2 project of the European fusion pr ogramme have shown that it should be possible to design commercial fusion p ower stations so that the maximum doses to the public arising from the most severe conceivable ac cident driven by in-plant energies would be at the milliSievert level - wel l below the level at which evacuation would be considered; after a few decades, most, perhaps all, of the activated material arising f rom the operation and decommissioning of the plant could be cleared or recy cled, with little, or no, need for repository disposal; the above goals can be achieved by using relatively well-developed and near -term low-activation martensitic steel as structural material. The results supporting these conclusions are summarised in this paper. The detailed lessons learnt will be input to a future European conceptual study of commercial fusion power stations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All ri ghts reserved.