World energy issues and advanced nuclear fusion

The analysis of the worlds energy needs shows them in historical growth, with the highest per capita demand concentrated in the developed countries. Nuclear Fusion is a candidate as a long-term energy solution, for developed countries. The recent stress on safety by the world community has stimulated the research on other fuel cycles than the Deuterium-Tritium (DT) one, based on 'advanced' reactions, such as Deuterium-Helium-3 (D-He-3). With these cycles, it is not necessary to breed and fuel tritium. The D-He-3 cycle has also a very low presence of fusion neutrons. The plasma confinement requirements for a D-He-3 reactor are more challenging than those for a DT reactor, and He-3 is not currently available on earth. As an important step towards the study of a D-He-3 reactor, a feasibility study of a high-field D-He-3 experiment of relatively large dimensions and high fusion power, however based on present technologies, has brought to the proposal of the Candor fusion experiment. Terrestrial sources of He-3 are very small. However, a major deposit of He-3, originally discovered in lunar samples in 1970 was considered by the fusion program in 1986. The He-3 of the moon is contained in the regolith, roughly a million t. A cost and energy balance assessment to feed the Candor experiment has been performed, based upon available data. It turns out that He-3 feed for a large experiment such as Candor can be a good demonstration technological step for lunar D-He-3 mining. The D-Ve fusion cycle offers strong safety advantages and could be the ultimate response to the environmental requirements for future nuclear power plants.