A midsize tokamak as a fast track to burning plasmas

This paper describes the conceptual design of a midsize tokamak as a fast track to the investigation of burning plasmas. It is shown that it could reach large values of energy gain (≥ 10) with only a modest improvement in confinement over the scaling that was used for designing the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). This can be achieved by operating in a low plasma recycling regime that experiments indicate can lead to improved plasma confinement. The possibility of reaching the necessary conditions of low recycling using a different magnetic divertor from those currently employed in present experiments is discussed.