Current Drive

Externally sustaining the plasma current using beams or waves, beyond what the plasma self-generates.

Steady-state tokamaks must drive part of their plasma current externally, using neutral beams or radio-frequency waves, to supplement the self-generated bootstrap current. Current-drive efficiency directly affects the plant power ledger.

HYPERION drives the non-bootstrap share of its 9.86 MA current with 25.9 MW of auxiliary power.