Author Topic: Fusion with space related aspects thread  (Read 1113358 times)

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2720 on: 09/21/2016 06:51 pm »
Just out of interest what did LM have to say for themselves, unless I am misremembering I think you mentioned them being there?
That was the US-Japan CT 2016 Workshop on Compact Tori, not the ARPA-E Alpha Meeting.
LM is still in relatively early stages of their reactor development. Personally, I am not all that impressed.
http://www.physics.uci.edu/US-JAPAN-CT2016/Program_Presentations/2.1_T.McGuire_CT2016.pdf

Many other concepts are already much further down the development path and IMHO look a lot more promising including the Princeton FRC, Helions FRC and TAEs FRC. Can you see a pattern there?
I am also quite excited about Uri Schumlaks's Flow Z- Pinch, mainly because it could lead to an extremely compact reactor (190 MW with a roughly 1.5 meter tall cylinder of 1.5 meter radius, including shielding) and that has aerospace applications. Plus their device is relative inexpensive. So they can make rapid progress. Scientific validation in less than 3 years.
« Last Edit: 09/21/2016 08:20 pm by Elmar Moelzer »

Offline Star One

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2721 on: 09/21/2016 06:57 pm »
Just out of interest what did LM have to say for themselves, unless I am misremembering I think you mentioned them being there?
That was the US-Japan CT 2016 Workshop on Compact Tori, not the ARPA-E Alpha Meeting.
LW is still in relatively early stages of their reactor development. Personally, I am not all that impressed.
http://www.physics.uci.edu/US-JAPAN-CT2016/Program_Presentations/2.1_T.McGuire_CT2016.pdf

Many other concepts are already much further down the development path and IMHO look a lot more promising including the Princeton FRC, Helions FRC and TAEs FRC. Can you see a pattern there?
I am also quite excited about Uri Schumlaks's Flow Z- Pinch, mainly because it could lead to an extremely compact reactor (190 MW with a roughly 1.5 meter tall cylinder of 1.5 meter radius, including shielding) and that has aerospace applications. Plus their device is relative inexpensive. So they can make rapid progress. Scientific validation in less than 3 years.

Thank you for that update.

Offline Eugene Evans

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2722 on: 09/22/2016 05:30 pm »
It is a bit of a bummer that your reactor does not scale up very well. My understanding is that this is mostly due to the restrictions on the thickness of the Scrape Off Layer. Most other fusion reactors scale quite favorably with volume. I do believe that you still have a chance to scale the power output with a higher B. I have read of REBCO HTSC magnets with a magnetic field strength of 25T. Assuming that your reactor also scales with B^4 (like Tokamaks do), there should be quite a potential for making the reactor stronger or smaller in the future. That is of course assuming that things work out as well as you guys hope and the reactor works as predicted. I always tend to get ahead of myself ;)

At this point, we're focused on getting fusion to work at all in an FRC geometry, and our current design is a bit of a balancing act between various physical and technical issues that manifest themselves at larger and smaller machine scales. For instance, if we reduced the radius, our power would have to be reduced substantially in order to keep the neutron wall load low, and we'd need substantially higher magnetic fields as well; on the other hand, if we increased the radius, we'd quickly start running into heating efficiency issues. Basically, once we have a working design, we could then do a bunch of optimization on it and perhaps get refinements to the scaling laws that we're using right now. Getting to that point, of course, is the hard (and, in my opinion, interesting) part!

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2723 on: 09/22/2016 09:49 pm »
At this point, we're focused on getting fusion to work at all in an FRC geometry, and our current design is a bit of a balancing act between various physical and technical issues that manifest themselves at larger and smaller machine scales. For instance, if we reduced the radius, our power would have to be reduced substantially in order to keep the neutron wall load low, and we'd need substantially higher magnetic fields as well; on the other hand, if we increased the radius, we'd quickly start running into heating efficiency issues. Basically, once we have a working design, we could then do a bunch of optimization on it and perhaps get refinements to the scaling laws that we're using right now. Getting to that point, of course, is the hard (and, in my opinion, interesting) part!
Of course that is what needs to be done first and I really hope that you will succeed with it! I am more of an engineer at heart and kind of care more about the applications and I am terribly impatient ;)
What if you kept the radius the same, but increased the magnetic field?
« Last Edit: 09/22/2016 09:57 pm by Elmar Moelzer »

Offline Katana

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2724 on: 09/23/2016 02:36 am »
Just out of interest what did LM have to say for themselves, unless I am misremembering I think you mentioned them being there?
I am also quite excited about Uri Schumlaks's Flow Z- Pinch, mainly because it could lead to an extremely compact reactor (190 MW with a roughly 1.5 meter tall cylinder of 1.5 meter radius, including shielding) and that has aerospace applications. Plus their device is relative inexpensive. So they can make rapid progress. Scientific validation in less than 3 years.
Z pinch could be used as an electric thruster even without fusion. Plus the jet flow frontend = chemical/thermal - electric - fusion Tri-mode.

Offline Stormbringer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2725 on: 11/12/2016 08:50 pm »
Z pinch guys upping the tritium for break even in 2018

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/z-machine-fusion-adding-tritium-to.html

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Offline wizzard3

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2726 on: 11/27/2016 07:23 pm »
an idea for a light bulb sized fusion reactor


Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2727 on: 11/28/2016 01:04 am »
Z pinch could be used as an electric thruster even without fusion. Plus the jet flow frontend = chemical/thermal - electric - fusion Tri-mode.
If it works as designed Uri Shumlak's Z-Pinch at the University of Washington looks really good for aerospace applications. It is very small and lightweight. They are making pretty fast progress too.

Offline Star One

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2728 on: 11/28/2016 05:04 pm »
New magnetic field theory gets us closer to nuclear fusion

Quote
To solve the problem, researchers examined something called "plasmoid instability," which causes two-dimensional magnetic sheets to thin down into smaller "islands." Once a sheet has broken down to a certain point, "the plasmoid instability occurs on a short time scale, leading to explosive growth of the plasmoids," according to the paper. That causes the fields to reform in a different orientation, causing solar flares and other phenomena.

The researchers still aren't sure why the plasma breaks down into islands, as that seems to defy the "power laws" of physics. Nevertheless, the work could help scientists better predict solar flares, erratic gamma ray blasts and other violent activities. Perhaps most importantly, it could lead to a better understanding of the magnetic fields caused by plasma inside Tokamak fusion reactors. If they can figure that out, we can solve pretty much all of our energy problems.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/28/new-magnetic-field-theory-gets-us-closer-to-nuclear-fusion/

Here's the paper.

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/23/10/10.1063/1.4964481

Offline Stormbringer

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Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2730 on: 04/03/2017 03:49 am »
Some good news here: The Direct Fusion Drive project by Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and Princeton Satellite Systems is getting NIAC Phase II funding. Congrats to Stephanie Thomas and Sam Cohen.
It is cool to see that they are cooperating with the MIT on the use of high temperature super conductors. The Dennis Whyte and his team has had some great experience with using REBCO HTSCs for their (SP)ARC fusion reactors. I remember asking Dr Cohen about this last August. Guess they decided it was worth looking into. This is great because REBCOs allow much higher magnetic field pressure than normal super conductors, which tend to loose conductivity when the magnetic fields get too strong (which is one reason why ITER is so big). I am not sure about Dr Cohen's FRC, but most magnetic confinement concepts scale with the 4th power of B. That would mean the potential for some huge improvements in Q.
Anyway, great news and congrats to everyone involved!
http://www.psatellite.com/nasa-niac-phase-ii-selected/

Offline Rei

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2731 on: 04/03/2017 07:43 am »
HTSC tapes are one of the main reasons I look forward to DEMO. They really change the picture of the sort of scale you need to achieve viable fusion power. Great to see them working into this role as well!

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2732 on: 04/03/2017 07:53 am »
HTSC tapes are one of the main reasons I look forward to DEMO. They really change the picture of the sort of scale you need to achieve viable fusion power. Great to see them working into this role as well!
I think SPARC and ARC will happen long before DEMO (unless they never get funding). They are really amazingly compact for tokamaks. PPPLs system is even more compact, though.

Offline Rei

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2733 on: 04/03/2017 09:29 pm »
HTSC tapes are one of the main reasons I look forward to DEMO. They really change the picture of the sort of scale you need to achieve viable fusion power. Great to see them working into this role as well!
I think SPARC and ARC will happen long before DEMO (unless they never get funding). They are really amazingly compact for tokamaks. PPPLs system is even more compact, though.

Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020; I doubt ARC could come online before that, and they're testing the same basic sorts of operational issues. I can't imagine them abandoning ITER and starting over with ARC.  And SPARC very well could be what DEMO ends up like.  Conceptual design on DEMO isn't due for years.

I guess it depends what entity is funding it.

Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2734 on: 04/03/2017 09:37 pm »
HTSC tapes are one of the main reasons I look forward to DEMO. They really change the picture of the sort of scale you need to achieve viable fusion power. Great to see them working into this role as well!
I think SPARC and ARC will happen long before DEMO (unless they never get funding). They are really amazingly compact for tokamaks. PPPLs system is even more compact, though.

Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020; I doubt ARC could come online before that, and they're testing the same basic sorts of operational issues. I can't imagine them abandoning ITER and starting over with ARC.  And SPARC very well could be what DEMO ends up like.  Conceptual design on DEMO isn't due for years.

I guess it depends what entity is funding it.
According to the youtube video I found a while back, Prof. Whyte says they are not going to need anywhere near the scale of funding ITER has.  I think they are also looking into private funding.

Offline Rei

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2735 on: 04/04/2017 12:02 am »
Heh, I wish them the best, but $300M just to build a subscale demonstrator?  That's not something you just make a kickstarter for...

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2736 on: 04/04/2017 12:37 am »
Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020
ITER first plasma has been delayed to 2025.

Offline Rei

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2737 on: 04/04/2017 08:11 am »
Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020
ITER first plasma has been delayed to 2025.

Wow, missed that. That's... unfortunate.  :Þ

Offline as58

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2738 on: 04/04/2017 08:16 am »
Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020
ITER first plasma has been delayed to 2025.

Wow, missed that. That's... unfortunate.  :Þ

But hardly unexpected...

Offline Star One

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Re: Fusion with space related aspects thread
« Reply #2739 on: 04/04/2017 11:35 am »
Aren't ARC and SPARC just unfunded design concepts? ITER starts plasma experiments in 2020
ITER first plasma has been delayed to 2025.

Wow, missed that. That's... unfortunate.  :Þ

Wouldn't be at all surprised if it doesn't get pushed back again.

 

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