New record for fusion

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Mmm i see your point. 100 megawatts, the size of a van?
Sure, i can build such a thing without the zillions in gubmint aid. I would rather call it a bomb than a power plant.
I would not personally risk it.
Consider the 50+ kilos of safety electronics, sensors etc, that go with it. And how they react to a 12T field, and how to shield from that alone. I could never gaurantee that so much energy in so small a space, could be safely contained. It is like sitting on a mountain of gunpowder and saying it's perfectly safe, so long as no-one has a match....

Hi ATS!!

First, I am sorry that much of this thread has math and physics terms that sometimes are, but often not, explained to you. Part of that was to keep the conversation focused upon the science and not so much on the applications of future fusion reactors. In that respect, this thread has been a little offstandish!

I am also conflicted about keeping the thread going because each milestone that any reactor research achieves will be “a new record” as we saw saw with the NIF announcement about achieving more power output than was used to create the fusion reaction itself (a quantity known as “Q” and Q=1 is break even. The estimate is Q=3 will be needed for true fuel ignition and then “just adding another log to the fire” to keep it going (fusion reactions).

I also hoped that Lockheed would keep the updates coming on their Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR), as they transitioned from T3, to T4, to T5 (where they should be currently), before TX, the demo CFR that makes energy.

Because the talk always leads to “unlimited energy” the “same that powers the sun” instead of explaining how the technology works, I was going to use my own brain power to explain how the CFR works…

CFR, TEOTs understanding: The reactor is linear. In the photos, and patents, the superconducting rings sit in a line in the center of the reactor. That produces a central collision area (plasma from each direction colliding in the center) creating a cusp where it pushes towards the the outer edge where another, stronger, set of magnets push the plasma back towards the edges. This is where the “reverse pinch” comes into play, creating a pencil thin plasma racing back towards the center. As more fuel is added, the plasma moves faster (heat), collides in the center, is heated with RF guns, and continues to loop around. The result is the conditions for nuclear fusion and the release of fast neutrons and heat.

But this also requires an explanation of tokamaks and stellarators (the other basic fusion reactor shapes). And this is just the typical magnetic confinement reactors! There is targeted fusion and a plethora of laser (technically, “inertial confinement reactors”), which may or may not have magnetic fields for assistance!

Ah, but that would be the ideal way to explain nuclear fusion! And this thread started as a record (5 seconds!! Hahaha!!!…).

Now, all this time later, I have a link that explains various reactors, fusion projects, names, and expected timelines for each of the major players. And a good review of why the field hit a funding wall (they missed the fact that high temperature superconducting magnets also hit a wall in the late 1980s, early 90s).

Link: Feb.2021, quillette.com: Fusion Power is Coming.

Also, the Chinese research reactor, EAST, hit a new “record” for plasma confinement (1056 seconds) but more importantly found a new regime called “super-I mode” that has less ELMs and a more stable core of plasma than the H-mode that was expected to be the regime that would be required for tokamaks to produce fusion reactions:

World Nuclear News, Jan 9, 2023 - Chinese Tokamak Achieves Super-I Mode.

Until we either hear from Lockheed or Q=3 happens, we will see more fusion records being made!

Mews from Tokamak Energy (UK).

Tokamak Energy is making spherical tokamaks (instead of a donut shape it is more like a cored apple), which means a smaller footprint.

Even at the thin amount of plasma used in nuclear fusion, the temperature is too hot to allow it to touch the walls of the reactor. Using high temperatures superconducting magnets cooled towards absolute zero (not single digit K but still usually colder than liquid nitrogen), the stronger the magnets the smaller the reactor size (it scales by 1/4, so a 5T coil vs a 10T coil means a size reduction by 1/4 because of the scaling). For comparison, ITER is using old regular superconducting magnets of 3.5 Tesla, iirc, which is why it is so huge and has a 23 ton solenoid that is so large it can lift a jumbo jet! Lockheed’s patents list 15 T and 20 T coils for their CFR.

The Oxfordshire-based company's new Demo4 facility will consist of 44 individual magnetic coils recently manufactured using 38 kilometres of ground-breaking HTS tape, which carries currents with zero electrical resistance and requires five times less cooling power than traditional superconducting materials.

The HTS tapes are multi-layered conductors made mostly of strong and conductive metals, but with a crucial internal coating of 'rare earth barium copper oxide' (REBCO) superconducting material. The tapes are typically 12mm wide and less than 0.1 mm thick, with REBCO deposited as a thin coating. When wound into coils, HTS tapes can generate much higher magnetic fields than conventional superconducting magnets, while taking up far less space and requiring far less cooling power.

World-nuclear-mews.com, 6 Feb 2023 - Tokamak completes set of HTS magnets.

Using the “newer” high temperature magnets, they are making a stronger magnetic bottle for the hot plasma (18 T, same source). And thanks to the math, make a smaller reactor than ITER. In this race, smaller means cheaper (cost wise).

Add to this that they also have the government sign off on building their demo plant would make the timeline of early 2030s to be up and running achievable!

And still research continues on HTS. So if they can make even stronger magnets (they have a combo one at 100 T), like around 40T, then the size would decrease even more. And then the whole “distributed fusion reactor grid” scenario envisioned by Lockheed would make sense (and one of the reasons why I am pretty sure that LM Skunkworks has one).

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Quasars can convert between 6% and 32% of the mass of an object into energy compared to just 0.7% for the p–p chain nuclear fusion process.

/curious

News | Update!

The Wendelstein 7-X stellerator is back up and running!!

I joined ATS because nobody had any clue this was going on (back then). So I jumped in and tried to get some enthusiasm going. Unfortunately, most responses were, “yawn, years away… tell me when something good happens…”

Me: Sure!!

First off, the 7-X stellarator was both designed and assembled by computers to be within tolerance necessary for the machine to work. New procedures were developed to control such precision. Next, they knew that the reactor would not be completely constructed at one go. So they made a timetable for each stage (this is a learning institute after all). And the fusion reactor has met (actually exceeded human expectations) the design parameters.

It was shutdown for the addition of water cooling which was part of the original design.

Well, that was completed last year. And in a slow, step by step procedure, they brought the stellator back online. They run shots of non-fusible gasses through to clean the inside surface after being opened up. And they only gave general times of when the recommissioned reactor would be functional.

Well, it appears that was February 15, 2023.

After successful recommissioning in autumn 2022, the Greifswald nuclear fusion experiment has surpassed an important target. In 2023, an energy turnover of 1 gigajoule was targeted. Now the researchers have even achieved 1.3 gigajoules and a new record for discharge time on Wendelstein 7-X: the hot plasma could be maintained for eight minutes.

Phys.org, 22 Feb, 2023 - Power plasma with gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes.

Neither the article nor the actual IPP website explain what is meant by “energy turnover” and there is no paper shows what it means in the terms of nuclear fusion calculations.

Sorry.

But I am guessing that with the new cooling pipes the reactor can handle the heat/pressure from the microwave heaters (it sounds like they pumped a megawatt of microwave energy in the plasma heated into the gigawatt range).

As far as science goes, my bet is on the stellarator and W-7X (if you don’t count Lockheed’s CFR…)

Anyway, scientific progress goes ‘boink’!!

Information

This is a longish read. It is interesting if you have read me complaining about “high temperature superconductors”. One of the reasons for the plateau in fusion research was hitting the wall with normal superconductors: the amount of energy to cool the magnets to become superconductors requires liquid helium. The invention of “high temperature” SC gave hope that the research would make strides to improve manufacturing and increase the critical temperature at the same time.

Heck, most of my searches include HTSC news!

I also advocated that one of the three legs for fusion to exist is the transmission of electricity through energy efficient means: HYSC power lines. (Energy storage is the other leg with fusion being the main component).

Well. We read about CERN and the LHC opening portals to hell and making mini black holes that is why the complex is under a lake (and other CT!). But I read about the SC magnets being used and quickly realized that they were 50’s technology and were not that powerful. They are using niobium which has to be cooled to 4 K or such. That requires cooling and transferring the electricity from traditionally generated sources. That requires engineering.

The engineers at CERN used what was available at the time. Apparently, they were also eyeing HTSC but not not just as a future magnetic material but in the transmission of power over long distances!!

The article explains all this. And they have made both HT, regular SC, and newish “medium” TSC, including transmission lines and step up/down junctions! In other words, one of the legs needed for fusion!!

CERN Courier, 21 April, 2023 - New superconducting technologies for the HL-LHC and beyond.

And you thought it was “black holes”!!

Here’s a New Record for Fusion… ITER!!

Cost overruns, budget fights, then a general review of the project put the kibosh on the original timeline. Then Covid hit, then problems with manufactured parts, contractors, and the death of the manager all lead to a “closed mouth” policy on the status. Even as the magnetic coils were being delivered with headlines like “ITER is X% Complete!”

The article in Scientific America explains it all. The reporter filed a lawsuit to get FOIA documents! Neat info points like it will be 10 years after first plasma before ITER gets to the purpose of its construction! Oh, and it started back with Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev!!

The entire thing is out dated before it was constructed with no plan on how to modernize it.

And to prove it can make electricity requires a new reactor called Demo that has not even started!

D’oh!!

SA, 15 June, 2023 - World’s Largest Fusion Project Is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal.

And still no word from Lockheed…

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I was just watching the latest YouTube on Iter. It's a marvel of engineering and a huge credit to the scientists and engineers who built it. One of the best YouTubes was the one showing how they shipped a huge section from Japan and installed it.

Haven't read the Scientific American article yet. But I hope they can work it out.

a reply to: Phantom423

ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is an amazing scientific collaboration, but is a muddle and massively overspent. I'm sure it'll be great for high-science, but it has become one of those projects that start with the best intentions, but take too long to get off the ground.

Many people now think it's being overtaken by events, especially smaller academic and commercial projects, which are more nimble and less constrained by politics. While ITER is being built, others are advancing the science.

originally posted by: paraphi
a reply to: Phantom423

ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is an amazing scientific collaboration, but is a muddle and massively overspent. I'm sure it'll be great for high-science, but it has become one of those projects that start with the best intentions, but take too long to get off the ground.

Many people now think it's being overtaken by events, especially smaller academic and commercial projects, which are more nimble and less constrained by politics. While ITER is being built, others are advancing the science.

That's research. Over spending, poor results, unexpected consequences. When I started my Ph.D. program, my advisor told us: "99% of what you do in this lab will go in file 13 i.e. thrown out. Your job is to find the 1%". And he was right. That's how research works. Ex post facto analysis can always find problems. It's Monday morning quarterbacking. ITER is one huge learning experience. I understand that. But if we don't give it our best shot, nothing happens.
New technologies involve a lot of risk. You know that going in. ITER is no different.

a reply to: Phantom423

I know that a bunch of smart people are working on this project. The problem lies in “sticking to the plan” and not being able to advance with technology.

If you look at the LHC, they started their own HTSC research and development program then a supply chain for their own products. That is because they had a plan to upgrade their superconducting magnets along the way.

ITER has never addressed technology improvements as part of their plan. It seems that the timeline is the goal, not the science.

D-III, ASDEX-U, KSTAR, and other host countries are doing the research. They already have theorized, POCed, and demoed tokamak startup with out a central solenoid. They have a new plasma regime called “high H” and by accident, proven that reactors can withstand more plasma volume than engineered. The control systems are all being upgraded both hardware and software wise.

All of these advances will be in the next reactor but not ITER (at least design wise. Software is already updated around the world as they all use the same hardware, even Russia).

At the very least, they should have stated plan for a combination magnet with the current SC wrapped with HTSC because you get the best of both with increased magnetic fields for the same effort of cooling the regular SC magnets.

But all we hear is “budget”, “2025 is attainable…”, “already realized significant milestones…” but still no strategy on the future.

And let’s face it, this is the future!

I am just frustrated that this grabs all the fusion headlines and we barely hear about advancements at W-7X, General Fusion, and Commonwealth. Let alone Lockheed (their design is cool in the “let’s get it done” category. It is like a loaf of bread expanding into into the bread pan and the pan pushing back but without the side crust!).

Yeah, science doesn’t move as fast as I expect. I just hope that someone else is thinking “hey, why don’t we use supercritical CO2 turbines instead of steam and really go hi-tech?”.

Information

Hey! The good folk at Tokamak Energy made an announcement about their new spherical tokamak, DEMO-4,...

Ahead of a comprehensive overview of Demo4 presented at SOFE, Graham Dunbar, the Technical Lead at Tokamak Energy, mentioned that the Demo4 system will be a completely balanced set of magnets shaped in a tokamak configuration. The 18 Tesla system will be nearly a million times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field.

"Demo4 will be a completely balanced set of magnets shaped in a tokamak configuration. Importantly, it will allow us to create substantial magnetic forces and test them in fusion power plant-relevant scenarios for the first time. The learnings from this unique system will push forward our understanding of the technology required to deliver clean, secure, and affordable fusion power in the 2030s," he explained.

The Demo4 system will be assembled and tested in 2024 at Tokamak Energy's Milton Park, UK headquarters.

Interesting Engineering, 11 July, 2023 Tokamak Energy’s Demo4 magnet system can carry 12 million Amperes of electricity.

At a nuclear fusion symposium, Tokamak Energy described their timeline for DEMO4. They are expecting 44 HTSC magnets to deliver the 18T fields using 12 M amps of electricity! (same source)

I hope that their incremental design updates work out! It would be nice to see the fruits of ST-40 pay out in DEMO. And, we still have W7-X in Germany, EAST in China, and KSTAR in South Korea all ready for new experiments in the same timeline.

Taken a while but that is expected. Right Lockheed??

No big news to share. But if you have wondered why nuclear fusion is so difficult here is an MIT professor explaining fusion at 5 different levels of understanding.

Wired.com - MIT Professor Explains Nuclear Fusion in 5 Levels of Difficulty.

The gist is that you go from fluid dynamics (the whole plasma) to ion, electron, and magnetic fields dynamics and how they interact from the inside of the plasma out to reactor wall. And how science predicts events from theory and both have been changing as technologies advance.

Word of the day: gyrokenetic

The first ever company to be spun out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Proxima was founded by former scientists and engineers from MIT, Google-X and the IPP. Several of these researchers have been involved with the development of the IPP’s Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), the world’s most advanced stellarator.

theengineer.com, 30 May, 2023 - Proxima Fusion looks to take stellarators commercial

Well, that is interesting news!! They have not even completed the runs of W7-X and reached their goal of holding a steady state for 15 minutes but they are already starting to put together a company to pounce on results!

As stated in the article, advances in modelling (they went from needing a Cray to testing out runs before generating a plasma... and not some close enough guess but the fluid dynamic influenced particle stuff) and magnetic design (again, computing power has increased so they have redesigned a couple of the shaped magnets so even less of them are needed) puts them on the doorstep of demonstration. The liquid cooled divertor will be a big help. i am still wondering about liquid lithium divertor door and what about the FliBE blanket?? Can tritium be generated to be used as a fuel source? And how much stronger has the superconducting magnet got?? Is anybody going to use a supercritical CO2 turbine??

But again, they already gathered their seed money to begin their company.

There has got to be a reason why. hum?.

Here is something interesting news...

Cherenkov radiation is observed when particles move faster than the speed of light in a specific medium like water. This might sound fundamentally wrong since nothing we know travels faster than light in a vacuum. However, light slows down in water, traveling at about 75 percent of its normal speed, while other particles continue to move at higher speeds.

These particles disturb the equilibrium of atoms of the medium, which then release photons to regain it, a shock wave of sorts similar to a sonic boom when objects travel faster than sound. These photons have high frequencies and low wavelengths and are perceived as blue by the human eye.

In the case of nuclear fusion, the glow is created after a hydrogen atom absorbs a neutron and emits a high-energy gamma ray, which then strikes an electron and accelerates it nearly to the speed of light.

interestingengineering.com, Aug 3, 2023 - 'Eerie-blue glow' seen with nuclear fusion for the first time.

The company uses Cherenkov radiation to detect flaws using the gamma rays produced from fusion. That leads to the familiar blue glow we see in the other nuclear reaction, fission.

Hydrogen. Hum? Maybe a good visual indicator of the presence of radiation due to fusion. Kind of like painting stripes on the helicopter's rear rotor (a visual reminder of the "no go zone").

...

It is pretty cool that this is happening and is "good TV" stuff. I am surprised nobody thought of it sooner!

U-tube vid explaining Cherenkov Radiation

Science Takes A Fusion Step

The fine folk at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have been messing around with lasers (192 of them) to create fusion plasma. Mostly for weapons research, they also help out with fusion reactions because they have the equipment to generate the energy required.

Last year they claimed to have produced more energy than they used to create the reaction itself. Known as Q, this value (along with “beta” or efficiency of the fusion reaction) is an indicator of where along the path to nuclear fusion ignition you stand. Ignition is where the reaction only needs more fuel to keep fusion going.

As such, Q = 3, is an estimate of when that milestone will be achieved.

LLNL changed a couple of parameters before reaching Q > 1 last year. In their last shots they could not replicate their previous achievement.

A total of 2.05 megajoules was used to power the lasers and an output of 3.15 megajoules was obtained.

I nterestingEngineering.com, 7 August 2023 -US uses lasers to achieve fusion energy gain for second time.

Net energy!! Repeated!!

No word about whether it was the fuel capsule redesign or the laser changes but who cares??!

Not a power plant but that will happen!

Updates

In England, they have ST-40 tokomak which has been selected as the style of fusion reactor they are going to create a Demo plant (I.e., make electricity from). They have a site selected. They have (had??) pushed the ST-40 design to the limit. Then I run across this news item today...

In a groundbreaking development, Tokamak Energy's superconducting magnet system, known as Demo4, has successfully completed a crucial series of cryogenic tests.

...

The Demo4 system, comprising 44 magnetic coils, is set to operate at a temperature of -423.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-253 degrees Celsius) in a vacuum. The temperatures are maintained using closed-cycle cryocoolers.

Why cryogenic testing matters
Cryogenic testing evaluates the materials and components at extremely low temperatures, in this case, the HTS magnets of the fusion reactor.

...

The Demo4 system is expected to be assembled and tested at Tokamak Energy's Milton Park headquarters in the UK in 2024.

interesting engineering.com, 13 September, 2023 Tokamak Energy's Demo4 powers ahead with cryogenic success.
and
11 July, 2023 - Tokamak Energy’s Demo4 magnet system can carry 12 million Amperes of electricity.

The second link says they are using HTSC tape and each magnet is rated at 18T. That is a lot of HTSC tape! The guys at Commonwealth Fusion have a MOA with a HTSC company to produce their wire for their reactor and they are gearing up to deliver kilometers of the stuff! IIRC, CWF is something like 20T (or 25T), so not much more. But that is where we stand as far as technology is able to deliver at the moment.

The fact that the British Government is behind the company shows the US needs to be considering legislation to ease the restriction on nuclear fusion reactors as well. Or the US will fall behind the race to a functioning fusion reactor.

Ah budgets and energy laws written for the nuclear fission reactors! What other ways can the US really screw this up??



Also in the news...

The first ever nuclear fusion device to be wholly designed, built and operated by students is being planned for UNSW Sydney.

The program is part of the University’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) scheme that is designed to engage undergraduate and postgraduate students in ambitious, long-term, multidisciplinary challenges led by UNSW academics.

...

[...]the student-built device will be operated without introducing any fuel that can actually create a fusion reaction.

unsw.edu, 12 Sept 2023 - World-first fusion device to be built at UNSW Sydney.

This is a strange announcement! First, the world has dozens of fusion reactors up and running all over the world. So the title is super click-bait. Next, it is all student run! The whole thing is like one big university multi-disciplinary exercise where multiple departments get together and build a nuclear fusion reactor (the article says it will be a tokomak) to generate the conditions for fusion. Which is also why the title is click-bait: the reactor will not generate nuclear fusion reactions at all!!

In a general summary, they are going to engineer a reactor to reach the conditions (regime) of 100-150 million degrees to create the conditions for nuclear fusion but not put actual fusion fuel into the reactor itself!

I wish the public companies were just as honest with their reactor announcements (the US seems to be following PPNL's lead and calling the reactors that will produce energy with the prefix "demo" in front of reactor name).

Anyway, nice to have more interests at work in the fusion race!

Like the internal combustion engine, there will be various nuclear fusion reactor forms made for various purposes.

Unless their funding is pulled (grrrr)

Another Record for Fusion

The aging Joint European Torus (JET) held the record for longest held plasma until the new generation of tokamaks and stellarator came along. This made the final runs of JET a no brainer: real fusion fuel. So set up a source of tritium and deuterium (DT) to check the plasma regimes and mixtures. While getting ready for the final shots, advances were made in plasma edge control and heat management. All the fusion reactors using the same computer controls were upgraded including JET.

JET's final (DT) experiments (…) high fusion power was consistently produced for five seconds, resulting in a ground-breaking record of 69 megajoules using a mere 0.2 milligrams of fuel.

Phys.org, Feb. 8, 2024 - Fusion research facility's final tritium experiments yield new energy record.

Save the best for last!!

A huge POC for all future fusion devices running DT fuel. I know it is not yet a “burning fusion” and there is no telling how much energy was used to make the energy they got out but it is still an advancement in plasma research and reactors in general. IIRC the OP was for holding a plasma for ten seconds with no problems.

A wonderful way to go!

over 40 years ago in the daily news they had
photos of scienists building a big reactor.
some times the photos to day look the same!

Scam then scam naw!

a reply to: Scratchpost

Not really. It is a funding issue and a plateau in technology. The universities are under the aegis to generate a thorough understanding of plasma processes which is a mathematical unknown (infinite matrices and Navier-Stokes) which politicians don’t understand so they cut funding. This yo-yo effect resets development to a brute force understanding of nuclear fusion. That is why ITER is so huge… it is 1980s technology because all the countries can understand and manufacture that level. That is why DT fuel mixture has not been researched because no reactor is ready to generate electricity (except Lockheed CFR which is having its tech funneled into Commonwealth). It is also why there is a private-public cooperation going on now… levels out the funding setbacks by governments.

ITER is a dinosaur and will be meaningless if it is beat to the burning fusion punch and electricity is generated by a different reactor.

Calling the whole thing a “scam” is a complete lack of history and understanding how academia works: get results or lose your funding.

This has been discussed throughout the thread.

See you in the “magic” future!