General Fusion in the news
Re: General Fusion in the news
My guess and speculation is that the fancy architecture of the Fusion Demonstration Plant became too expensive as a next step in terms of the available funding for General Fusion, so LM26 was created to target a bit scaled down results with less money required. This plan has clearly been welcomed by the investors as General Fusion received new funding.
Re: General Fusion in the news
Been awhile since I last posted. Went to check google map for a restaurant location for a birthday lunch, and low and behold, General Fusion has practically moved right into my back yard, 4 km, 8 minutes away. Right in the same business park with the hobby store I buy my comic books at.
CHoff
Re: General Fusion in the news
Been awhile since I last posted. Went to check google map for a restaurant location for a birthday lunch, and low and behold, General Fusion has practically moved right into my back yard, 4 km, 8 minutes away. Right in the same business park with the hobby store I buy my comic books at.
CHoff
Re: General Fusion in the news
Huge announcement by General Fusion. Their last hurdle was a proven liquid metal wall compression chamber for their plasma.
https://mailchi.mp/generalfusion/publis ... c2986861e1
https://mailchi.mp/generalfusion/publis ... c2986861e1
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
Re: General Fusion in the news
General Fusion has written in detail on the status and plans for LM26 at https://generalfusion.com/post/innovati ... ft-launch/.
Re: General Fusion in the news
LM-26 was mentioned in their January 11, 2024 news letter, but I had no idea what it was and this latest publication (TY Crowberry) illuminates that.
In abbreviated review (my understanding), GF has followed a fusion path of concept (mechanical compression of plasma using steam pistons and a spinning liquid metal chamber), to building and testing the device components in parts. De-risking a costly project has been their constraint as it is for all private fusion projects. The point of a de-risked (financial) is to build near full scale devices step wise to develop & justify the next more expensive step.
Breaking the component parts into projects:
The mechanical compressor steam pistons were designed, built tested at full scale for speed and timing.
The spinning liquid metal chamber was more difficult due to dynamic turbulence at the chamber surface that would result in contaminating the plasma during the piston driven shock compression. A process of testing, modeling, concept reformulation, finally resulted in their latest design, scaled build, and successful test. This was the project hold up.
Plasma injector design took years and required first determining the topological plasmoid that could be adiabatically compressed to fusion conditions, then building the near full scale injector to produce that exact plasmoid.
LM-26 is a full scale throwback to their earliest plasma compression testing which at the beginning used explosives to compress a small scale plasma chamber, except now LM-26 goal is to use a full scale lithium cylinder and high powered magnetic coils to collapse the lithium cylinder. This test is a step wise de-risk effort to prove plasma compression will meet fusion conditions on their injected plasma. This simplified compression method using a solid lithium chamber, magnetically compressed, seems to be the last financial de-risk hurdle before proceeding to the assembled near commercial prototype which will use a mechanically compressed spinning liquid metal chamber.
First step in LM-26 is their smaller scale 'prototype stage 0', designed & built in less than a year, and it looks like it has satisfied GF, so they are now proceeding to their next step, a full scale of their simplified compression system (solid metal chamber, magnetically compressed by their Theta Coils). Time line for the full scale testing of LM-26 is for it to be complete by 2026.
To be clear, commercial machine will not use magnetic compression so there is that step going from solid lithium ring compressed by magnetic coils to a liquid metal ring compressed by pistons, but LM-26 is intended to accelerate GF's progress by proving full scale plasma compression.
In abbreviated review (my understanding), GF has followed a fusion path of concept (mechanical compression of plasma using steam pistons and a spinning liquid metal chamber), to building and testing the device components in parts. De-risking a costly project has been their constraint as it is for all private fusion projects. The point of a de-risked (financial) is to build near full scale devices step wise to develop & justify the next more expensive step.
Breaking the component parts into projects:
The mechanical compressor steam pistons were designed, built tested at full scale for speed and timing.
The spinning liquid metal chamber was more difficult due to dynamic turbulence at the chamber surface that would result in contaminating the plasma during the piston driven shock compression. A process of testing, modeling, concept reformulation, finally resulted in their latest design, scaled build, and successful test. This was the project hold up.
Plasma injector design took years and required first determining the topological plasmoid that could be adiabatically compressed to fusion conditions, then building the near full scale injector to produce that exact plasmoid.
LM-26 is a full scale throwback to their earliest plasma compression testing which at the beginning used explosives to compress a small scale plasma chamber, except now LM-26 goal is to use a full scale lithium cylinder and high powered magnetic coils to collapse the lithium cylinder. This test is a step wise de-risk effort to prove plasma compression will meet fusion conditions on their injected plasma. This simplified compression method using a solid lithium chamber, magnetically compressed, seems to be the last financial de-risk hurdle before proceeding to the assembled near commercial prototype which will use a mechanically compressed spinning liquid metal chamber.
First step in LM-26 is their smaller scale 'prototype stage 0', designed & built in less than a year, and it looks like it has satisfied GF, so they are now proceeding to their next step, a full scale of their simplified compression system (solid metal chamber, magnetically compressed by their Theta Coils). Time line for the full scale testing of LM-26 is for it to be complete by 2026.
To be clear, commercial machine will not use magnetic compression so there is that step going from solid lithium ring compressed by magnetic coils to a liquid metal ring compressed by pistons, but LM-26 is intended to accelerate GF's progress by proving full scale plasma compression.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.