General Fusion in the news

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

crowberry wrote:What mvanwink5 meant is that the next device by GF will be designed to last for only a limited amount of compression cycles to save money. A real power plant in the GF design would of course need to be able to compress the plasma continuously with ~1 Hz for many years.

When pondering on positions in black horse race one should not forget Tokamak Energy whose next device could give rather interesting results if it works as expected. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Sp ... 11702.html
I have been keeping an eye on them. They are working closely with Dennis Whyte and the SPARC/ARC group at the MIT. Their next device is not going to be break even capable, though, from what I understand (Q of 0.1). I think they will not achieve break even until well into the 2020ies.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

For GF, everything is full size at this time except for the compressor which is 1/3 scale. The next step is full size for the sphere but one shot at a time.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

Looks like GF is still in the process of getting funding for the full size injector and prototype. Another funding round will be needed to make this happen after the next 3 to 6 months of planning:
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/ge ... ore-132246

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion has two accepted papers at the upcoming SOFE conference, the 27th Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE). Shanghai, China, 4 – 8 June 2017.
353 Magnetized Target Fusion at General Fusion General Fusion Oral
356 Experimental results from the SPECTOR device at General Fusion General Fusion Oral
https://sofe2017.princeton.edu/papers-accepted/ The abstracts are apparently not yet available,

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

The book of abstracts for SOFE 2017 is available at https://indico.cern.ch/event/516719/boo ... tracts.pdf.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion presented the talk Tokamak compression experiments at General Fusion at the Canadian Association of Physicists congress. The abstract can be read at https://indico.cern.ch/event/593812/con ... s/2515368/.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion has posted the slides of the following talks at their home page. The last two talks seem to differ mostly by the title.
http://generalfusion.com/2017/06/experi ... sofe-2017/
http://generalfusion.com/2017/06/magnet ... sofe-2017/
http://generalfusion.com/2017/06/tokama ... -congress/

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

I try to keep an optimistic schedule view. The status update 'some adiabatic heating during compression' is not helping.

Plasma stability maintained during compression is old, old news. The large Marshall injector that was built end of 2016 may be needed to do the chemical compression experiments properly, but I am no adiabatic plasma compression specialist to really know that; such a specialist likely has super secret nosebleed science clearance level and likely has 24/7 armed guards living in the house next door to protect from North Korea or ISIS kidnapping.

No wonder GF gets no help. From here on out we will likely see nothing published and will not likely know success other than to see funding for the 200 piston 3 meter test prototype. Optimistically? Maybe next year?

I think TriAlpha is 2 to 3 years ahead of GF at this point. That of course is a 10 cent bet, not even a $1 bet.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Comparing the different fusion companies is rather difficult as they are in different stages and in some cases target different goal. TAE has a much longer road ahead because they aim for pB11 compared to GF which aims for DT. TAE has been able to rebuild and upgrade their devices with a fast pace lately. GF has also steadily improved their results. The amount of money required for developing a power plant technology is so huge that I doubt that GF or any other company will go dark with their progress and results.

It is very interesting to see that GF is ready to start planning and building their integrated full scale prototype device, but of course that will take a couple of years. It will also be interesting to see what TAE and Tokamak Energy are able to do during that time.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

crowberry wrote: It is very interesting to see that GF is ready to start planning and building their integrated full scale prototype device, but of course that will take a couple of years. It will also be interesting to see what TAE and Tokamak Energy are able to do during that time.
And Helion. Don't forget them! If none of them makes break even within the next two years, then JET will most likely beat them. I think MIT's SPARC also has funding now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

In GF's newsletter today:
In the months since the beginning of 2017, General Fusion has made impressive progress. We are now well positioned to move forward with the design, construction, and operation of an integrated “proof of concept” prototype fusion machine. This machine is intended to take our technology readiness to the maturity level necessary to prepare for full commercialization and a demonstration fusion power plant. Initial design of this prototype machine is now underway and we are planning a development program which will lead to construction and operation in the next several years.
In other words, they are starting the design for their proof of concept prototype machine plus plan of experiments (I presume the experiment development plan is necessary for funding). Building the machine will take some time especially for forging the 3 meter chamber and fabrication of the likely 200 pistons.

The question is when will the order be placed for the big ticket long lead forging and what will the plasma goal be (what temperature in their chemical compression, C-4 detonation - or whatever used, experiments)?

Their conservative time of several years is consistent with what I said, and reflects some tough technical problems with plasma contamination during compression during shock compression in the lead sphere. Their trick for solving this projected problem has been to squirt lithium into the pocket that the plasma is to be injected into, or at least that was one idea. They are innovative, so there are likely more ideas being bounced around.

I expect that funding will move ahead with the assumption that their current plasma development will prove successful. Perhaps they feel TriAlpha is breathing down their neck?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Speaking about TriAlpha, yes, boron is a huge bar to jump, but I consider TA a success if they can reach sustained fusion conditions with deuterium. But that is me. I imagine the C-2W machine might show that, or near enough. I think C-2W will ignite the race to commercial for all parties.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

mvanwink5 wrote:Speaking about TriAlpha, yes, boron is a huge bar to jump, but I consider TA a success if they can reach sustained fusion conditions with deuterium. But that is me. I imagine the C-2W machine might show that, or near enough. I think C-2W will ignite the race to commercial for all parties.
The high temperature required by pB11 can drive turbulence resulting in unwanted heat losses. So it is not obvious that what works for deuterium will scale up to pB11. The question of turbulence is one that JET and ITER will study with the energetic alphas coming from DT and heating the plasma.

Do you know what are the official goals that TAE has for the C-2W machine?

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

I had understood that temperature scaling was the purpose of C2-W. It makes no sense to be short of PB11 and leave doubt for another machine to resolve (unless they have an interim commercial target short of PB11 - I had not heard that).

Still, GF is the only one I have seen ev targets and status for (1200 ev target, and last I heard reported by GF they were at 400 ev).

I have no inside contacts, just a fanboy that reads what they publish and present in videos.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

IIRC TAE at one point had plans for an interim design that would "burn" D+T in case PB11 would take too long with funding drying up. They would market D+T reactors until they had refined their reactor enough that PB11 would work.
That was years ago however and I am not sure it is still in their books.

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