Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

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

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by crowberry »

Tokamak Energy will participate in the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, UK. Tokamak Energy shows their work on spherical tokamaks under the title Faster fusion. The exhibition period is from June 30th to July 5th 2015.
Hands-on at this exhibit
Remotely operate our real tokamak in Oxfordshire.
Examine the structure of our High Temperature Superconductor tokamak.
Experiment with demos relating to fusion energy.
They have a well done 4 min 41 s long fusion promoting video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CixaVH68p9Q

http://sse.royalsociety.org/2015/faster-fusion/

Ivy Matt
Posts: 711
Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by Ivy Matt »

Motherboard.vice.com has an article on Tokamak Energy. Not much new, but apart from all the mashing and squashing, not to mention the fuelless reactor, it's pretty easy to follow.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by crowberry »

There is a report from the exhibition in the article The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition is a giddy glimpse of the future containing some nice photographs of the demonstration spherical tokamaks:
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/0 ... he-future/

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by Skipjack »

Meh, D+T burning devices are all going to have big problems being economic. I am confident that Helion will demonstrate scientific break even before JET will.

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by D Tibbets »

Skipjack wrote:Meh, D+T burning devices are all going to have big problems being economic. I am confident that Helion will demonstrate scientific break even before JET will.
My perhaps outdated impression is that the FRC efforts pulsed or steady state have been operating at relatively very low temperatures and densities. There is a lot of scaling to go through before temperatures and pressures of current Polywells or even Tokamaks are reached.

Do you know of more up to date claims, data?

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by crowberry »

Skipjack wrote:Meh, D+T burning devices are all going to have big problems being economic. I am confident that Helion will demonstrate scientific break even before JET will.
David Kirtley says in this video at about 3 min that Helion Energy will be ready in three years time to build a break even capable device which would be mid 2018 counting from now. http://recode.net/2015/07/01/going-nucl ... ine-video/
The JET runs are scheduled for 2017 - 2018, so if their schedule holds, then they have made their record attempts before Helion Energy has started construction of their break even capable device.

Achieving break even in any fusion device with any reaction would be a major thing as it would show that controlled fusion energy production is possible. If it then can be developed into a practical and economical energy producing technology is the next interesting question.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by Skipjack »

D Tibbets wrote:
Skipjack wrote:Meh, D+T burning devices are all going to have big problems being economic. I am confident that Helion will demonstrate scientific break even before JET will.
My perhaps outdated impression is that the FRC efforts pulsed or steady state have been operating at relatively very low temperatures and densities. There is a lot of scaling to go through before temperatures and pressures of current Polywells or even Tokamaks are reached.

Do you know of more up to date claims, data?

Dan Tibbets
The following information is from an article I prepared a while ago, but I am still waiting for David Kirtley to vet it before I will publish it. Unfortunately David has been so busy in his capacity as CEO of Helion that he has not had time yet to do that. So please consider that there is some potential for error due to me misunderstanding David during the interview!

Pulses with plasma life times of up to 5 ms have been demonstrated in Tri Alphas C2 device and similar lifetimes have been shown in IPA, which is more than enough for the pulsed device they have in mind. The exact pulse duration will have to be finely tuned to ensure a maximum amount of Deuterium and Helium fuel fuses, without fusing too much of the Tritium that results from the fusion Deuterium with Deuterium. It is reasonable to assume pulse durations of 3 ms or less, well within previously achieved durations.
The necessary plasma density and magnetic field strengths of up to 20 Tesla has been demonstrated in LPA HF.
Grande [their latest device] has been able to reach plasma temperatures of up to 5 kilo electron Volt (keV). That is the equivalent of 16% of the temperatures needed for a break even reactor with Deuterium and Helium3 fuel.
According to David Kirtley, getting into the kilo electron Volt regime was the hardest part. Now that they have reached 5 keV, they know that they have a feasible design.
Getting all the way to 35 keV will be among the most challenging aspects of their future work, but he is very confident that they can achieve it with a full scale device.

Giorgio
Posts: 3061
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:Grande [their latest device] has been able to reach plasma temperatures of up to 5 kilo electron Volt (keV). That is the equivalent of 16% of the temperatures needed for a break even reactor with Deuterium and Helium3 fuel.
I would like to take the occasion to remember also in this thread the researches going on with the Stellarators. The Japanese one got some exceptional results in the last years since they discovered the Super Dense Core confinement regime:
See:
http://www.lhd.nifs.ac.jp/en/result/
and:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/257 ... 012025.pdf

I believe that this is a branch of the fusion research that is highly underestimated.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by crowberry »

I agree that it will be interesting to see what comes out of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator. The construction of such devices seems to be very complicated and time consuming though, which does not bode good for practical and economical fusion.

Another device to keep an eye on that will resume operation this year after being upgraded is the spherical tokamak NSTX-U.

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by crowberry »

Tokamak Energy was running their High Temperature Superconductor spherical tokamak for a world record breaking 29 hours during the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. That is a really impressive achievement!

http://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/we-now-h ... -29-hours/

Giorgio
Posts: 3061
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: Summer Science Exhibition 30 June - 5 July 2015, London

Post by Giorgio »

crowberry wrote:Tokamak Energy was running their High Temperature Superconductor spherical tokamak for a world record breaking 29 hours during the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. That is a really impressive achievement!

http://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/we-now-h ... -29-hours/
Impressive indeed.... It makes it bode well for future experimental results!
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Post Reply