Tokamak Energy news

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

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

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by crowberry »

This is a Tokamak Energy abstract for the upcoming 60th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics conference.
Abstract: YO5.00009 : Initial Operation of the ST40 Spherical Tokamak

Advances in High Temperature Superconductor magnet technology allow a significant increase in the toroidal field (TF), which has been found to improve confinement in STs. The combination of the high b that has been demonstrated in STs and the high TF that can be produced by HTS TF magnets opens a path to lower-volume fusion reactors, since fusion power is proportional to b2 Bt4 V (V is the plasma volume). Tokamak Energy is aiming to exploit this concept as a route to fusion energy production. A high field ST, ST40 (R=0.4-0.6m, R/a=1.6-1.8, Ip=2MA, Bt=3T, κ=2.5, tpulse~1-10sec, 2MW NBI), was partially assembled and an experimental campaign conducted between January and June 2018. The main aim was to test Merging/Compression (MC) start-up. Plasma currents up to 350kA at 0.8T were obtained. Following MC, plasma was sustained for up to 15ms, even without a solenoid. Experiments on MAST and TS3 show efficient ion heating due to reconnection and this has been confirmed on ST40, with Ti > 1keV measured using Doppler broadening spectrometry. Plasmas with H-mode signatures were observed. ST40 is being moved to a larger facility, able to accommodate NBI and neutron shielding. The experimental results, an outline of the parallel HTS R&D and future plans will be presented.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP18/Session/YO5.9

RERT
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by RERT »

https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... committee/

On the face of it quite a heavyweight in the field. Looks like they mean business...or want to look that way...

crowberry
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by crowberry »

Total funds raised for fusion venture Tokamak Energy exceeds £50M
https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/total-f ... ceeds-50m/

crowberry
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by crowberry »

Jonathan Carling from Tokamak Energy gave the talk Strategies and Expectations for the 2020s at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Fusion Power Associates.
http://firefusionpower.org/FPA18_Tok_Energy_CARLING.pdf

crowberry
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by crowberry »

Tokamak Energy has successfully operated ST40 for the first time after the move:
Last year’s milestone achievement of 15 million degree temperatures in the ST40 tokamak was achieved with ST40 in our old building at 120 Olympic Avenue on Milton Park. Soon after, the whole tokamak was dismantled and moved to our new, larger facility. In just nine months it has been rebuilt, upgraded and operated again.

Last week we created plasma in ST40 and successfully repeated experiments from last year, demonstrating that ST40 was back to the level of performance attained before the move.

Additionally, we tested the toroidal field magnets after an upgrade to the power supplies. We ramped the current up to 125kA through the TF coils, producing a field of 1.5T at 0.4m, the highest ever magnetic field in a spherical tokamak.
When we begin ST40 experiments again later in the year it will be the start of our campaign towards 100 million degrees – fusion temperatures.

Skipjack
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Skipjack »

This is pretty cool. They have been making steady progress, though they are still behind their original schedule. Things will get really interesting once the HTSCs get put in. Melanie Windridge indicated recently that things with research on that is going quite well. They are still a top contender for the race to break even for me, much more so than the more hyped Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Don't get me wrong. CFS is cool and I really like what Dennis Whyte and his team at the MIT have been doing, but IMHO, TE is moving faster and the spherical tokamak has additional size advantages.

crowberry
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by crowberry »

Tokamak Energy exceeds target of 20 tesla with HTS Magnets

The last 12 months have seen very rapid developments in magnet technology at Tokamak Energy. The HTS programme of developing tokamak magnets from high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials runs alongside our ST40 programme and is an integral part of our plan to deliver commercial fusion energy.

On 3rd September 2019 at the 14th European Conference on Applied Superconductivity (EUCAS) conference in Glasgow, our Director of Technology Development, Rob Slade, announced that Tokamak Energy magnet engineers have succeeded in producing a magnetic field of 24.4 T in magnets made of high temperature superconducting material.
...

This is really good news! It will be interesting to learn how these new high performance HTS magnets behave after prolonged irradiation tests.
It will also be interesting to learn at some point where CFS is in their magnet development.

https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... s-magnets/

Skipjack
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Skipjack »

crowberry wrote:
This is really good news! It will be interesting to learn how these new high performance HTS magnets behave after prolonged irradiation tests.
It will also be interesting to learn at some point where CFS is in their magnet development.

https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... s-magnets/
It is great news! They are making really good progress. Now they need to make coils for their tokamak from those.
As for CFS. I know that the MIT has been collaborating with TE on development. It is possible that TE are sharing information with the MIT and thus CFS.
If not, then CFS is at least 2 years behind.

Carl White
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Carl White »

Here's a three-minute video presentation by their CEO, Jonathan Carling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfPZqZyZeyw

He says they've completed another round of funding and are very well funded going into the "end of 2019", so it's a little dated.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Giorgio »

Carl White wrote:Here's a three-minute video presentation by their CEO, Jonathan Carling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfPZqZyZeyw

He says they've completed another round of funding and are very well funded going into the "end of 2019", so it's a little dated.
Thanks, I was impressed when in the video they say that they plan to upgrade their machine to demonstrate more than 20 Tesla in full Tokamak magnetic set in 2020. That will be 4 times more than what ITER is working on and a decade before them. Quite a feat if they manage to do it.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Skipjack »

Carl White wrote:Here's a three-minute video presentation by their CEO, Jonathan Carling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfPZqZyZeyw

He says they've completed another round of funding and are very well funded going into the "end of 2019", so it's a little dated.
That is not what I hear. I hear that they are going into the end of the year 2019 well funded for what they want to do in 2020.
Giorgio wrote: Thanks, I was impressed when in the video they say that they plan to upgrade their machine to demonstrate more than 20 Tesla in full Tokamak magnetic set in 2020. That will be 4 times more than what ITER is working on and a decade before them. Quite a feat if they manage to do it.
I did not hear that. They are starting to build their new magnets this year, but I doubt that we will see them in a tokamak this year. I believe they won't be used until ST-F1, which according to their timeline won't happen until the mid 2020ies. But then they have been way ahead of schedule. So maybe we will see ST-F1 much earlier than their original timeline (which still puts HTSCs much later too). If they can keep up the pace, they might even beat ZAP to break even before the end of 2022... Interesting times for fusion. That's for sure.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:I did not hear that. They are starting to build their new magnets this year, but I doubt that we will see them in a tokamak this year.
Upon re-listening to it I might have indeed misinterpreted their meaning when they said that they had all the material in home to build all the HTS material to build a full set of coils for a complete tokamak.
Nevertheless is for sure worth keeping an eye also on these guys.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

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

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote: Nevertheless is for sure worth keeping an eye also on these guys.
Oh absolutely. IMHO TE and Dennis Whyte of the MIT (who spun off into CFS) have a chance to put tokamaks back on the map as a viable design. The giants of ITER, DEMO and co lost me years ago. Both have a good team. CFS just started but TE has met (or exceeded) all of their milestones so far. It will be interesting to see whether they can keep it up this year. CFS is a little less ambitious than TE with a slightly bigger, conventional tokamak design and a slightly less aggressive roadmap. They also see to need a lot more money than TE. So for me personally TE is the more interesting company.

paperburn1
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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by paperburn1 »

20 tesla 10.5 centimetres MRI are supose to be a thing 130 metric tons sooo maybe
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

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

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Post by Skipjack »

paperburn1 wrote:20 tesla 10.5 centimetres MRI are supose to be a thing 130 metric tons sooo maybe
I have trouble understanding that sentence. Sorry. Can you rephrase it, please?

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