ZAP Energy News

[Skipjack]

New paper by Zap!
They are not talking about achieved Q quite yet. It seems like they are still optimizing the machine and are also improving diagnostics before they want to talk about that. What is important is that their scaling laws still seem to hold up in experiment. There are nuances though. I might be misinterpreting some of the graphs, but scaling seems to depend on injected fuel mass. The more mass, the more the gain curve is shifted to higher input currents.
I am not 100% sure what the implications are for this in a power plant. Still, things are still looking good so far. I hear they are planning for a blog post with more details soon.

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/30 ... ial-fusion

[mvanwink5]

Excellent paper, super results.

While this dataset provides solid evidence supporting the expected scaling, it does not give a direct measure of the associated efficiency of the process, as yield is plotted as a function of the total plasma current rather than the pinch current itself. (Note further that taking into account the heuristic scaling described above with respect to plasma vs pinch currents, that the expected maximum pinch current associated with this plot would be ≈ 600 kA.) Thus, this plot does not make a statement on Q. Quantitative assessment of progress toward fusion breakeven will be based on measurement of local plasma temperature, density, and flow speed, with the measured yield rate providing corroborating data.

So, with respect to the results used for this paper FuZE-Q reported results are 'Pinch' currents up to 600KA, even though total plasma current is > 1MA.

I might be misinterpreting some of the graphs, but scaling seems to depend on injected fuel mass. The more mass, the more the gain curve is shifted to higher input currents.

Color of data point on graph indicates the injected mass and so it looks like they might have trouble with higher injected mass with this FuZE-Q configuration (hard to really tell as there are so many lower mass tests that obscure the few higher mass test plots). They do have a 3 electrode configuration planned.

[mvanwink5]

The new FuZE-Q 1 MJ class power bank, for example, was designed, built, assembled, commissioned, and generated first plasma, all within eight months.

Talk about accelerated path to commercial fusion!

[mvanwink5]

Zap Energy has a new paper out on electrode wear:

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/30 ... abilized-Z

The sheared-flow-stabilized (SFS) Z-pinch concept is on a path to commercialization at Zap Energy. Recent experiments on the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) and newly commissioned FuZE-Q devices are advancing the state of the art in pinch current, stable plasma duration, and deuterium–deuterium fusion neutron production. The SFS Z-pinch configuration offers the promise of a compact fusion device owing to its simple geometry, unity beta, and absence of external magnetic field coils. In addition to a robust experimental program pushing plasma performance toward breakeven conditions, Zap Energy has parallel programs developing power handling systems suitable for future power plants. Technologies under development include high-repetition-rate pulsed power, high-duty-cycle electrodes, and liquid metal wall systems. The issue of electrode durability in future SFS Z-pinch power plants is elaborated on and compared with plasma material interaction regimes in other industrial processes and fusion energy systems.

[RERT]

3 kg per hour erosion of graphite cathode is quite a number. With 200MWh of power to pay for that, it sounds very significant. Sounds like they need some orders of magnitude of mitigation.

[mvanwink5]

Fortunately, several classes of solutions are available to reduce the cathode erosion problem to manageable levels.

[KitemanSA]

Fortunately, several classes of solutions are available to reduce the cathode erosion problem to manageable levels.

Like what? Seems a bit “bibbity bobbity boo”. Ignorance tlaking!

[mvanwink5]

The article mentions them in the next section:

III. ELECTRODE DAMAGE MITIGATION STRATEGIES

[RERT]

They mention electrode feed-through, transpiration cooling, and a liquid metal surface layer. As I read it they have ideas but not a design yet.

[KitemanSA]

Reminds me of that Harris cartoon…
Two men in lab coats standing at a chalkboard. On the board…
Step 1 equations equations equations…

Step 3… equations equations = circled answer.
Between those steps… Step 2 “then a miracle occurs”.
One man to the other “I think you need to work on step 2 a bit more”.

[mvanwink5]

From what I have seen there is serious work in progress, parallel teams doing the prototyping, actual hardware with success being reported on all aspects. This is not a vaporware company scamming fools out of hundreds of millions, with shady researchers.

[RERT]

Chill! No one said it was a scam.

We just understand better if we consider erosion an important problem they are working on, rather than something which can be dismissed as detail.

[mvanwink5]

High current electrode erosion is an old industrial issue with working solutions. There is however more work for Zap because the electrode shape is important. I doubt we will get details on what exactly they are doing until they patent what ends up working. Technological advances always have the same development story, problems that need solutions that have to be worked through. Nothing new here in that respect.

[Carl White]

Zap highlights its accomplishments of 2023:

https://www.zapenergy.com//blog/2023-by-the-numbers

Here's an encouraging figure:

[Skipjack]

Business Insider article:
https://www.businessinsider.com/zap-ene ... ch-2023-12

There are some mistakes like

The company has yet to generate fusion reactions with its device

This is wrong. They have created lots of fusion reactions and have the neutrons to prove it.

In order to generate electricity, Zap Energy plans to use tritium, which is great for fusion but happens to be wildly expensive costing about $30,000 per gram in 2022, according to Science.

Of course they would breed their own Tritium, which is not mentioned in the article.

This might unfortunately be true, though:

"We have not and we will not hit break-even this year," a Zap Energy spokesperson said.