GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneers

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

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crowberry
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GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneers

Post by crowberry »

Now Science has an article about alternative fusion concepts written by Daniel Clery who is the author of the book "A Piece of the Sun". The article covers General Fusion, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Tri Alpha Energy and Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation. The Helion Energy setup is shown as an example of magnetized target fusion, but not discussed in the text. Compact tokamaks and some other fusion ideas are also listed in the text. The PDF version is five pages, including pictures. It also has a cool picture of the General Fusion Mini-Sphere setup like the Nature News article.
Image

This is, like the Nature News article, a non-technical article, but it has some interesting bits of information.

On General Fusion:
At the moment, they expect that will require a monster version of their current setup, with a reaction chamber three times as big, up to 400 pistons hammering its surface, and possibly two opposing plasma injectors firing compact toroids that collide and merge before compression.
The number of pistons needed is growing rapidly, probably because of the results of General Fusions simulation results to work around the Richtmeyer Meshkov instability. For the pilot plant they probably want to have a good safety margin so that it will work, but 400 pistons is a lot.

On LPP:
"We're very far along compared with the others," Lerner says. "Tri Alpha is three orders of magnitude behind."
On EMC2:
In experiments carried out last October, EMC2 used improved electron guns to build up a high pressure of electrons in the center and showed that confinement was significantly improved. "We've taken a big step forward," Park says. "We were behind Tri Alpha, now we're competing directly."
This article is behind library access or a paywall at this link:http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/370.summary

crowberry
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by crowberry »

The article can be freely accessed from Daniel Clerys page at http://desperatelyseekingfusion.wordpress.com/articles/.

mvanwink5
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by mvanwink5 »

Again, thanks crowberry. GF went from 200 to 300, now 400. My take is this is strictly to put funding numbers in place and to minimize risk of failure. Besides the instability issue, there is the piston lifetime (pistons can move slower to deliver less energy) and wave shape for optimum fusion. I am expecting the big GF machine funding to happen this year; it takes time to fill an order for a 3 meter diameter metal sphere and 400 pistons, etc.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by Skipjack »

I am somewhat disappointed that the article does not mention Helion. Once again, they are being ignored, even though they are among the top contenders in the race.

mvanwink5
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by mvanwink5 »

The article had a picture though. One guess is that the article length had to be trimmed, worse than a budget cut.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:The article had a picture though. One guess is that the article length had to be trimmed, worse than a budget cut.
Yeah, how odd is that! So they use Torulfs(?) rendering of the Helion reactor with an article that only talks about Tri Alpha (and their similar reactor concept).

birchoff
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by birchoff »

Skipjack wrote:I am somewhat disappointed that the article does not mention Helion. Once again, they are being ignored, even though they are among the top contenders in the race.
I'm not... I dont think Helion spends much energy selling anyone on what they are doing. I get the impression they are more focused on the research and development than on convincing people about how far along they are. Where as GF has been to TED, LPP just came off a massive PR campaign to enlist donors for their croud funding effort, and EMC2 just published a paper with some solid results in it. Helions most recent news as I understand it is the minor change they made to their site about targeting 2019 for a prototype.

Skipjack
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by Skipjack »

birchoff wrote:
Skipjack wrote:I am somewhat disappointed that the article does not mention Helion. Once again, they are being ignored, even though they are among the top contenders in the race.
I'm not... I dont think Helion spends much energy selling anyone on what they are doing. I get the impression they are more focused on the research and development than on convincing people about how far along they are. Where as GF has been to TED, LPP just came off a massive PR campaign to enlist donors for their croud funding effort, and EMC2 just published a paper with some solid results in it. Helions most recent news as I understand it is the minor change they made to their site about targeting 2019 for a prototype.
I think we will soon hear some more from Helion. They are looking for funding for their large prototype, which is a lot more than the bits of funding they got so far.

mvanwink5
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Re: GF, LPP, TAE, EMC2 in Science: Fusion's restless pioneer

Post by mvanwink5 »

The race is heating up, but the heat is hot air so far. I want to see some big chips on the table for some big systems! (and not the big oinking gov trough chips to ITER, some serious results oriented VC chips). :lol:
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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