General Fusion in the news

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

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paperburn1
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by paperburn1 »

So the have solved the piston sealing problem?
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

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

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Michel Laberge gave a presentation at the Schulich Leader Scholarships event and the talk is available on Youtube. Most of the video is actually introduction and questions at the end. Laberge mentions in his very popular and general presentation that they are still working on raising the funding for their prototype machine. He describes how hard work it is to talk to investors and to actually get some funding.

I hope that they will soon get the funding they need so they can go ahead and build the prototype.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zzwnt0cNXM

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

16 Dec General Fusion Closes $65M of Series E Financing
Posted at 04:13h in Featured, Most Recent, Press Releases Share

Funding Enables the Company’s Fusion Demonstration Plant

VANCOUVER, Canada – General Fusion announced that it has successfully closed USD$65 million of Series E equity financing. The financing was led by Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore.

This USD$65 million of new financing, together with the release of CAD$50 million in additional investment from Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund, enables the Company to formally launch the program to design, construct, and subsequently operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant. This prototype facility is intended to confirm the performance of General Fusion’s magnetized target fusion technology in a power plant relevant environment. Pursuit of this next important step toward commercially viable fusion energy reflects the growing global collaboration between public and private stakeholders in this transformative technology. General Fusion has attracted more than USD$200 million in funding to develop its practical approach to fusion energy.
This is very good news!

https://generalfusion.com/2019/12/gener ... financing/

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

I believe they still need another 100 million to actually build the demo reactor.

mvanwink5
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Location: N.C. Mountains

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

$100 million will no doubt get the long lead equipment ordered, engineering started, site acquired. Financing for the whole project to completion is not the way that such projects are done.

At this stage of the fusion project, investors are confident of success. Demo is just that, demonstration of the science.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

paperburn1
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Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:53 am
Location: Third rock from the sun.

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by paperburn1 »

Burnaby, B.C.-based General Fusion says it has closed on a $65 million equity financing round that will spark the launch of a program to design, construct and operate a demonstration nuclear fusion power plant.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and- ... z6Ag96C29L
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Here is a recent paper by General Fusion:
Stable compression of a spherical tokamak plasma

Abstract

An analysis of toroidal plasma compression by a collapsing flux conserver reveals linearly stable scenarios of operation to high compression ratios. The resistive and ideal MHD stability is calculated in full toroidal geometry using the asymptotic matching method in realistic conditions. A time dependent MHD simulation of the compression is conducted to confirm the conservation principles used to calculate the equilibrium states for the analysis. The near edge current profile, controlled by toroidal field ramping during compression, is shown to be critical to stability due to coupling between poloidal components of the least stable mode. Two cases with slight differences in edge current are examined, one with a stable corridor to high compression and one without.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ab74a2

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion has published two articles on arXiv:

First results from plasma edge biasing on SPECTOR
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.07463

Magnetic Levitation and Compression of Compact Tori
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10307

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

No one seems to be announcing demonstration machine build funding reached, and project initiation. Either investor cash has died of China Virus or performance targets have failed to have been reached. Smells like Fusion is in need of a China Virus ventilator and cure.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Giorgio »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:41 pm
No one seems to be announcing demonstration machine build funding reached, and project initiation. Either investor cash has died of China Virus or performance targets have failed to have been reached. Smells like Fusion is in need of a China Virus ventilator and cure.
I don't see the main issue being COVID or China or low oil price.
The main issue existing reactors are having is that they are unable to improve performance targets due to technological/material constrains.
The only fusion related area where there has been noticeable "real" advancements in the last 20 years has been superconductors and related coils for magnetic field, which is the main reason of the majority of improvements in the performances of the test reactors out there.

There is now a dire need of new alloys and materials with more flexible properties if we want to advance reactors performances, but unfortunately investments into this area has been neglected by majority of governments and institutions that preferred to focus on materials like carbon fibers and polymeric fibers/resins. Interesting and useful fields in general, but not fundamental for the needs of fusion machines.
And because all of them more or less depend on the same physics to reach a sustainable fusion point, they are all stuck waiting for such improvements.

I wonder how a Polywell machine would have performed with coils upgraded to latest tech.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:41 pm
No one seems to be announcing demonstration machine build funding reached, and project initiation. Either investor cash has died of China Virus or performance targets have failed to have been reached. Smells like Fusion is in need of a China Virus ventilator and cure.
General Fusion is raising the money for their next fusion relevant machine and they have gotten sizeable funding during the last year.

TAE Technology has the best track record of fund raising and they are also planning their next machine Copernicus and also the one after that Da Vinci.

CFS is developing their magnet technology in addition to plannig their first tokamak. CFS has raised very fast the funding they have gotten.

Tokamak Energy is developing nicely their magnet technology and working upgrades to their ST-40 tokamak as well as planning their magnet test device and their next tokamak,

At least these four companies have continued to raise serious money and they are working on devices with interesting goals, so I think the situation looks quite promising in spite of the corona virus situation.

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

Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Here are some General Fusion related abstracts from the 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics. The are studying interesting plasma wall interactions.

Abstract: CP19.00023 : Effects on Stable MHD Region of a Magnetized Target Plasma Compression http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/CP19.23

Abstract: GO13.00010 : Plasma-wall interaction on the SLiC spherical tokamak device with large-area, dynamic liquid lithium free surface http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/GO13.10

Abstract: JO09.00010 : Consequences of Flux Diffusion in a Liner Compression Fusion Reactor http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/JO09.10

Abstract: JP19.00011 : Design and Initial Results from the Dynamic Lithium Corrosion Test Bed http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/JP19.11

Abstract: PP12.00015 : 2D Lagrangian Code for Resistive Evolution of Plasma Equilibrium and Its Application to MTF Studies at General Fusion http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/PP12.15

Abstract: ZP07.00011 : Confinement Physics on Plasma Injector 3 http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP20/Session/ZP07.11

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

We are on the fastest path to commercializing #fusionenergy – and we need help to get there. We’re looking to add nearly 100 new members to our team in the coming year. Join us on this exciting journey and apply! #cleantechjobs
This is the first serious news I have seen on **building** a real prototype. I take this as finally solid evidence that commercial fusion is about to happen.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Carl White
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Carl White »

"Nuclear fusion tech developer General Fusion now has Shopify and Amazon founders backing it"

https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/14/nucle ... acking-it/

Bezos (Amazon) has been a backer for years, but Shopify is a new development. Also interesting:
Indeed, General Fusion kept adding cash throughout 2020 as it looked to develop its demonstration fusion reactor.
https://generalfusion.com/2020/07/gener ... investors/

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

It is very good news that General Fusion has raised more funding and is able to move forward with their demonstration plant. It still remains to be seen which concept(s) will work in the end and which concept(s) will not. The KSTAR tokamak in Korea run at 100 MK for 20 s, so there is still a lot of ground to cover for all the private fusion enterprises to reach this level of performance https://phys.org/news/2020-12-korean-ar ... -long.html. Literally the fusion race is heating up in a good way.

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