Munchausen wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:00 pm
I will never get bored of repeating that we should always beware of scaling plateau in uncharted areas.
This issue has been the major stopover of virtually every fusion tech out there for the past 40 years and the main cause of the popular belief that "fusion is always 20 years in future".....
The moment that one company will finally discover the right physics to Q>1, than everyone else will adapt and we will suddenly find ourselves surrounded by plenty of viable fusion machines technologies.
If we don't scale into uncharted areas: How will we ever find the apporach that works? I think most of us are keenly aware that this is a test shot that have a fair chance of failing.
But what other options are there?
40 million dollars may seem a lot of money, but in hindsight it will look like peanuts and well worth a try.
I think you misunderstood what I am saying. I am all in for pushing into uncharted areas before anything else.
My meaning was that if a company is building something based on extrapolations from previous results, they should not expect that those results will extrapolate and hold true as planned, but should always have a plan B to move on if (when) they will hit the roadblock.
If I was in charge of financing these companies I would not give them only 40 millions, I would give them double the amount to prepare also alternative experiments based on the assumptions that their actual models might be wrong. Not doing this will put them at risk to meet the same fate of every other company in the last 40 years of fusion research.
This industry is lacking a "what if I am wrong" mentality and this is not something healthy for any attempt to a technological evolution.
Munchausen wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:00 pm
As I have understood, the mainstream opinion is that the traditional approaches (tokamaks) have a very good chance of demonstrating a signifikant energy release once modern superconcductors have been used and the magnetic field doubled.
mvanwink5 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:44 pm
I cannot understand why Tokamak proponents focus on Q>1 when that is not their issue. Tokamak's issue is first wall (size is being addressed by new designs, but those designs exacerbate the first wall problem). ZAP by design (and others) dodge the issue of the first wall.
Indeed,tokamak real issue for a commercial exploitation lies in the first wall limits that they still need to overcome and that they are nowhere near to solve. The whole ITER first wall saga in the last 20 years has been pretty amazing to follow.....
Anyhow I am pretty skeptical that ITER will ever be able to reach any major fusion milestone of their roadmap, so first wall will probably never become an issue for them. A Spheromak or a Rotamak might reach those goals, but based on actual plasma understanding I doubt a tokamak ever will.
Actually, maybe with magnetic field doubled (as you suggest) they might, but in that case there will be also plenty of better solutions.
ZAP (if successful) will of course be the holy grail of simplicity for our actual technological level. They have already been able to overcome a potential roadblock in the past so hopefully they will keep the same mentality and prove the technology.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.