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Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:35 pm
by crowberry
Tokamak Energy has made impressive progress with their magnet technology as they are now licensing it to PSI:
Tokamak Energy is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Collaboration and License Agreement with the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) for the use of Tokamak Energy’s proprietary non-insulated high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology for use in PSI’s accelerator and beam line applications.
https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... echnology/

Here is the latest video on progress at Tokamak Energy with the ST40 spherical tokamak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzbSrAzVG8Q

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:14 pm
by Skipjack
Looks like their upgraded ST-40 is finally ready. Had first plasma the other day.
I guess we will know the results in a few months.
https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... on-energy/

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:09 pm
by Giorgio
If with this upgraded ST40 they will be able to prove in certain way that the M-C heating theory works as expected it will boost a lot the confidence on the whole set up.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:58 pm
by Carl White
https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/tokamak ... on-energy/
In the next few months, this device will achieve 100-million-degree plasma temperature, far beyond anything achieved by other private fusion ventures, and the temperature required for commercial fusion energy.
Hasn't LPP already announced that they had achieved two billion degrees?

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2021 3:23 pm
by Munchausen
Hasn't LPP already announced that they had achieved two billion degrees?
Which is of less significance. Any schoolboy might get 100 megakelvins using lawn mower ignition coils in a fusor..

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2021 7:12 am
by Giorgio
Carl White wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:58 pm
Hasn't LPP already announced that they had achieved two billion degrees?
More important than temperature, the heart of their technology is the Merging Compression Heating system, and that has not yet been proven to work as expected in previous experimental runs.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 5:40 pm
by Skipjack
Looks like Tokamak Energy is almost ready to test their first full scale REBCO magnet:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56843149

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat May 15, 2021 6:49 pm
by Giorgio
If they was able to scale from their lab prototype to a full size element while keeping the prototype values of 24.4T /21K, than is indeed an impressive feat.
They might end up making more money with their REBCO IP and technology than with fusion.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat May 15, 2021 8:22 pm
by Skipjack
This is actually something where I see sort of a good market niche right now. Find something that a lot of fusion startups need and develop and provide that. Good angles for that are certainly HTSC cables and magnets. Materials is another angle. Depending on the reactor design, you are dealing with high temperatures, high currents, neutrons, erosion, deposition, etc, etc. Materials that can handle that (or at least some of that) would be useful in other industries as well. E.g. high temperatures are useful for space applications and being able to handle high currents without erosion has plenty of applications in all sorts of fields.
Finally, I think there is potentially a place for software developers that can develop and deliver software for fusion purposes. Simulation, of course, but also data analysis and processing, machine learning for optimization, maybe control software, though that would likely be too specific.
That said, I do hope that TE won't stop at making magnets. Despite the fact that their design is a "leaky bucket" Tokamak, I do really like what they are doing and I do like the people there too. Spherical Tokamaks can potentially be small enough to viable as a reactor design and the HTSCs do help.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sun May 16, 2021 2:24 am
by Skipjack
Talking about divertors earlier. TE recently implemented a divertor into ST-40.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkkeCjgrG-0

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sun May 16, 2021 8:55 pm
by Giorgio
So, due to power load being 1/20 of commercial machine, they opted for a molybdenum copper chrome zirconium alloy divertor. Seems like they made same decision as of TAE, as we was discussing in the other thread.

When different teams start to adopt similar solutions it either means that we reached the bottom of our technological knowledge or that the understanding level of the needed technology reached a point where everybody is starting to converge from different roads to the same solution.
I hope that the reason is the second and not the first, nevertheless all of this is a very interesting development.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2021 8:33 pm
by Skipjack
New video showing how they are testing their HTSC cables:
Also shows quite neatly how differently they behave from copper cables:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNMu7n2lbsA

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:11 pm
by RERT
I'm sure James Randi would be suspicious about the copper being double the thickness, what with cooling being germane, and all... but I'm not really that sceptical! Can't wait to watch the superconducting follow-on to ST-40.

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:31 pm
by Skipjack
RERT wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:11 pm
I'm sure James Randi would be suspicious about the copper being double the thickness, what with cooling being germane, and all... but I'm not really that sceptical! Can't wait to watch the superconducting follow-on to ST-40.
Well a thicker cable should have less resistance, no?

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:54 pm
by RERT
Yes, but should have relatively less contact with the coolant N2, confusing the issue. Should have just used a copper tape with the same dimensions.