ZAP Energy News

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

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Munchausen
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Munchausen »

Yes, you are totally correct. Scaling-up instabilities has been the show-stopper of every major/medium/small fusion idea of the last century.
Still, the amount of knowledge we learned from those failure is what really pushed the boundaries to enable new visions like ZAP and Helion.
So I really want to believe that one of them will succeed. I want to see a fusion reactor in my life, and I do not have another 100 years to wait.
The glass is half empty...

The old world vs the new world.

Well, keep on trying! High field superconductors is the main bet this decade??!!

And if that does not succeed, we have 4th generation fission that is almost as good as fusion on the horizon and for the time beeing, some nice looking third generation.

Skipjack
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:
Fri Nov 04, 2022 8:14 am
{ ...Helion...}
Let me move this discussion over to the Helion thread to not contaminate the ZAP- thread too much with that...
Continued here:
viewtopic.php?p=134171#p134171

Skipjack
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Skipjack »

Good article on what ZAP is up to. Not much news for those of us who have been paying attention, but good to see them still being confident and on track:
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/zap-en ... sion-2022/

mvanwink5
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by mvanwink5 »

Engineering breakeven by 2026 compares with Helion's net electric power generation target of 2024. I would have thought ZAP Energy would have been able to do better than 2026, perhaps they will and the article claim is sandbagging. I still will keep ZAP in the question column until exceeding engineering breakeven.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 1:16 am
Engineering breakeven by 2026 compares with Helion's net electric power generation target of 2024. I would have thought ZAP Energy would have been able to do better than 2026, perhaps they will and the article claim is sandbagging. I still will keep ZAP in the question column until exceeding engineering breakeven.
Engineering breakeven in 2026 is still better than everyone else other than Helion. And they are ahead of Helion with Q(sci) > 1 next year.
Note that engineering breakeven is a lot harder for them than for Helion because they need a higher Q and they need a steam plant to make electricity (assuming that they will actually do that and not just aim for the power equivalent of it).

mvanwink5
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ,
Good points for ZAP, but there is in my mind a huge lingering doubt in ZAP's closet (in contrast to Helion) & that is that ZAP has to scale plasma radial compression significantly while relying on their one 'trick' (radial beam velocity profile) to keep instabilities at bay. Modeling & past scaling success is the basis for ZAP's projections going forward. Yet, in general, plasma modeling in physics has been fraught with surprises, & ZAP is counting on their upgraded model for their optimism & aggressive time line. Even after Q (sci)>1, there is still more plasma scaling to go for ZAP, so the doubt will linger until the very end.

I give Helion the lead over ZAP because Helion does not have a plasma compression (plasma stability) scaling question. Helion's remaining work lies in engineering details, none of which is special (all engineering has details to work through, it is just work & time to do it). I don't think this is just prejudice on my part. LOL
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:19 pm
SJ,
Good points for ZAP, but there is in my mind a huge lingering doubt in ZAP's closet (in contrast to Helion) & that is that ZAP has to scale plasma radial compression significantly while relying on their one 'trick' (radial beam velocity profile) to keep instabilities at bay. Modeling & past scaling success is the basis for ZAP's projections going forward. Yet, in general, plasma modeling in physics has been fraught with surprises, & ZAP is counting on their upgraded model for their optimism & aggressive time line. Even after Q (sci)>1, there is still more plasma scaling to go for ZAP, so the doubt will linger until the very end.

I give Helion the lead over ZAP because Helion does not have a plasma compression (plasma stability) scaling question. Helion's remaining work lies in engineering details, none of which is special (all engineering has details to work through, it is just work & time to do it). I don't think this is just prejudice on my part. LOL
I think this is fair, at least to some extent. Zap's main way of scaling is via input current. They can not make a bigger machine, or stronger magnets, etc like others can. So if their model fails and increasing the input current does not yield the expected results, they fail.
That said, the gap from their current 500 kA to the 650 kA they need for break even is not that big. And from 650 kA to 1200 kA for the power plant is also not that big of a step. So I remain fairly optimistic about them.

mvanwink5
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ,
True, the current increases are not technically an issue from an electronics or electrode point of view. Further, the magnetic field compression and heating effects are straight forward from a physics standpoint, but the fusion power (as I recall) scales at a massive six orders of magnitude for an increase in current. Yet, that said, I too am optimistic that ZAP will succeed.

Everything is going positively for economic fusion and word is breaking out that commercial fusion is no longer 'always 30 years away'. That near term commercial fusion progress is breathing down the neck of all the other economic forms of energy.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 9:10 pm
SJ,
True, the current increases are not technically an issue from an electronics or electrode point of view. Further, the magnetic field compression and heating effects are straight forward from a physics standpoint, but the fusion power (as I recall) scales at a massive six orders of magnitude for an increase in current.
IIRC is it current to the 11th power.

mvanwink5
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by mvanwink5 »

Yes. I think you are right. The scale factor is mind boggling.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Giorgio
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Giorgio »

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.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Munchausen
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Munchausen »

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.

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.

As I also have understood they have the funding they need for the moment and once energy has been released, extra money for development will also be released.

So there is room to make a few good shots at simpler approaches.

mvanwink5
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by mvanwink5 »

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.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Munchausen
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Munchausen »

No net energy, no first wall problem. So it seems to be the right order to do it.

Do you sincerely think an investor would spend substantial amounts of cash on the first wall problem merely based on physics calculations that the energy release problem is solved?

And I think it is not a done deal. No one can guarantee that a medium size tokamak will start delivering positive net energy just by replacing the superconductors and doubling the magnet field. It has to be tried first.

Giorgio
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Re: ZAP Energy News

Post by Giorgio »

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.

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