An important milestone on the Fast Track path to Fusion Power is to demonstrate reliable commercial application of Fusion as soon as possible. Many applications of fusion, other than electricity production, have already been studied in some depth for ITER class facilities. We show that these applications might be usefully realized on a small scale, in a Multi-Functional Compact Tokamak Reactor based on a Spherical Tokamak with similar size, but higher fields and currents than the present experiments NSTX and MAST, where performance has already exceeded expectations. The small power outputs, 20-40MW, permit existing materials and technologies to be used.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Looks like they want to build a fusion reactor, not as a way to get energy per se, but as a way to generate a lot of neutrons to process nuclear waste, or to process thorium to generate fissionable uranium fuel.
Sounds a bit like a Riggatron to me, at least in concept. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't all the major advances in higher temperature superconductors come after Dr. Bussard had switched his efforts to the Polywell. Assuming EMC2's efforts are a success, it would still be a good idea for the world not to rely on a single fusion power design.
Munchausen wrote:Well, well. In due time we will at least have a god laughter when someone like Art Carlson or Richard Hull makes a comment on it......
Its not a laughing matter, its quite a plausible idea. Mikail Gryaznevich gave several presentations on it at work. And as I said before a JET performance plasma is already sufficient to produce a net power producing fusion-fission hybrid.
Is not there a little risk in tokamaks that the supra conducting coils explodes if the cooling fails. Not so smart to have it surrounded by lots of highly radioactive materials. A laser hybrid may be safer.
And as I said before a JET performance plasma is already sufficient to produce a net power producing fusion-fission hybrid.
The development of cyclotrones has made progress. Which machine makes the cheapest neutrons?
Hard to tell, Tokamaks have reached the neutron density levels required for a fusion fission hybrid already, while cyclotrons still need to ramp up the current they produce by a further factor of 10 (if I remember Rubier paper correctly) tokamak plasmas are quasi neutral so the density of fast particles is much higher, cyclotrons don't need such high densities because they are firing at a solid target.
Its also worth mentioning that there are issues with steady state regarding tokamaks
Which one will be cheaper in the future is impossible to tell as neither quite have the required performance. Tokamaks have the neutron density but don't have steady state operation while cyclotrons have steady state operation but without the neutron density.
Torulf2 wrote:Is not there a little risk in tokamaks that the supra conducting coils explodes if the cooling fails. Not so smart to have it surrounded by lots of highly radioactive materials. A laser hybrid may be safer.
You, mean like the explosion that damaged the LHC? I could see larger, stronger magnets (larger volumes of liquid helium and more stored energy in the superconducter) producing more spatacular demolitions. If radioactive material was nearby it would need good armer protection and/or seperation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7893689.stm
Yes something in that way.
If you read that Bussard article about engineering issue and polywell power plant construction you see it’s a potential risk for a polywell. But there is small or no amount of radioactive material.
I have not the article here so I do not remember the name.
In a tokamak the energy in the supra conductive current is fare larger. You have to burrow it deep in the ground for not risk to spread radioactive material.