Mug Handles for Lower-Cost, Controllable Fusion Energy

Enginerd · Post by **Enginerd** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 2:44 am

"All of a sudden the current energy goes from being almost too much to almost negligible," said lead author Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics. He presents the findings this week at the International Atomic Energy Association's 24th annual Fusion Energy Conference in San Diego.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 151629.htm

Ivy Matt · Post by **Ivy Matt** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 3:32 pm

For two decades Jarboe's team has worked on helicity injection as a more efficient alternative.

Hm, sort of reminds me of what Nebel's been working on lately.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:45 pm

Wow, this does sound too good to be true and probably is. 1% of the energy of competing methods would be quite revolutionary.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 3:24 am

I'm guessing 1 % of the energy input is in comparison with current Tokamak approaches. If true, it would change the scaling formulas tremendously and make it much more economic. Of course the key points is if it works, and does not introduce a new set of problems , such seems to be the pattern for magnetic confinement fusion.

Dan Tibbets

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 3:03 pm

I'm guessing 1 % of the energy input is in comparison with current Tokamak approaches. If true, it would change the scaling formulas tremendously and make it much more economic. Of course the key points is if it works, and does not introduce a new set of problems , such seems to be the pattern for magnetic confinement fusion

Yeah, thats how I understood it too.
Still this would make toks seem a lot more interesting.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 3:20 pm

Skipjack wrote:
I'm guessing 1 % of the energy input is in comparison with current Tokamak approaches. If true, it would change the scaling formulas tremendously and make it much more economic. Of course the key points is if it works, and does not introduce a new set of problems , such seems to be the pattern for magnetic confinement fusion
Yeah, thats how I understood it too.
Still this would make toks seem a lot more interesting.

If it doesn't solve the scale problem it will not help much.

And the "inventors" admit you can't get net energy on the scale they tried it at.

And then there is the neutron economy problem for fuel creation. Toks are still a work in progress IMO.

BTW "magnet energy" is only a start up problem. Assuming SC magnets. The question is - can they get higher compression (hotter) with these magnets - making a smaller machine feasible.

hanelyp · Post by **hanelyp** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 4:20 pm

looks like more info in the machine at http://www.aa.washington.edu/research/HITsi/design.html

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:06 pm

MSimon wrote:
Skipjack wrote:
I'm guessing 1 % of the energy input is in comparison with current Tokamak approaches. If true, it would change the scaling formulas tremendously and make it much more economic. Of course the key points is if it works, and does not introduce a new set of problems , such seems to be the pattern for magnetic confinement fusion
Yeah, thats how I understood it too.
Still this would make toks seem a lot more interesting.
If it doesn't solve the scale problem it will not help much.

And the "inventors" admit you can't get net energy on the scale they tried it at.

And then there is the neutron economy problem for fuel creation. Toks are still a work in progress IMO.

BTW "magnet energy" is only a start up problem. Assuming SC magnets. The question is - can they get higher compression (hotter) with these magnets - making a smaller machine feasible.

My take on your last point is a little bit different. If a Q of 10 is possible in a given machine irregardless of density the input portion of the equation changes size considerably (maybe). If an ITER machine breaks even at an input energy of 500 MW, then scaling to a Q of 10 requires the ITER size. But if input was at 5 MW, the scaling to a Q of 10 would be a much smaller machine and would possibly result in a more economical machine. The machines could be designed for 100 MW output increments, not 5 GW increments. This changes the size cost scaling per useful plant considerably. Of course this ignores the size/complexities like tritium production , heat loading per unit of area, and a bag of other concerns as you point out.

Conversely a much smaller energy input requirement could push the machine into the realm of profitable D-D fusion, provided they can get the temperature hot enough.

Dan Tibbets

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:24 pm

I am with Dan on this. It could mean much smaller and more efficient machines. Plus they seem to be using a spheromac rather than a (closely related) tok