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Ignitor, mini tokamak.
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 8:36 pm
by Torulf2
Russia, Italy and MIT Working on Ignitor Fusion Reactor
”
MIT-led Ignitor reactor could be the world’s first to reach fusion ignition and perhaps paving the way for eventual power production. Fusion ignition is the point where a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining instead of requiring a constant input of energy. This reactor is a tokomak variant. It is several times smaller than ITER but with a stronger magnetic field.
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http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/russia ... nitor.html
This work is lead by Bruno Coppi. Coppi was co worker with Busard in the Rigatron project.
I added an update with ITER/Ignitor debate from Nature
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:16 pm
by nextbigfuture
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100430/ ... 0.214.html
The Journal Nature has an article that provides details of a debate between the Ignitor supporters and ITER supporters
Hasinger goes further in his scepticism of the IGNITOR reactor by questioning the feasibility of the whole project. Hasinger says that the IGNITOR team's plan to heat the plasma mostly with a current, a process known as ohmic heating, will not work. ITER complements ohmic heating with two other methods of plasma heating — neutral-beam injection and electromagnetic waves. "We studied the possibility of a high-field ignition machine and came to the conclusion that relying on ohmic plasma heating has a very narrow corridor for success," he says.
But Coppi refutes the criticism, saying that ohmic heating has been shown to heat plasma to higher temperatures than expected, and points out that IGNITOR has an alternative heating method known as ion-cyclotron resonant heating
According to a 2003 ENEA estimate, at least an additional €226 million will be needed to build IGNITOR, although neither Italy nor Russia have yet officially committed any funds to the project. Coppi claims that the costs will be lower. He hopes to have the machine built and working within 3–5 years and to have the first results immediately afterwards.
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:35 pm
by Torulf2
How about ELM in Ignitor?
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 10:30 pm
by kurt9
Tritum breeding is an issue with both this and the ITER concept.
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 5:56 am
by Skipjack
Why, why would anybody want to build yet another Tok? And it is not like this one is really cheap. I mean 226 million is a lot of money, much more than any of the other fusion concepts that we are frequently looking at here, have for their research. I dont like that.
Maybe if they cancelled ITER instead and just funded that one...
And yes, Tritium breeding is always the same issue.
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 10:59 am
by KitemanSA
It seems that the IGNITOR demo will cost about the same as the Polywell demo, ~250M. The distinction between $ and Euros is much smaller than that between ITER and IGNITOR. If IGNITOR works, wonderful!
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 2:23 pm
by Diogenes
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 3:54 pm
by mvanwink5
KitemanSA wrote:It seems that the IGNITOR demo will cost about the same as the Polywell demo, ~250M. The distinction between $ and Euros is much smaller than that between ITER and IGNITOR. If IGNITOR works, wonderful!
Is the 250M IGNITOR a 100 MW demo, it looks like it is just a break even demo?
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 4:48 pm
by Munchausen
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 6:10 pm
by Torulf2
That is no tokamak, it’s the Reversed Field Pinch, also Italy.
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 3:30 am
by Helius
Rossi, Coppi says,
whenever you do experiments in an unknown regime, you will find something new.
That's reason enough for Igniter, and it's reason enough for Polywell.
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 5:09 am
by CaptainBeowulf
Very true. Good to see multiple parallel approaches going forward.
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 2:53 pm
by TallDave
Better 100 $250M projects that probably won't work but might lead to economic fusion than one $25B project that probably will work but definitely doesn't lead to economic fusion.
The latter is decades of work for the people working on it with a good likelihood of success, so it's a better science project from the perspective of career scientists and bureaucrats. The former is likely to lead to disappointment and unemployment for most people working on them, but might produce something useful. It's a bit like capitalism versus statism -- more pain means more gain.
