What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

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Skipjack
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What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

I decided to make a thread for this debate, before we make a new thread for the "The Race to a Demonstration Power Plant".
I think that the definition of Demonstration Power Plant is somewhat spongy and other members on this board seem to have a different idea of what this entails.
Discussion:
Personally, I think of a demonstration power plant as a first of a kind (FOAK) plant that actually delivers power to the grid (or could do so if it was connected).
That includes all systems and subsystems needed for a fully grid connected plant, including things like transformers, inverters, cooling towers, etc with suppliers of parts and construction, etc, etc.
It should produce electric power at design specification.
By my standards, a good example for a Demonstration Power Plant would be this:
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/next ... ng-wyoming

Now, this puts us into a bit of a pickle. General Fusion is calling their next reactor they are going to build in Culham a "Demonstration Power Plant", but to the best of my knowledge, this "plant" will not demonstrate Tritium + Deuterium fusion and will therefore (likely) not have a net power output.
By their definition JT60-SA could have been a demonstration power plant and ITER would most definitely be a demonstration power plant, even though ITER is also lacking in several key aspects. Note that the ITER group itself does not consider ITER a demonstration power plant , or otherwise plans for DEMO would not exist.
Equally TAE does not call their next plant, Copernicus a Demonstration Plant. Instead that is reserved for Da Vinci, which is the next one after that.
(see reference page 63 of this presentation from January: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2109/ML21090A288.pdf)

Unfortunately Tokamak Energy has removed their timeline from their website, but I (sort of) remember them too having a dedicated demonstration power plant that would put on the grid and was scheduled for AFTER the prototype(s) that would demonstrate net energy and tritium handling.

mvanwink5
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ,
What experience have you had with pilot plants or anything for that matter? Have you ever worked as a plant engineer or plant design engineer?
My guess is a big no.

I appreciate the information that you bring, but don't pass yourself off as an engineer when you are not one. I worked for 30 years as a plant operations and maintenance engineer and engineering supervisor. We had pilot demonstration plants, plants that had major design problems, problems so significant that the issues require redesign before the plants could operate.

GF is building the plant they need to demonstrate what they need. They determine what is needed. $400 million private capital is the reported cost.

What Helion needs for a demonstration will be what they see is what they need. Since they are not calling their next version a demonstration plant there must be something they need from that version to build what they will need. Perhaps they will be able to modify it. I don't know and neither do you.

This is about engineering, not science.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

I said that this was my personal opinion. Clearly your opinion differs and I am not denying your greater experience with the subject.
The problem is that if we just call anything a demonstration plant because the team behind it decides to call it that, then we end up comparing apples to oranges. So I was trying to find a common standard that we can apply to all teams. Otherwise it is not a fair race. I mean that would be like everyone in a horse race drawing their own finish line...

mvanwink5
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ,
Ok, I accept that. Look, the investors in TAE have added money tied to milestones and they have high powered consultants evaluating the progress made. GF has top industry people on their board and the Demo plant size and targets are highly likely negotiated with the industry leaders as to what they need the build to show.

Personally I have gotten projects approved that made the company $300M cash, not to mention what it saved the customers and what goes on behind doors escapes what a sane person would say is logic. Worse, these guys act like a herd of sheep. Throw one in the river and the rest dive in afterward.

In other words, what Helion would need to build would need to be negotiated with customers and high powered consultants. If it were my opinion I would say that they have shown enough for a pilot 50 MW plant. There will be tuning and bugs to work out anyway. Helion needs to get the right people on their board and then do the negotiations with companies that will take the plunge for a deal. They may already have done that.

It is a given that with the money spent so far and milestones reached that we have at least 3 that will have products being built for commercial plants. There may be more.

BTW, Copernicus will demo D-D even before DaVinci is built. That is their fall back in case getting the Temp high enough for P-B is too much trouble.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:47 am
SJ,
Ok, I accept that. Look, the investors in TAE have added money tied to milestones and they have high powered consultants evaluating the progress made. GF has top industry people on their board and the Demo plant size and targets are highly likely negotiated with the industry leaders as to what they need the build to show.
That is the same for Helion and any company with private investors, I would say.
Helion does not really talk about their investors much. I know that they have quite a good amount of money and that they are one of the top funded teams now, but they do not release info on funding, which generally goes with their MO.
mvanwink5 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:47 am
In other words, what Helion would need to build would need to be negotiated with customers and high powered consultants. If it were my opinion I would say that they have shown enough for a pilot 50 MW plant. There will be tuning and bugs to work out anyway. Helion needs to get the right people on their board and then do the negotiations with companies that will take the plunge for a deal. They may already have done that.
This is one of those things that I do not know.

mvanwink5 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:47 am
It is a given that with the money spent so far and milestones reached that we have at least 3 that will have products being built for commercial plants. There may be more.
BTW, Copernicus will demo D-D even before DaVinci is built. That is their fall back in case getting the Temp high enough for P-B is too much trouble.
I thought Copernicus was hydrogen only. Now "hydrogen" is a bit ambiguous. It could mean deuterium, since it is an isotope of hydrogen, but I can't remember seeing them specifically mentioning D-D anywhere.
I think that within the next 6 years, we will have at least half a dozen teams with a very diverse set of designs that will be aiming for their share of the market. Helion, ZAP, TE, Commonwealth, TAE, GF. Plus potentially also MIFTI (though IIRC, they are looking for funding for their 10 MA prototype) and LPP. By 2030 that number could more than double.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

Anyway, what do you propose as the metric for the extended race past "break even" and to a demonstration plant? I am sure we can find some kind of compromise that puts all teams on an equal footing. I am very open here. I just want to make sure that we all agree in order to avoid millions of posts of arguing about this later ;)
Mind you, I really enjoy the discussions on here. Usually the favorite part of my day to talk to all of you folks :)

RERT
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by RERT »

Err... a successful demonstration plant demonstrates that a commercial plant is economically viable. Notice that an unsuccessful demo plant can be anything at all.

So, all construction and operation details not already well known are characterised well enough to persuade investors to build a commercial plant.

Since each technology has unique problems to solve, the tick list for success in each is wildly different. The news out of Helion points out that we can’t even make a stab at a minimum Q.

That said, one can list generic characteristics of a plant which will have to work:

Capital cost
Electricity Cost, including
Availability
Reliability
Fuel cycle cost
Operation costs
Decommissioning cost

...and a bunch of stuff I don’t know about because I’m not a nuclear plant engineer.

mvanwink5
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by mvanwink5 »

Demo plant is the one that a company builds before the commercial plant. A commercial plant is the one the customer buys to make and sell electric power.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:10 pm
Demo plant is the one that a company builds before the commercial plant. A commercial plant is the one the customer buys to make and sell electric power.
OK, so the demo plant is the reactor prototype the company builds before the first commercial plant. A commercial plant is the first plant operated by a customer? Can we agree on that then?

Giorgio
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Giorgio »

A "Demonstration Plant" or a "Demonstration Process" in industrial terms is complex of machinery and equipment suitable to demonstrate the transformation of starting materials into an end product.
In this respect, any fusion machine whose results are accounted by Neutron Flux will be evaluated as a Neutron Generator.
Any fusion machine where only the heat will be collected, will be evaluated as a heat generator.
Any fusion machine where the end results will be an electric stream (or a mix of thermal and electric power), will be evaluated as an electric generator (or as a co-generator).

You evaluate a "Demo plant" according what you receive as an output. These are pretty standard definitions

What can change are general process efficiencies when passing from a "Demonstration Plant" or "Demonstration Process" to a "Commercial Unit".
These efficiency targets (as well as end product specifications) are strongly defined in the "Commercial Unit" contract and tied to payments (and penalties) for the realization of the "Commercial Unit" itself.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

mvanwink5
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by mvanwink5 »

OK, so the demo plant is the reactor prototype the company builds before the first commercial plant. A commercial plant is the first plant operated by a customer? Can we agree on that then?
Yes. It makes no difference to me who makes the first commercial plant. Once that happens heads will explode. IMO it will be well before 2030. I hope Helion succeeds as their plant is small enough to be built anywhere, even on Mars.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by mvanwink5 »

Because Helion is targeting a 50 MW plant, assuming their issues are behind them, a demo plant leading to a commercial plant should be quicker. Size is everything, plus unlike GF which has a large forging and machining component, which is the compression chamber cylinder, lead time for parts is far less.

I wonder given the crowd of companies targeting end of 2020's if Helion investors might decide to up their support to accelerate their timeline?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

So Helion themselves say that they still have some issues to overcome before a commercial plant. Mind you, I love the guys and they are my favorite team. So I am not saying that lightly. Two things that I do know for sure are on their todo list is the divertor and the pulse frequency and the associated problems with those.

crowberry
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by crowberry »

Those reactors that run on DT-will get 80 % of their energy from the kinetic energy of the fusion neutrons. That energy has of course to be converted to heat, so in principle any DT-reactor could be constructed by retrofitting an existing coal power plant with the fusion core, which would save time and money by reusing the electric generators and the steam piping. General Fusion has said that they will target this and probably some of the others will also do that. So once they have their fusion core working, they are basically almost done.

Those aiming for advanced fuels with direct conversion to electricity will have more work with their demo plants.

Skipjack
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Re: What constitutes a Demonstration Power Plant?

Post by Skipjack »

crowberry wrote:
Sun Jun 27, 2021 7:06 am
Those reactors that run on DT-will get 80 % of their energy from the kinetic energy of the fusion neutrons. That energy has of course to be converted to heat, so in principle any DT-reactor could be constructed by retrofitting an existing coal power plant with the fusion core, which would save time and money by reusing the electric generators and the steam piping. General Fusion has said that they will target this and probably some of the others will also do that. So once they have their fusion core working, they are basically almost done.
If that core demonstrates things like tritium breeding, materials, etc. Also, you will likely need shielding and other things that coal plants do not have.
crowberry wrote:
Sun Jun 27, 2021 7:06 am
Those aiming for advanced fuels with direct conversion to electricity will have more work with their demo plants.
Why would that be?

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