Richard Dinan, whose company portfolio already includes meteorite-based security wearable Senturion and 3D printer company IonCore, has founded Applied Fusion Systems not to win the race to large-scale power generation with the technology, but establish a foothold in the field from which to explore other money-making avenues.
Applied Fusion Systems has a homepage: http://appliedfusionsystems.com/. They are planning to build spherical tokamaks like Tokamak Energy.
This will pave the way for modern, smaller reactor design. Smaller is cheaper and faster by default. Smaller reactors can be prototyped more efficiently, and it is my belief that this is the only way meaningful breakthroughs will be made in this sector before ITER turns on in 2040 (or longer).
That's why I've founded Applied Fusion Systems. We are now in the process of process of privately financing the construction of our own British made Tokamak reactor – STAR (Small Toroidal Atomic Reactor).
The designers behind STAR have compiled elements from some of the most successful reactors over the past 20 years and applied the very latest technologies, combined with a cutting edge understanding of plasma physics.
We hope that we can get the £200m funding we need to construct two spherical tokomak nuclear fusion reactors, with the intentions to generate data and results within the next four to six years.
The reactor is part of the new breed of high efficiency spherical tokamaks. The STAR planned Alphpa and Beta reactors are intended to produce 100MW of electricity and will do so using the new generation of materials suited to fusion science; for the toroidal coils REBCO superconductors make the design far easier to service because they are simpler to join. The design also features symmetrical diverter systems which can be used to aid heat extraction from the plasma.
STAR will make use of recent advanced in additive manufacturing otherwise known as 3d printing. Major components can now be laser sintered rather than cast or milled, reducing build costs and times. Complex geometries become possible with additive manufacturing and so AFS can explore novel approaches to existing design challenges.
STAR is slightly larger than the MAST reactor at CCFE, to ensure it can meet a minimum commercial standard of 100MW electrical output.
The Physics
If heat is converted to electricity at 40% efficiency, the reactors need a fusion power of 250MW to produce 100MW of electricity. A steel blanket is widely recognised to support a maximum wall loading of 5MW/mˆ2 so at peak wall loading the STAR reactors A and B require a wall area of ˜50Mˆ2 (250/5). These requirements determine the basic geometry of STAR, major radius = 1.1m minor radius = 0.9m.
OK, I may be stupid, but what is the point of doing exactly the same thing Tokamak Energy is already doing in the UK? It seems to be that all it will do is cause funding to split between these two almost identical projects.
Skipjack wrote:OK, I may be stupid, but what is the point of doing exactly the same thing Tokamak Energy is already doing in the UK? It seems to be that all it will do is cause funding to split between these two almost identical projects.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think he's looking ahead with the assumption that some fusion project will be successful and is trying to position his company as having already dealt with some of the manufacturing issues and being the go-to guys for the first wave of orders.
I don't believe there is any patent restriction for this version of a Tokamak. Since the Tokamak plasma and its modeling is so well known, this is a relatively low risk project and if it is viable in a small, 100 MW, reactor it will be very popular for utilities. Moreover, the technology to implement does not seem difficult, subsystems aside, which are being worked on by the big project ITER.
So to answer your question, it is the relatively low risk project as fusion projects go that makes them jump at this configuration.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
This is a wildly optimistic way to look at it, but you could equally ask why there is more than one company making IC engined cars. One way to answer: because the monopoly profits accruing to a single manufacturer would tempt in many competitors...
I would think that the first wall problem is a huge technical challenge, but it seems that light water reactor knowledge might be sufficient that these guys think they can solve it. Ladajo would have good insight on that.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
mvanwink5 wrote:I would think that the first wall problem is a huge technical challenge, but it seems that light water reactor knowledge might be sufficient that these guys think they can solve it. Ladajo would have good insight on that.
Dennis' Whyte's team at the MIT has done a lot of design work to make small compact tokamaks possible. They solved a lot of the problems like materials, divertors, magnet joints, etc. Tokamak Energy is benefiting greatly from this (Dennis Whyte is directly associated with them, IIRC) and I am sure that Applied Fusion Systems is going to benefit as well. I am still not convinced that this makes this a good idea, though. I don't quite see what makes them better than TE...