High-temperature superconducting tape is behind one hope for a tinier tokamak
spectrum.ieee.org
tl;dr
Among the magnetic-confinement crowd, CFS leads the pack in fundraising, having secured more than $2 billion to build its Sparc pilot plant.
“High-temperature superconducting magnets are allowing a new path to fusion energy, because in addition to their superconducting abilities at higher cryogenic temperatures, they are also able to go to very high magnetic fields,” says Scott Hsu, a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the agency’s lead fusion coordinator. “These properties provide the possibility to design smaller, less complex, and lower-cost fusion systems that are quicker to build and easier to take apart for maintenance.”
The cutting-edge HTS magnets that are allowing CFS to build its Sparc tokamak one-fortieth the size of Iter, in a fraction of the time and cost. It’s tempting to conjure a “David and Goliath” narrative out of the storyline of small companies like CFS going up against Iter, one of the most expensive science experiments of all time. But in many ways, CFS’s Sparc stands on the shoulders of Iter. The Iter project has greatly increased researchers’ knowledge about magnetic-confinement fusion and spurred the development of the industry’s highly specialized global supply chain and workforce. Indeed, each of CFS’s six founders have worked on different aspects of Iter and contributed to its foundational physics.
In September 2021, at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the team energized the magnet and watched as the field it produced strengthened to an intense 20 tesla—about 400,000 times as strong as the typical value for Earth’s magnetic field, and more than strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier out of the water.
CFS’s simulations predict that the Sparc design will produce 50 to 100 megawatts of fusion power, achieving a Q greater than 10, which is commensurate with gain factor projections for Iter.
a recent Fusion Industry Association survey of professionals working at private fusion companies found that 93 percent of respondents believe that fusion power will begin supplying electricity to the grid by the 2030s, up from 83 percent the previous year.
Nog niet zolang geleden was de grap nog steeds dat fusie 50 jaar weg is en altijd zal zijn. De laatste 10 jaar is de horizon die experts voor ogen houden echter serieus gekrompen en er is ook alsmaar meer prive geld richting de sector aan het vloeien. Met andere woorden; ook investors denken dat commercialisatie dichterbij aan het komen is. Hopelijk niet al te veel zotte delays en setbacks meer!
Er zijn zoveel verschillende teams met volledig verschillende aanpakken naartoe aan het werken dat het er echt wel goed uit begint te zien. Stiekem hoop ik dat General Fusion als één van de eerste de eindmeet haalt. Waarom? Omdat die gewoon zo hardcore metal zijn. Letterlijk ;p
Een met plasma fuel doordrongen vloeibare metalen bal de verdoemenis inhameren met gigantische pneumatische pistons om de kern ervan zodanig met shockwaves te compressen dat er fusie in optreed.
The company plans to demonstrate its compact nuclear fusion technology in the UK by 2025
spectrum.ieee.org
