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This is likely to be more important, for much less expenditure, than ITER. Edit: to add some additional context, the main problem with fusion reactors is confi
by InclinedPlane 11y ago
This is likely to be more important, for much less expenditure, than ITER.
Edit: to add some additional context, the main problem with fusion reactors is confinement time and plasma stability. The general idea of a fusion power plant using magnetic confinement is that a gas is turned into plasma, confined magnetically, and heated until it can undergo significant fusion reactions. There are two core problems to creating fusion plasmas that could potentially produce power. One is pumping the plasma up to conditions that enable self-sustaining fusion by maintaining a high enough temperature from balancing the heat losses in the plasma against the heat gains from fusion reactions. The other is producing more energy from fusion reactions than was put into heating and containing the plasma. The longer the fusion plasma is contained the longer it has to continue fusion reactions and producing energy.
Tokamaks are easy to build but have a fatal flaw in that they have high plasma current, which makes them difficult to control with very unstable plasmas. Stellarators are vastly more difficult to build but they don't rely on currents in the plasma itself, which offers the potential for vastly longer confinement times.
- baq 11y agothe key difference is ITER is designed to be net-energy-positive, while this will generate precisely 0 W of energy, if it works (which I hope it does!)
- nabla9 11y agoThis is wrong comparison. Wendelstein 7-X is small early experimental reactor for testing stellator geometry for reactor. Research questions are similar to where JET (the largest working tokamak today) was 30 years ago. Stellator is more complex design but promises inherently stable containment. ITER is solving different questions. ITER solves engineering problems for full-scale electricity-producing reactor that would be practical to build and operate. JET studied containment in Tokamaks. ITER is the last step before first industrial fusion reactor design DEMO (Demonstration Power Plant). There is also lots of technical overlap of course. Vacuum vessels, cooling, magnets, breeder blankets, etc. ITER is developing these for industrial-scale reactor, even for stellator.
- XorNot 11y agoThis is exactly right. Regardless of which technology proves viable first, the reactors will have their parts built in the same factories.
- drjesusphd 11y agoIt's more appropriate I think to compare W7X to JET, not ITER. They're not trying to break even on fusion with W7X.