4 ms·
So, assuming these work great.. what are the next steps to get fusion energy production? Are there fundamental limits that prevent these designs from producing
by mozumder 10y ago
So, assuming these work great.. what are the next steps to get fusion energy production?
Are there fundamental limits that prevent these designs from producing a commercially profitable neighborhood reactor for, say $1 million?
Actually, what's the smallest scale possible for these stellerators? Can one be produced table-top sized, to say, power a ship or train or even a car?
So many questions...
- vilhelm_s 10y agoThe smallest scale is basically the same as for tokamaks (the advantage is that you can operate a stellarator continuously, while a tokamak is pulsed which may be less convenient for power generation). The scale is mostly limited by magnetic field strength. With ordinary superconducting magnets they get pretty big (the planned ITER reactor will weigh 5,116 tonnes). Some people say that new high-temperature superconductors will enable stronger magnets and hence smaller reactors (http://news.mit.edu/2017/brandon-sorbom-designing-fusion-future-0123 http://news.mit.edu/2017/brandon-sorbom-designing-fusion-fut...).
- mozumder 10y agolooking more into this, it looks like the minimum size limit is the wall that absorbs the free neutrons from the De-Tr reactions. It looks like it'll always be some minimum size due to the energy of the released neutrons.