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Cambridge Fusion Systems[1] is a private company spun out of MIT that is building a proof-of-concept reactor based on these new magnets within the next 5 years.

Cambridge Fusion Systems[1] is a private company spun out of MIT that is building a proof-of-concept reactor based on these new magnets within the next 5 years. Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion? - Prof. Dennis Whyte (2016) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 Timeline (in case you want to skip over some parts): 00:01:00 - introducing Dennis Whyte, MIT department head for nuclear science 00:04:24 - presentation starts 00:06:00 - identifies breakthrough with REBCO magnets 00:07:25 - explains deuterium-tritium fusion 00:12:30 - basic metrics for reactor performance 00:17:15 - energy output of other previous fusion experiments 00:19:00 - examines ITER and the problems of its approach 00:22:00 - problems solved by high energy magnetic fields 00:28:15 - full scale reactor concept, teardown of REBCO magnets 00:37:00 - design limits and margins 00:39:00 - fixes plasma instabilities found in weaker magnetic chambers 00:40:00 - maintainability, lifespan, component replacement 00:45:00 - solution to neutron damage and energy capture 00:50:30 - cost and profitability 00:54:00 - full graph of field strength vs reactor scale (and thus funding requirements) 01:01:50 - Q&A 01:30:00 - question about the biggest risks He gave another talk in 2019 with more numbers and even more confidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6U4wB-oYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6U4wB-oYM 1: https://cfs.energy/technology https://cfs.energy/technology

pfdietz 6y ago
And then you go to the arxiv paper for ARC and learn: the power density is 40x worse than a PWR primary reactor vessel, and their projected cost is $29/W(e) (vs. < $1/W(e) for PV). Also, the vacuum vessel likely wouldn't survive a disruption (although maybe they've fixed that in the years since). Compact high field tokamaks have better power density that ITER or DEMO would, but they still are very inferior to fission reactors. And fission reactors are far out of the running economically.

pfdietz 6y ago

And then you go to the arxiv paper for ARC and learn: the power density is 40x worse than a PWR primary reactor vessel, and their projected cost is $29/W(e) (vs. < $1/W(e) for PV). Also, the vacuum vessel likely wouldn't survive a disruption (although maybe they've fixed that in the years since). Compact high field tokamaks have better power density that ITER or DEMO would, but they still are very inferior to fission reactors. And fission reactors are far out of the running economically.