3 ms·

Well, ARC is supposed to produce an order of magnitude more power than a WW2 destroyer power plant produced, so I'm not sure why that comparison is relevant. Th

by jabl 6y ago

Well, ARC is supposed to produce an order of magnitude more power than a WW2 destroyer power plant produced, so I'm not sure why that comparison is relevant. The first application of fusion reactors will presumably not be naval ships. Anyway, assuming your 4000 ton figure is correct, that works out to 125 kW/ton. For comparison, a quick googling suggests a wind power plant is around 3 kW/ton, excluding the rather massive foundation of the tower.

pfdietz 6y ago
That weight figure (7190 tonnes, not 4000) for ARC is just for the reactor. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf (page 30) The net output of ARC in that design is 190 MW(e), which comes to 26 kW(e)/tonne. It doesn't include anything outside the reactor, which would likely increase the weight by at least an order of magnitude. It doesn't include (for example) the cryo plant, tritium processing, heat exchangers, turbines, cooling system, the BUILDING, and facilities for installation and disposal of vacuum vessels.
- jabl 6y ago
  > That weight figure (7190 tonnes, not 4000) for ARC is just for the reactor. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf (page 30) Thanks. As I hadn't seen that paper, I used the Fletcher class destroyer, which was the most numerous class the US built, and it was slightly on the larger side at about 2000 tons; common destroyers were around 1500 tons IIRC. I also assumed, wrongly it seems, that 500 MW was the electrical power. Anyways, if we're really interested in material requirements for various power plant types, one can check e.g. the DOE quadrennial energy review 2015, Table 10.4 on page 390. One can see that fission does pretty well, about an order of magnitude better than wind (and solar being somewhat worse than wind). I would guess fusion wouldn't do as well as fission, but it shouldn't be a huge difference either considering that except the reactor itself it should be pretty similar.

by jabl 6y ago

pfdietz 6y ago

That weight figure (7190 tonnes, not 4000) for ARC is just for the reactor. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf (page 30) The net output of ARC in that design is 190 MW(e), which comes to 26 kW(e)/tonne. It doesn't include anything outside the reactor, which would likely increase the weight by at least an order of magnitude. It doesn't include (for example) the cryo plant, tritium processing, heat exchangers, turbines, cooling system, the BUILDING, and facilities for installation and disposal of vacuum vessels.

jabl 6y ago
> That weight figure (7190 tonnes, not 4000) for ARC is just for the reactor. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.3540.pdf (page 30) Thanks. As I hadn't seen that paper, I used the Fletcher class destroyer, which was the most numerous class the US built, and it was slightly on the larger side at about 2000 tons; common destroyers were around 1500 tons IIRC. I also assumed, wrongly it seems, that 500 MW was the electrical power. Anyways, if we're really interested in material requirements for various power plant types, one can check e.g. the DOE quadrennial energy review 2015, Table 10.4 on page 390. One can see that fission does pretty well, about an order of magnitude better than wind (and solar being somewhat worse than wind). I would guess fusion wouldn't do as well as fission, but it shouldn't be a huge difference either considering that except the reactor itself it should be pretty similar.