Scientists in California make a significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.
IMO the current best bet on who builds an actual fusion plant first is Proxima Fusion, a spin-out of the Max Planck institute. They’re planning on building a large Stellerator by 2030 based on their experiences with Wendelstein-7X, which exceeded all expectations (as in: It behaved exactly as predicted), proving that the concept scales without issue. Still some kinks to figure out but those are about economical efficiency, not achieving power output.
The NIF generally does research on nukes. I have a hard time believing them talking about civil applications is anything but marketing.
Yes, and the reason why they are good is that they are using high-temperature superconductors for their magnets, which makes it as efficient as currently possible. The tokamak models of the US are doing the opposite, they use even more energy for their magnetic field.
Tokamaks also use superconducting magnets, there’s really no feasible way to get the necessary field strengths without superconductivity. What makes the two approaches different is that ions want to follow magnetic lines naturally in a spiral which Stellerators lean into and allow (hence the lovecraftian geometry) while Tokamaks try to make them fly straight by inducing a current into the plasma creating a secondary magnetic field, creating turbulence which then has to be brought under control.
The net effect on plasma stability is that with a small Tokamak you’re balancing a column of three tennis balls, when you make it bigger you get additional balls to balance. With Stellerators you’re balancing a tennis ball in a salad bowl.
The reason early research favoured Tokamaks is because people thought designing the coil and field geometries necessary for Stellerators wouldn’t ever work out but then Supercomputers came along (Wendelstein 7-X was computed on a Cray) and, well, as said, the real thing behaves exactly as computed. A thing Tokamaks can only dream of with all their tennis balls.
IMO the current best bet on who builds an actual fusion plant first is Proxima Fusion, a spin-out of the Max Planck institute. They’re planning on building a large Stellerator by 2030 based on their experiences with Wendelstein-7X, which exceeded all expectations (as in: It behaved exactly as predicted), proving that the concept scales without issue. Still some kinks to figure out but those are about economical efficiency, not achieving power output.
The NIF generally does research on nukes. I have a hard time believing them talking about civil applications is anything but marketing.
Yes, and the reason why they are good is that they are using high-temperature superconductors for their magnets, which makes it as efficient as currently possible. The tokamak models of the US are doing the opposite, they use even more energy for their magnetic field.
Tokamaks also use superconducting magnets, there’s really no feasible way to get the necessary field strengths without superconductivity. What makes the two approaches different is that ions want to follow magnetic lines naturally in a spiral which Stellerators lean into and allow (hence the lovecraftian geometry) while Tokamaks try to make them fly straight by inducing a current into the plasma creating a secondary magnetic field, creating turbulence which then has to be brought under control.
The net effect on plasma stability is that with a small Tokamak you’re balancing a column of three tennis balls, when you make it bigger you get additional balls to balance. With Stellerators you’re balancing a tennis ball in a salad bowl.
The reason early research favoured Tokamaks is because people thought designing the coil and field geometries necessary for Stellerators wouldn’t ever work out but then Supercomputers came along (Wendelstein 7-X was computed on a Cray) and, well, as said, the real thing behaves exactly as computed. A thing Tokamaks can only dream of with all their tennis balls.