Reply To: A Big Prick in the Balloon of the Big Bang

[zapkitty]

Tulse wrote: I ran across this statement at the talk-polywell forums:

Remember, this work is really not in competition with Poly. There’s an upper limit to how large a FF reactor can be built and it’s a very low limit. We’re talking about 10 MW reactor IIRC. Would make a decent thruster if ganged together, but not gonna ever be worth ganging them for GW power. This is really intended for micro-distribution, so it’s not in competition with the Poly.

How correct is this? What is the most reasonable maximum power for a single DPF device? And how practical would it be to use DPF for main grid power? Would this involve a more distributed power approach, or could one create large generating stations with DPF?

From what I’ve read FF units were proposed in the 25 MWE range but the initial units have been scaled back to 5 MWe because of cooling concerns.

The FF core is small and if it’s generating 8 MWt then heat rejection is not so easy when you have to move a large amount of coolant through a small volume.

Though it’s true that 10 MWe units would be better and 25 MWe units better still….

If cooling is dealt with then at least the original 25 MWe FFs become feasible.

As for ganging mass quantities of FFs together for GWe power levels… at the currently proposed installation and overhead costs of FF units a gigawatt-class fossil fuel utility could replace all of its steam turbines with an equivalent wattage in 5 MWe FF boxes and still come out ahead… so that ‘s simply not an issue.

And 5 MWe designs can cut their teeth by providing peak power units on an as-needed basis so utilities won’t have to take an all-out plunge into fusion… they can test the waters first and make a profit in doing so.