A new approach for thermal energy conversion might improve efficiency

[Brian H]

zapkitty wrote: errrrrrrrr… it seems to me that the question relies upon the actual efficiency of the default FF conversion method… the onion.

If the onion proves to be more economical than any given thermoelectric solution then thermoelectric solutions can never catch up, right?

And if a thermoelectric solution can economically make use of even the leftover heat from the onion then that solution theoretically can just replace the onion, right?

Or is this all just a rehash of Aeronaut’s meme that an FF without an onion or thermoelectric solution still has a future as a replacement for other heat sources?

Unless FF is over unity, it is using more energy than it produces, and is just a complicated resistance heater. Who needs it? If it is over unity, see above. The cost of installing and operating any added heat recovery gear must work out to be equal to or less than using power from another FF to generate the heat. No such technology exists, which is why FF is such an economic breakthrough.

[Aeronaut]

There is no question in anybody’s mind that the primary cooling loop is required. The working fluid can be helium or possibly hydrogen. It’s cost is part of the system costs no matter whether the machine is sold as a heater, generator, or preferably both. Each of these design and marketing strategies will come as the installed system level technology matures. What I’m saying is that we’d better be at least aware of all of the technologies that can help the onion produce even more electricity.

Zap, the reason I keep coming back to how the also required secondary loop of the heat exchanger is going to dispose of the excess heat is that commercial heater, furnace, and low pressure boiler makers already design a very similar loop into their products which are already on the market. This type of product is what I was referring to as an existing heat sink- and we can specifically target the 8MWt class industrial heaters almost as soon as we’re over unity.

This paves the way for the PolyWell’s much larger heat dissipation requirements in what I call the multi-fusion world.

Now, for the accounting world, imagine being in the predictive history business. After all, none of us can guarantee that a fusion technology will be proven in our lifetimes- but for those who are willing to design businesses to cover this type of predictive bet go the spoils of truly adding value to the global economy. Creating wealth, much like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Ford did around 100 years ago.

Precisely what the business world says they want to do as they fight over the diminishing markets of existing, proven, safe technologies, lol.

[zapkitty]

Brian H wrote:
Unless FF is over unity, it is using more energy than it produces, and is just a complicated resistance heater. Who needs it? If it is over unity, see above. The cost of installing and operating any added heat recovery gear must work out to be equal to or less than using power from another FF to generate the heat. No such technology exists, which is why FF is such an economic breakthrough.

I’d assumed overunity… else what’s the point? 🙂

You’re assuming that the onion works and is more efficient than any current thermoelectric options, right?

And Aeronaut’s meme, last I checked, was that an overunity FF has potential as an industrial heat source even without direct or thermoelectric conversion…

… as to what you two are going on about now I’m not exactly sure but it seems rather circular in outline 🙂

edit: i was responding to Brian 🙂

[Brian H]

zapkitty wrote:

Unless FF is over unity, it is using more energy than it produces, and is just a complicated resistance heater. Who needs it? If it is over unity, see above. The cost of installing and operating any added heat recovery gear must work out to be equal to or less than using power from another FF to generate the heat. No such technology exists, which is why FF is such an economic breakthrough.

I’d assumed overunity… else what’s the point? 🙂

You’re assuming that the onion works and is more efficient than any current thermoelectric options, right?

And Aeronaut’s meme, last I checked, was that an overunity FF has potential as an industrial heat source even without direct or thermoelectric conversion…

… as to what you two are going on about now I’m not exactly sure but it seems rather circular in outline 🙂

edit: i was responding to Brian 🙂
OK, once more: this ‘industrial heat source’ application isn’t free; it must collect and convert or utilize the heat output at source (the FF generator) and/or distribute it from there. This requires more equipment than simply dispersing the heat (e.g., dumping it into the atmosphere). The cost of that equipment and of utilizing the heat will necessarily be greater than taking electrical output from another FF generator and creating the heat exactly where needed. Necessarily, because by an order of magnitude FF electrical power is the cheapest method of energy generation and capture ever developed (yes, assuming the rig as designed works; the onion is significant only insofar as it contributes to the over-unity power generation.) If it were possible to recover and utilize heat more cheaply, such equipment would be in place and in use everywhere waste heat is created. It doesn’t exist.

[zapkitty]

So it comes down to the onion working more or less to spec.

BTW, I don’t think it’s a huge leap for an air-cooled FF to be patched into an existing HVAC system more cheaply than new electrical equivalents. Same thing for low pressure steam and oil loops. I’d think that the FF as a heat source can work efficiently with appropriate existing plant infrastructure.

The proposed helium loop cooling the FF core lends itself to a modular cooling design paradigm where the helium delivers the heat to any setup that can carry it away fast enough… and there are some choices.

[Brian H]

zapkitty wrote: So it comes down to the onion working more or less to spec.

BTW, I don’t think it’s a huge leap for an air-cooled FF to be patched into an existing HVAC system more cheaply than new electrical equivalents. Same thing for low pressure steam and oil loops. I’d think that the FF as a heat source can work efficiently with appropriate existing plant infrastructure.

The proposed helium loop cooling the FF core lends itself to a modular cooling design paradigm where the helium delivers the heat to any setup that can carry it away fast enough… and there are some choices.

If the HVAC system and the generator share the same locale, it’s conceivable, but no slam dunk. Current experience and costing is no guide; you have to take on board just how cheap ¼¢/kwh really is.

[Aeronaut]

1/4 cent per kWh implies both substantial over-unity operation and some proven way to convert the various fusion products, including thermal energy if applicable, into electricity. It would also seem to imply a very generous estimated lifespan of wear parts like the electrodes, which begs the prospect’s most pressing question: “What is my TCO total cost of ownership?” A related question would be regulatory requirements, overhaul schedules, and overhaul budgets.

Your 1/4 cent per kWh may well be 20 years down the road unless you can line up substantial subsidies.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: 1/4 cent per kWh implies both substantial over-unity operation and some proven way to convert the various fusion products, including thermal energy if applicable, into electricity. It would also seem to imply a very generous estimated lifespan of wear parts like the electrodes, which begs the prospect’s most pressing question: “What is my TCO total cost of ownership?” A related question would be regulatory requirements, overhaul schedules, and overhaul budgets.

Your 1/4 cent per kWh may well be 20 years down the road unless you can line up substantial subsidies.

Aside from the fact that it’s LPP’s own estimated cost (high end. Could be as low as 0.1¢), it’s based on minimal assumptions, which we (including you) went over long ago.
In brief:
The solenoid and onion combine to produce a net direct electric output of 5MW, exclusive of heat recovery.

There are (at least) 340 full operation days in a year, the rest being scheduled rotating maintenance (fuel and electrode replacement).

Staffing is about $200,000/yr spread over 5 units (or up to 10).

Fuel is about 1 lb. boron per MW-year, too low to estimate, but say pro forma $400.

Amortized unit and site costs of $500K over 10 years, $60K including interest.

Total per annum per unit: $40K + $400 + $60K = $100,400. Total output per year = 5MW x 340 x 24 = 40,800,000 kwh.

$100,400.00/40,800,000 = 0.25¢/kwh . If you isolate the capital costs, 40,400/40,800,000 = $0.001/kwh direct cost. All pricing over that is then contribution to retiring capital debt, covering overhead, and operating net profit.
Simple e.g.: charging 1¢/kwh generates total $408,000 revenue per year. Roughly $350,000 before-tax net profit.

But the .25¢ is the relevant figure for internal cost comparisons like heat recovery.

Subsidies? the only subsidies would be to competitive providers to palliate their expiry.
_________

The above assumes a Q of about 1.5, IIRC. A very modest assumption.

As I said elsewhere, if you want a heat engine, there are better and bigger ones, that produce actual usable high-grade heat.

[Aeronaut]

It’s not so much that I want a heat generator as that’s what I expect to be fastest way to commercialize an over-unity FF. Your unit cost favors the low end, whereas I’m expecting it to be closer to 1M engineered and installed.

What neither of us has in the budget is NRC type approval/ certification, licensing fees, inspection fees, and other assorted politics which will put upward pressure on those 3rd party fees. How much extra time and regulatory expense is anybody’s guess at this point, but I doubt it’ll be a small fraction of the system costs unless we have overwhelming public awareness and support.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: It’s not so much that I want a heat generator as that’s what I expect to be fastest way to commercialize an over-unity FF. Your unit cost favors the low end, whereas I’m expecting it to be closer to 1M engineered and installed.

What neither of us has in the budget is NRC type approval/ certification, licensing fees, inspection fees, and other assorted politics which will put upward pressure on those 3rd party fees. How much extra time and regulatory expense is anybody’s guess at this point, but I doubt it’ll be a small fraction of the system costs unless we have overwhelming public awareness and support.

I may be wrong, but I’d expect that any utility or mfr/distributor that wanted to implement FF generation would carry those costs, not LPP. Remember that the US is not the only market. If any jurisdiction OKs them, that will suddenly become the center of FF production and output, with all the competitive advantages that implies. And there’s not a lot for regulators to object to, objectively speaking.

One way or the other, I think it would get fast-tracked.

As far as the unit cost, there’s likely to be a spread for the first while: singletons vs. clusters, rural vs. urban, etc. And first mfr vs. 10th, etc., as time goes on. I guess I’m positing a moderately mature situation. As someone pointed out, true mass manufacture is likely to bring the actual structure costs WAY down, not just to $250K. Similarly, hookup and siting requirements will become standardized after a while, and utilities will expedite that process. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see new dedicated FF utilities come about. Hmmm….

[Brian H]

Just thinking about jurisdictions. Spain, Portugal, Germany, Denmark and the UK are or are imminently about to be hammered with soaring power costs due to massive over-subscription to super-generous “feed-in tarrifs” for silly residential solar panels, and buildouts of grotesquely inefficient windfarms, etc. Industries are abandoning countries and ratepayers are starting to howl already. FF would represent a 95-98% price cut for such customers. No government could stand against demand like that.

[Aeronaut]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Germany and the AE in the forefront. The PIIGS, and now the UK have a lot more debt to pay before they can directly commission fusion power plants. But that could give them the opportunity to decommission the fossil-powered plants as the price continues to fall and general acceptance requires it.

Beyond borders, imagine what might happen if GE, Siemens, Westinghouse, McDonalds, Burger King, and WalMart all announced plans to be producing power locally within 10 years. We can build a tsunami with between four and six sales.

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: I wouldn’t be surprised to see Germany and the AE in the forefront. The PIIGS, and now the UK have a lot more debt to pay before they can directly commission fusion power plants. But that could give them the opportunity to decommission the fossil-powered plants as the price continues to fall and general acceptance requires it.

Beyond borders, imagine what might happen if GE, Siemens, Westinghouse, McDonalds, Burger King, and WalMart all announced plans to be producing power locally within 10 years. We can build a tsunami with between four and six sales.

Yes, I think something like that, or even faster, is inevitable.

[Brian H]

Here’s another player in the mix: Researchers find a stable way to store the sun’s heat (w/ Video). Its problems are heat density and cost. Depends on ruthenium, an expensive element, but they hope to find other molecules that flex when heated and hold that shape till stimulated to release the heat by un-flexing.

[markrh]

Henning wrote: It’s a long and exhausting story but its general function is cited here:

Johnson’s latest JTEC prototype, which looks like a desktop model for a next-generation moonshine still, features two fuel-cell-like stacks, or chambers, filled with hydrogen gas and connected by steel tubes with round pressure gauges. Where a steam engine uses the heat generated by burning coal to create steam pressure and move mechanical elements, the JTEC uses heat (from the sun, for instance) to expand hydrogen atoms in one stack. The expanding atoms, each made up of a proton and an electron, split apart, and the freed electrons travel through an external circuit as electric current, charging a battery or performing some other useful work. Meanwhile the positively charged protons, also known as ions, squeeze through a specially designed proton-exchange membrane (one of the JTEC elements borrowed from fuel cells) and combine with the electrons on the other side, reconstituting the hydrogen, which is compressed and pumped back into the hot stack. As long as heat is supplied, the cycle continues indefinitely.

As he is just using hydrogen gas, this makes a great drop-in for the cooling circuits of the electrodes and onion. Where we’ve intended elsewhere in the forum to use helium. So the gas is not used in a steam/liquid cycle.

Maybe it’s worth contacting him with the intention of introducing him to the idea of focus fusion. An invitation to LPP’s lab? Maybe he’s curious?

I heard that the efficiency of the JTEC system is 60% + efficiency in energy extraction from heat currently. This may help in cooling and produce net gain in energy output. FF could extract more energy by utilizing the waste heat that is produced vs radiant cooling in current plans.

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