Fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal

[Francisl]

University of Washington engineers have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

[delt0r]

Err not really. I read the original paper. Its a lot of assumptions and hopeful engineering. Lets not forget that these designs haven’t even done as well as tokamaks in experiments.

Show me the data. They don’t have any that back up or otherwise support the claims.

[rashidas]

http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-says-makes-breakthrough-fusion-energy-project-123840986–finance.html

Is this for real? What type of fusion do they propose to use?

[Ivy Matt]

There is already a thread on the Lockheed reactor project in this forum. I made a new post in it that may answer your questions.

[delt0r]

Indeed interesting. Sunkworks is reputable. But .. hmmm

first some better links.
http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2014/october/141015ae_lockheed-martin-pursuing-compact-nucelar-fusion.html
http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20140301519
http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20140301518
http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20140301517

Now from the patents, this is a cusp field configuration. Not really that new. However they are trying to recycle the particles that escape from the cusps around the internal magnets. Only the end pole (mirror) losses are present in a first order approximation. So this is a cups/mirror system which is not new. They are high beta, but then so are reverse field configurations. And I can’t see anything that prevents flute instability around the mirrors. Unless they are doing the gas dynamic trap trick (the Russians still do mirror fusion work).

It will be interesting to see how it works. As it stands we have seen nothing to indicate that it has worked better than any other cusp configuration. And that was worse than Tokmaks or whatever.

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