Remaking the electric grid

[JimmyT]

Up until now the assumption has been a fusion generator with a pulse rate of 200 Hz. Then conditioning the electricity to 60 Hz and blending it in the grid with other 60 Hz electricity. But it might make more sense to redo the grid and distribute the electricity at 200Hz. Perhaps do the conditioning at distributed substations, or not at all. Maybe make 200Hz the new standard. All appliances and motors and electric gadgets need replaced every 20 years or so anyway. Adopting a new standard IS possible.
This might be the way to go in the long run. It would be in keeping with the decentralization thyme we’re shooting for, and might save megabucks long term.

WARNING! I am not an electrical engineer. Someone warn me if I’m talking out of my A**.

[JimmyT]

I know that 200Hz may not be the eventual pulse rate. So, substitute whatever number it ends up being into the above discussion.

[zapkitty]

JimmyT wrote: Up until now the assumption has been a fusion generator with a pulse rate of 200 Hz.

Focus Fusion units are intended to be drop-in replacements for existing infrastructure… wherever and whatever that infrastructure might be. This enables FF implementation [em]without[/em] forcing changes in standards or requiring massive stranding of current grid assets.

JimmyT wrote: Then conditioning the electricity to 60 Hz and blending it in the grid with other 60 Hz electricity.

It sounds like you’re thinking AC and the raw output of a unit will be in HVDC. That means that there will have to be conversion at each unit or cluster of units regardless of local electrical standards and thus the output of a particular unit will be tuned to whatever is needed at that particular locale.

And so the simple and economic answer to grid improvement via Focus Fusion is to install FF units wherever needed, which will eventually be most everywhere, and to adapt the [em]local[/em] grids to robust distributed modes of operation as we go.

This is already happening in fits and starts with the arrival of alternative energy sources and FF joining the party will only accelerate the process… big time 🙂

Long overdue infrastructure upgrades in places like the U.S. will be much easier to undertake that way. The FF units will more than pay for themselves and thus the sheer damn [em]cheapness[/em] of aneutronic fusion will cover an awful lot of grid improvements and upgrades.

[JimmyT]

One easy way to get 60 Hz is to drop the pulse rate to 180 Hz (if possible, we really don’t know yet do we?) and use one pulse for each of the three phases of conventional 60Hz current. As far as alternative energy goes, it will be abandoned rather quickly except for specialized applications like mountain top cell towers or freeway signs with no access to power lines.

Where are you electrical engineers?

[mchargue]

JimmyT wrote: One easy way to get 60 Hz is to drop the pulse rate to 180 Hz (if possible, we really don’t know yet do we?) and use one pulse for each of the three phases of conventional 60Hz current. As far as alternative energy goes, it will be abandoned rather quickly except for specialized applications like mountain top cell towers or freeway signs with no access to power lines.

Where are you electrical engineers?

So far as I understand it, the power that comes from the reactor will be pulsed DC. That can then be accumulated, and converted into AC for the grid.

Think of it as a hand-cranked pump filling up a bucket. Power splashes out into the bucket each time you crank the handle. From the bucket, you pull power out into a converter for the rest of the grid. So, the level in the bucket rises & falls, but keeps some average level required by the converter. So long as the reactor can supply enough power to keep that average, all is good.

[JimmyT]

Where are the electrical engineers?

[JimmyT]

mchargue wrote:

One easy way to get 60 Hz is to drop the pulse rate to 180 Hz (if possible, we really don’t know yet do we?) and use one pulse for each of the three phases of conventional 60Hz current. As far as alternative energy goes, it will be abandoned rather quickly except for specialized applications like mountain top cell towers or freeway signs with no access to power lines.

Where are you electrical engineers?

So far as I understand it, the power that comes from the reactor will be pulsed DC. That can then be accumulated, and converted into AC for the grid.

Think of it as a hand-cranked pump filling up a bucket. Power splashes out into the bucket each time you crank the handle. From the bucket, you pull power out into a converter for the rest of the grid. So, the level in the bucket rises & falls, but keeps some average level required by the converter. So long as the reactor can supply enough power to keep that average, all is good.

Pulsed DC can be converted to AC without any accumulation as long as the timing of the pulses is right. Hence, 180 Hz/3 phases = 60 Hz.

What is optimally needed is positive pulse at time zero and a negative pulse 1/120th second later for each of the three phases. Hence a pulse rate of 360/sec. Or two reactors each pulsing at 180/second.

[markrh]

Electric motors don’t like pulsed currents but rather use a smoothed wave form, either an analog wave or a wave like digital form such as pulse width modulation (PWM). AC from the grid is a wave form in both single or three phase. Capacitors can be used to filter out the 200 Hz pulses to create a flat DC current, then be converted to AC by PWM at whatever the local frequency is, 50 or 60Hz.

[JimmyT]

MarkRh, yes you are right. The addition of some capacitance might be needed to smooth out the wave to make it more sine-like. But we don’t know the exact form this wave will be. Maybe it will approximate a half sine wave already. And of course every circuit or grid has some capacitance anyway, every element does. But this appeals to my minimalistic nature. Might not need any transformers either. Just size the coils appropriately. One thing that will definitely be needed is good switches. Better than any in existence today.

[markrh]

I agree, simple is best. The device’s output is direct current, so will still need to be converted to alternating current. Some equipment will be needed to make the inversion and produce phasing, whether that method is solid state or rotary.

[JimmyT]

I simply wanted to advance the idea that maybe those steps, and all the extra expenses that it entails, wouldn’t be necessary.

[Impaler]

Not only dose the device produce DC, it is dumping it into a Capacitor and the power for the grid will be bleed off from the Capacitors so from the perspective of the Inverter that will supply the grid their aren’t even any pulses, their is just a HVDC source that might have some variation in it’s voltage but is not dropping to zero 200 times a second so the whole premise of the thread is unjustified.

As for the grid becoming DC, that’s more likely to happen if Fusion fails because renewables like wind and solar are necessitating longer distance transmission lines and the technology for HVDC has become more economical then HVAC, but even then the ‘local’ grid would remain AC while the ‘backbone’ becomes DC.

[Brian H]

Impaler is right; there is no point and much difficulty and risk in trying to drive a grid directly. The capacitors and whatever inverter is required will be standard.

Also, Tesla Motors is building a GigaFactory to crank out LiIon batteries for its cars, equal in size to the entire world’s current production, and 30% will be dedicated to “static storage”, or UPS buffers for home, commercial, or utility applications. Power can be “saved up” at low demand periods and used in peak demand to smooth out the load. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWSox7mLbyE

[Tim1]

I agree with Impaler. Their is no reason to convert the grid to DC.

However I doubt that batteries will be used for peak demand periods. It would be cheaper to just use Focus Fusion devices intermittently.

Edit: Since the incremental cost of running a Focus Fusion device is rather low, it could be used to generate Hydrogen from water for use in industrial processes when not providing peaking power.

[Joeviocoe]

Tim1 wrote: … I doubt that batteries will be used for peak demand periods. It would be cheaper to just use Focus Fusion devices intermittently.

Edit: Since the incremental cost of running a Focus Fusion device is rather low, it could be used to generate Hydrogen from water for use in industrial processes when not providing peaking power.

We don’t know the throttling costs of a FF device yet. It can be very complex and cumbersome to turn off the FF device and allow Decaborane to precipitate onto the beryllium electrodes, or costly to keep the device idling to prevent this.
So “intermittent” operation is not something that can be done without engineering for exactly that.

Using an electrical power source to produce Hydrogen for “industrial processes” is horribly inefficient. It ‘may’ make sense for a FF device that is located AT THE LOCATION of a factory that needs hydrogen so badly and does not already get hydrogen as a waste byproduct already.

Otherwise, compression, storage, transport, etc.. of hydrogen is extremely wasteful and would result in Focus Fusion losing its economic advantage.

Fewer conversions is best…. keep FF power as electricity and store excess in batteries.

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