Brits and Yanks join forces to make fusion magnets cool again
- Reference: 1685537092
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/31/tokamak_energy_general_atomics_magnets/
- Source link:
The company, based near Oxford, [1]recently announced a breakthrough in magnet systems for containing the high temperature fusion plasma, and now says it has signed a memorandum of understanding with California-based General Atomics to work together on the technology.
According to the pair, Tokamak Energy is bringing to the table its expertise in these high temperature superconducting magnets, while General Atomics has the manufacturing capabilities to produce large-scale magnet systems.
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In 2015, General Atomics established a Magnet Technologies Center (MTC) to build the central modules for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, currently being slowly assembled in southern France and expected to be complete in 2025.
[3]
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Tokamak Energy managing director Warrick Matthews said his company has been developing high temperature superconducting magnets for over a decade, and working with General Atomics promises to make these available for other markets besides cutting-edge fusion reaction experiments.
"The integration of these complementary capabilities promises to accelerate the development and production of HTS technologies in additional fields, such as aviation, naval, space and medical applications," he claimed in a statement.
[5]
Nuclear fusion is based on the same basic physics that happens inside stars, whereby lighter elements fuse together to form heavier ones, releasing energy in the process. High temperatures are required in order to drive the nuclei close enough together for fusion to happen, and at these temperatures the fuel becomes a plasma that needs containing in order to sustain the process, and this is where the magnets come in.
All of this is highly complex and extremely difficult to get right, of course, which led to the old joke that nuclear fusion power generation is 30 years away and always will be.
[6]CERN spots Higgs boson decay breaking the rules
[7]Microsoft's big bet on helium-3 fusion explained
[8]Brit fusion magnets set for US gamma ray bombardment test
[9]Private company set up to oversee UK's prototype fusion reactor
General Atomics, for example, established its first fusion research and development programs in the 1950s and claims to have upwards of five decades of experience operating tokamaks – the donut-shaped reaction chamber used to contain the super-hot plasma, from which Tokamak Energy gets its name.
And the reason for all this effort? One kilogram of fusion fuel releases the same amount of energy as burning around 10 million kilograms of coal, according to Tokamak Energy, but without the carbon dioxide emissions. If it can be made to work, the benefits are obvious as fusion power stations would deliver clean energy for towns and cities as well as industry.
But readers shouldn't be misled about the "high temperature" part of Tokamak Energy's [10]high temperature superconducting magnets . These still need to be cooled to around -250°C (-418°F) to operate, and so they are only high temperature in comparison with most other superconducting materials, which operate close to absolute zero (-273°C or -460°F). This difference still makes them over five times more energy efficient, according to the company.
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The technology centers round multi-layered tapes of material, mostly made of conductive metals but with the crucial addition of an internal coating of rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting material. The tapes are typically 12mm wide and less than 0.1 mm thick, and wound into coils to make superconducting magnets.
Earlier this month, Tokamak Energy welcomed Warren East, former CEO of Rolls-Royce and before that chip designer Arm, to its board as Non-Executive Director.
Last month, the company [12]announced that its magnet technology was being shipped to the Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF) at the US Department of Energy's Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, to be tested against the kind of gamma radiation it will be exposed to as part of an operating fusion reactor. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/tokamak_energy_magnet_test/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZHdvFeCDCaessdzxy9kjUAAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZHdvFeCDCaessdzxy9kjUAAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZHdvFeCDCaessdzxy9kjUAAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/30/newly_observed_higgs_boson_decay/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/17/microsoft_bet_on_fusion/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/tokamak_energy_magnet_test/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/06/step_fusion_private_firm/
[10] https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/magnets/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZHdvFeCDCaessdzxy9kjUAAAAEI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/tokamak_energy_magnet_test/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF)
Or CIF if you are European.
If you want a second unit of temperature ...
please use Kelvin, not Fahrenheit
Re: If you want a second unit of temperature ...
Primary unit should've been Kelvin to begin with (IMHO). No objection to having Celsius as secondary.
Re: If you want a second unit of temperature ...
If you are discussing temperatures of liquid Helium then perhaps Rankine ?
Seriously Cool!
(drop mic)
Tell me again why fusion is such a good idea.
One kilogram of fusion fuel releases the same amount of energy as burning around 10 million kilograms of coal
1 kilo of Deuterium costs about $4,000
1 kilo of Tritium costs about $10,000,000 (if you could buy that much, which you cannot)
10 million kg of coal costs about $420,000
While there is a good argument for fusion on ecological grounds and the size of the reactor, it's never going to be cheaper than coal.
It should be possible to manufacture tritium in the reactor using the Neutron-Boron reaction - unfortunately that needs a rare isotope of Boron and that's even more expensive costing maybe $2,000,000,000 per kilo of Tritium produced but this artificial Tritium production would be essential for commercial fusion as there is only about 4 to 5 kilos of natural Tritium on Earth.
Footnote: Boys and girls, if you want to be rich beyond the dreams of Croesus, find a (relatively) cheap way to make Tritium.
Re: Tell me again why fusion is such a good idea.
it's never going to be cheaper than coal.
Never say never. People used to think photovoltaics would never be a practical way to generate energy on a large scale; they were exotic and expensive things that the likes of NASA used on spacecraft. They didn't foresee prices tumbling by orders of magnitude as they did in reality, and now they're one of the cheapest ways to generate power.
Cheaper ways to produce deuterium have been proposed, such as quantum sieves. Current methods could probably be optimised if there was demand also. There may be alternatives to tritium; Helion is using Helium-3 which they will produce as part of their process, so they say. And if course there's all that Helium-3 on the moon. Can't predict the future, but it would be somewhat foolhardy to claim that current prices can't possibly be significantly improved upon.
Re: Tell me again why fusion is such a good idea.
Deuterium is not the problem. Tritium is vanishingly rare and commensurately expensive and all the synthesis methods so far are even more expensive than extracting natural Tritium.
He3 is only about $100,000 per kilo but nobody is anywhere near working He3 fusion, it might happen but not for a while. As for the He3 on the moon I suspect the costs to mine and ship back to Earth would be prohibitive.
foolhardy to claim that current prices can't possibly be significantly improved upon.
I didn't, look at my last line suggesting that a good way to get really rich would be to find a cheaper way to make Tritium but even then considering H2/H3 fusion fuel is over 10 times the cost of fossil fuel to generate the same amount of energy and given a fusion reactor is going to cost a lot more than a simple thermal generator and have a shorter life and cost more to decommission the reduction in fuel costs would have to be beyond reasonable probability to get to near to parity with thermal generation.
Maybe before your time but when Calder Hall was switched on we were promised "Electricity too cheap to meter" - that turned out well didn't it?
Re: Tell me again why fusion is such a good idea.
> Tritium is vanishingly rare and commensurately expensive and all the synthesis methods so far are even more expensive than extracting natural Tritium.
Because all the current synthesis methods are to produce vanishingly small quantities for nuclear weapons and research - that's why it costs a gadzillion $
ITER will breed Tritium in situ - almost by accident, neutrons from the magic pixies dust in the Tokomak will hit a cheap Lithium jacket and make Tritium. Extracting it is a bit tricky but they don't need the hyper-purity you need for research
Deja vu ?
Ah, room-temperature superconductors. Just 5 years away
Re: Deja vu ?
Got them now although there is a teeny tiny problem with pressure.
You need about 1 gigapascal of pressure which is around 10,000 x sea level air pressure so a touch impractical for everyday use.
Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF)
Pronounced JIF