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Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

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Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#11
Wendelstein 7-X - from concept to reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA

Im Zeitraffer: Zusammenbau von Wendelstein 7-X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpSrqitSMQ (best @ 0.56x)

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437075

More: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAx243-m51RI-k_4lsAqidA/fee...

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#12
post #4
post #2

Good to see that there is enough money to pursue stellarators while simultaneously working on tokamak designs like ITER.

Well, whichever nation builds the first working Fusion power plant wont know where to put all the money.

How long until NSA and China steal those designs, though? Two...maybe three months? I guess whoever builds it will also have the expertise advantage in dealing with those designs, though, which should give them at least a few years of competitive advantage.

Also, my guess is neither of these "traditional" approaches will work to create actual fusion power. My guess is someone else's out of left field approach that will totally shock the scientific community will be the winner.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#14
post #2

Good to see that there is enough money to pursue stellarators while simultaneously working on tokamak designs like ITER.

I was chatting about this with a friend and there are something like 5 different in production technologies which produce or cause nuclear fusion. Only three I think are aimed at sustainable power generation, but it's still pretty cool.

I hadn't heard of this one before, always interested in fusion news. 3 others I know about are

http://www.generalfusion.com/

http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/ (Focus fusion)

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.htm...

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#15
post #12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, whichever nation builds the first working Fusion power plant wont know where to put all the money.

How long until NSA and China steal those designs, though? Two...maybe three months? I guess whoever builds it will also have the expertise advantage in dealing with those designs, though, which should give them at least a few years of competitive advantage. Also, my guess is neither of these "traditional" approaches will work to create actual fusion power. My guess is someone else's out of left field approach that wi…

To realize a complex design like a Stellator they actually also needed to develop a lot of manufacturing expertise, had to build custom machines for making tools and components etc., I doubt anyone would be able to copy that without significant effort.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#16

It doesn't say how many watts of power this machine would produce and what is the cost to produce per watt? It would be interesting to compare numbers and see if this machine would ever see mass production in next few decades.

It's a research reactor, it doesn't have power extraction systems, it's all about studying burning plasmas as well as plasma confinement.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#17

It doesn't say how many watts of power this machine would produce and what is the cost to produce per watt? It would be interesting to compare numbers and see if this machine would ever see mass production in next few decades.

Probably because it's not a power plant but a research reactor and is not producing electricity.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#19

It doesn't say how many watts of power this machine would produce and what is the cost to produce per watt? It would be interesting to compare numbers and see if this machine would ever see mass production in next few decades.

Zero watt. It's a research reactor. And they don't want to use tritium (which is apparently needed for power generation) because it would cause radiation. And radiation is bad when you want to do research on the reactor. Source: German wikipedia

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#20

It doesn't say how many watts of power this machine would produce and what is the cost to produce per watt? It would be interesting to compare numbers and see if this machine would ever see mass production in next few decades.

According to wikipedia :

"The purpose of Wendelstein 7-X is to evaluate the main components of a future fusion reactor built using stellarator technology"

So I'm guessing it can't produce power as it is.

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