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Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

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Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#31

Post by jahnu »

t0mas88 wrote: post #28
aeyes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the German Alternativlos podcast the Wendelstein team (Prof. Dr. Thomas Klinger, Dr. Adrian von Stechow) recently stated that it is already feasible, they estimate a cost of ~€20B and a 5 year construction time for a commercial fusion power plant if we started now. https://alternativlos.org/51/

For less than 15 billion euro you could buy enough solar to power a country the size of the Netherlands. With 5 billion to spend on batteries you might even make it through night time usage. Or in other words: Fusion is too expensive at this point to be useful.

That seems amazingly cheap! Are we really down to that low level of cost?

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#32

Post by b112 »

t0mas88 wrote: post #28
aeyes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the German Alternativlos podcast the Wendelstein team (Prof. Dr. Thomas Klinger, Dr. Adrian von Stechow) recently stated that it is already feasible, they estimate a cost of ~€20B and a 5 year construction time for a commercial fusion power plant if we started now. https://alternativlos.org/51/

For less than 15 billion euro you could buy enough solar to power a country the size of the Netherlands. With 5 billion to spend on batteries you might even make it through night time usage. Or in other words: Fusion is too expensive at this point to be useful.

The first plant is going to be more expensive, and the next gens after that will benefit from things learned.

The first TVs were for the very rich, and had 4" bw screens. Now they're 80", thin, and insanely cheap.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#33

Post by tootie »

KyleBerezin wrote: post #25
gabereiser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. This is fascinating stuff and reminds me of some crazy rant some guy was telling me about anti-gravity and how electromagnetic “ribbons” could propel you. Obviously the guy was nuts, right? How would one go about learning more about electromagnetic plasma containment folding?

Haha, no I am just some random guy who reads too many Wikipedia articles. "Electromagnetic plasma containment folding" does sound like something a crazy person at a bus station would rant about. My explanation was definitely over simplified, but I'm not knowledgable enough to go into detail on the topic. I can't even point you towards something to read on the topic since everything I read about it is like 15 years ol…

If a Hollywood screenwriter were naming a crazy science device, they would come up with something like Wendelstien 7-X

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#34

Post by peteradio »

karmajunkie wrote: post #30

This is perhaps an obvious question to some, but I'll ask it anyway: How is the power generated here converted into usable electricity? I know for conventional fission reactors the heat of fission is basically used to run a steam turbine. Given the extreme heat of the plasma, and that it must be magnetically suspended so that it doesn't even touch the sides of the containment, how is that heat transferred to some oth…

You still get heat transfer from uncharged elements I guess.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#35

Post by Etheryte »

karmajunkie wrote: post #30

This is perhaps an obvious question to some, but I'll ask it anyway: How is the power generated here converted into usable electricity? I know for conventional fission reactors the heat of fission is basically used to run a steam turbine. Given the extreme heat of the plasma, and that it must be magnetically suspended so that it doesn't even touch the sides of the containment, how is that heat transferred to some oth…

I'm not sure if it's the case for this specific reactor, but the common answer to this question is that you need cooling in the surrounding walls and the coolant that runs through the walls transfers the heat out where it can be used to do useful work.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#36

Post by WJW »

karmajunkie wrote: post #30

This is perhaps an obvious question to some, but I'll ask it anyway: How is the power generated here converted into usable electricity? I know for conventional fission reactors the heat of fission is basically used to run a steam turbine. Given the extreme heat of the plasma, and that it must be magnetically suspended so that it doesn't even touch the sides of the containment, how is that heat transferred to some oth…

Given that the plasma is several million degrees, it will radiate a lot of energy and heat up the walls even if it does not directly touch them. Just cooling the walls can heat up the cooling fluid enough to later produce steam with. AFAIK the Wendelstein machine is not configured for electricity production though, so the cooling is just cooling atm.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#37

Post by fizigura »

karmajunkie wrote: post #30

This is perhaps an obvious question to some, but I'll ask it anyway: How is the power generated here converted into usable electricity? I know for conventional fission reactors the heat of fission is basically used to run a steam turbine. Given the extreme heat of the plasma, and that it must be magnetically suspended so that it doesn't even touch the sides of the containment, how is that heat transferred to some oth…

They currently run a bad-ass heatsink (which is one of the main challenges of this project, i.e., how to cool it), but eventually you will use that heat to convert it into electricity, yes.

For the German-speaking crowd here, the Alternativlos podcast guys were there twice and had lengtly conversations with the researchers there. Like, between nerds. Really cool, if you understand the language.

https://alternativlos.org/36/ (from 2016)

https://alternativlos.org/51/ (most recent, from may 2023)

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#38

Post by hedora »

Eji1700 wrote: post #6
foolfoolz wrote: post #2

i’ve been following this project for 10 years. it’s been successful. but how do projects like these move faster? the wendelstein 7x is never going to generate usable electricity. it’s supposed to be the pre cursor to the producing reactor

Mostly, they don't? There should be more funding in this area, but at some point you've got to build it, and that takes a ton of time. Regulations/bureaucracy could be better but at the end of the day you're not going to cut off a ton of time safely. Once you have a working model iteration gets much much faster, but we've simply been hitting walls for decades.

Is there a minimum viable size for a fusion reactor? If it scaled down ennough, they could just launch prototypes into space, and see if they explode.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#39

Post by cmplxconjugate »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

Speaking of fusion does anyone know what is going on with SPARC at Commonwealth Fusion Systems? I have been very excited about their system but they are understandably in a deep development and construction cycle after a $2B investment, so all their news page has for the last year are updated business deals and awards. I would love to hear how reactor construction is going.

My best friend works for them in diagnostic sub-systems development. The product is still a long way off delivery with many systems being actively designed and refined. Basically it’s busy but will still be quite a while (3-5+ years at least).

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#40

Post by peteradio »

t0mas88 wrote: post #28
aeyes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the German Alternativlos podcast the Wendelstein team (Prof. Dr. Thomas Klinger, Dr. Adrian von Stechow) recently stated that it is already feasible, they estimate a cost of ~€20B and a 5 year construction time for a commercial fusion power plant if we started now. https://alternativlos.org/51/

For less than 15 billion euro you could buy enough solar to power a country the size of the Netherlands. With 5 billion to spend on batteries you might even make it through night time usage. Or in other words: Fusion is too expensive at this point to be useful.

How exactly is that calculated?
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