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Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

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Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#181

Dumb layperson question: my understanding of confined plasma fusion from a while ago was that the energy flux across the enclosing boundary can not be handled by known materials without melting down. Is this still true? Not sure if you can share but would be curious to know what the "bottleneck" material is in your design as far as withstanding high temperatures/other extreme conditions goes.

Certainly the plasma could melt the wall if it were allowed to touch it, but by shaping the magnetic fields that confine the plasma, the plasma can be made to stay away from the wall (not perfectly, but well enough). This is how many fusion experiments operate today. The walls are made of tungsten and other materials that can handle heat, so even if (when) the plasma hits the wall, the melting isn't too severe.

Some "plasma touches wall" events are more severe than others. Sometimes it's even intentional. A "limited" plasma deliberately touches a part of the wall called the "limiter", and the limiter is used to bound the shape of the plasma. (Contrast with a "diverted" plasma; search both terms for more details.) On the other hand, one type of event where it's very much unintentional is called a vertical displacement event, in which the plasma, well, vertically displaces itself until it hits a wall and melts it. These suck but are planned for and handled.

If you're counting neutrons in that "energy flux", they'll just go through the wall (mostly); this is how tokamaks are supposed to make electricity, ie the neutrons go through the wall and hit a "blanket" that's much better at absorbing neutrons, and the blanket will heat up and the heat will be converted to electricity.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#182

“ One common question is, why not fission? ” US Nimitz and Ford class aircraft carriers are fission powered along with several submarines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nuclear-powered_ships...

Devils advocate, a few countries wont let them dock.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#184

Seems like a cool idea its just odd to hear about it before the underlying tech is done. Do you have a reason to be more optimistic than the average punter?

it's a fair point... sometimes announcing early is about securing mindshare and attracting talent, even if the final product is still a ways off. maybe they're trying to get ahead of potential competitors? or perhaps gauge public interest before committing further resources.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High temperature superconductors changed the game for fusion in 1986.

But what it has done recently is allowed creation of much more powerful magnets. This is a new development, the practical application of these high temperature superconductors. I don’t know why it took so long to get there, but it has.

HTS was available in ceramic form, but ceramics sorta suck to work with. So potential users had to wait for people to make them into wires, which was apparently a fat pain in the ass, and then for that technology to be commercialized, all of which took until the 2010s.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#186

Seems like a cool idea its just odd to hear about it before the underlying tech is done. Do you have a reason to be more optimistic than the average punter?

it's a fair point... sometimes announcing early is about securing mindshare and attracting talent, even if the final product is still a ways off. maybe they're trying to get ahead of potential competitors? or perhaps gauge public interest before committing further resources.

Yeah there have been a few good instances of this in the past.

Like Billy G selling DOS before he owned it.

But the lead time on such a business proposition has to be pretty short right? Like less than a decade?

So if I was founding a startup in the fusion space, I would either have a solution for Fusion less than 2 years away, or know someone with an unannounced promising solution in the fusion space.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that ITER-like performance can be achieved in university-scale reactors at comercially-viable, lower costs Are they going to upgrade it or it’s already obsolete before it was even finished?

“Obsolete” probably isn’t the right word but they’re continuing as usual on ITER.. they’re aiming for 5.5T compared to >9T field strength on ARC. There’s still a ton of science to be learned, so it makes sense to keep pushing ahead but it’s clear any eventual commercial design will use HTS magnets instead of the NbSn ones in ITER.

I'd be ready to bet that the boring, international, big gouvernement funded ITER will be the only place to reach anything meaningful, long before the hip VC-backed startups ship anything.

Source : I generally don't believe VC-backup startups anymore, but that says more about me than about them (thankfully, sometimes they do stuff, like, 140 chars and useful tools for Russian trolls.)

But let's see how it goes !

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