German Startup Wins Accolade For Its Fusion Reactor Design (techcrunch.com) 80
A German nuclear fusion startup called Proxima Fusion has unveiled its "Stellaris" fusion power plant designed to operate reliably and continuously without the instabilities of tokamaks. It's backed by $65 million in funding, with plans to build a fully operational fusion reactor by 2031. TechCrunch reports: Tokamaks and stellarators are types of fusion reactors that use electromagnets to contain fusion plasma. Tokamaks rely on external magnets and an induced plasma current but are known for instability. Stellarators, by contrast, use only external magnets, which, in theory, enable better stability and continuous operation. However, according to Dr. Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, Proxima's "Stellaris" design is the first peer-reviewed fusion power plant concept that demonstrates it can operate reliably and continuously, without the instabilities and disruptions seen in tokamaks and other approaches.
Proxima published its findings in Fusion Engineering and Design, choosing to share this information publicly to support open-source science. "Our American friends can see it. Our Chinese friends can see it. Our claim is that we can execute on this faster than anyone else, and we do that by creating a framework for integrated physics, engineering, and economics. So we're not a science project anymore," Sciortino told TechCrunch over a call. "We started out as a group of founders saying it's going to take us two years to get to the Stellaris design ... We actually finished after one year. So we've accelerated by a year," he added.
Proxima published its findings in Fusion Engineering and Design, choosing to share this information publicly to support open-source science. "Our American friends can see it. Our Chinese friends can see it. Our claim is that we can execute on this faster than anyone else, and we do that by creating a framework for integrated physics, engineering, and economics. So we're not a science project anymore," Sciortino told TechCrunch over a call. "We started out as a group of founders saying it's going to take us two years to get to the Stellaris design ... We actually finished after one year. So we've accelerated by a year," he added.
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Fusion works in stars and in nuclear weapons.
Unlike fission power, where the conditions for a sustained reaction are compatible with each other and where a very convenient mechanism for extracting the energy exists, for fusion, at least for the available designs, the conditions for a sustained reaction are self-contradictory and we're not even certain there is an effective way to extract the reaction energy.
These are most definitely not only engineering problems.
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2031 isn't 20 years away.
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True. There are also zero guarantees that the company will have anything working by then.
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Why not read at least the summary?
They already have a working reactor.
Facepalm.
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Indeed. So did the folks in Los Alamos in 1949 or thereabouts. And?
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Never heard about a fusion reactor in 1949 ...
If they had one, they obviously failed to harness/scale and marlet it.
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Never heard about a fusion reactor in 1949 ...
And yet, some people back then have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Imagine this, the world must be full of people smarter than you.
If they had one, they obviously failed to harness/scale and marlet it.
You may be onto something here, smartypants.
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They already have a working reactor.
Indeed. So did the folks in Los Alamos in 1949 or thereabouts. And?
Never heard about a fusion reactor in 1949 ...
And yet, some people back then have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nice link to stellarator history, but does not mention any working fusion reactor at Los Alamos in 1949.
Of course, a successful fusion reaction was obtained by the Ivy Mike test, detonated on November 1, 1952. But a hydrogen bomb is not exactly a "reactor".
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The stellarator was invented by American scientist Lyman Spitzer in 1951. Much of its early development was carried out by Spitzer's team at what became the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Spitzer's Model A began operation in 1953 and demonstrated plasma confinement.
Yeah, it was early 50s, not late 40s, and a different location.
Big deal, serious business.
First controlled fusion [Re:forever 20 years...] (Score:3)
The stellarator was invented by American scientist Lyman Spitzer in 1951. Much of its early development was carried out by Spitzer's team at what became the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Spitzer's Model A began operation in 1953 and demonstrated plasma confinement."
Yeah, it was early 50s, not late 40s, and a different location. Big deal, serious business.
And demonstrated plasma confinement... but not fusion.
First reactors actually fueled with deuterium/tritium to produce fusion was the Joint European Torus in 1991. ("JET marked a key step in international collaboration, and in 1991 achieved the world’s first controlled release of fusion power." citation: https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com] )
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Tokamaks [wikipedia.org] have been fusing elements for decades. Farnsworth fusors [wikipedia.org] can produce neutrons in a device that can be constructed by an ambitious teenager [instructables.com].
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Tokamaks [wikipedia.org] have been fusing elements for decades.
The claim was a "working fusion reactor at Los Alamos in 1949". Tokamaks weren't even invented in 1949.
But, if you have a citation for a Tokamak actually producing fusion before JET, let's see it. (Not just confinement, which was the goal of most experimental work.)
Farnsworth fusors can produce neutrons in a device that can be constructed by an ambitious teenager [instructables.com].
including a "working fusion reactor at Los Alamos in 1949"?
Farnsworth started on fusion ideas from about 1966, and patented his reactor in 1968. But it's never been a self-sustaining fusion reaction.
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Los Alamos didn't have a fusion reactor in 1949. They did have a fusion lab and were inducing fusion. But they used a particle accelerator firing ions at a target. Such a thing could never generate power and thus can't be called a reactor of any sort. It, like the NIF today, is primarily studying high energy physics for nuclear weapons research. I'm guessing the other guy lacks the technical skill to understand the difference. Nonetheless, fusion reactors are old technology. None of them produce positive po
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Agree.
Concept, not working reactor (Score:2)
Why not read at least the summary? They already have a working reactor.
Do they?
The first link in the summaruy is to the paper in Fusion Engineering and Design. Quote: "In this paper, we present a concept for a new class of quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators leveraging HTS technology.
Second link in the summary is to a popular article. Quote: "Proxima Fusion, a two-year-old German nuclear fusion startup, has published plans for a working fusion power plant."
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Why not read at least the summary?
They already have a working reactor.
Yeah, but so do a fair number of teenagers who built their own for science fairs. The Farnsworth Fusor, for example, was invented about 60 years ago. At this stage of the game, building a working fusion reactor is easy. It's a sustained, net power producing fusion reaction they have to manage.
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It's a sustained, net power producing fusion reaction they have to manage.
No, they have it already.
What do you want to argue about?
That they are lying? Perhaps.
Fact is: they clearly stated, they had the reactor ready, one year quicker than planned.
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Sorry, do you mean the startup mentioned in the article? The paper linked in the summary was only just published and the top highlight is "A coherent QI-HTS stellarator study, showing feasibility for a power plant.". That seems to be a bit weak for a working break-even fusion reactor. The paper goes on to say: "In this paper, we present a concept for a new class of quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators leveraging HTS technology to overcome well-known challenges of a tokamak. " Which sounds even less like a wor
Re: forever 20 years away (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah, fusion is down to ~5 years away at this point. Thereâ(TM)s at least 3 actual production designs going now:
- CFS ARC
- UKAEA STEP
- This one
All three of them are actually on a genuine path to producing real, grid connected reactors in the next 5ish years.
Re:forever 20 years away (Score:5, Funny)
fusion power is 8 minutes away and always has been.
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Can't mod this insightful, because I don't have mod points available. The gravitational confinement system also seems to be working well enough, and effectively we have also worked out how to harvest a little of the power produced, via photovoltaic, thermal and convection gas currents in the last few decades. Still waiting on effective storage and redistribution strategies.
Contextually depressing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Priorities, clearly.
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It seems like there's probably a moral to the story of fusion power being a project that gets you 65 million in funding; while bolting a chatbot onto something that customers don't want has proven to be good for significantly more than that enough times that it's hard to keep track of them all.
Priorities, clearly.
yes its /.
A keyboard idiot who thinks they know stuff and will poopoo someone trying to do something.
Yes, fusion is needed by the human race.
no continuing to burn coal is sustainable and creates a cunt load of pollution.
but yea - ./ - so you know better then everyone
Re:Contextually depressing. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want to say this is a scam, they seem like they are genuine about making it work, but... They won an award for a paper design, that they "plan" to build in 6 years, which given the history of these things and their lack of experience with the tech is ridiculously optimistic.
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Accolades Premature (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Accolades Premature (Score:4, Funny)
Plasma is too heavy.
I'm more of an XFCE guy.
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You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. No fusion reactor has ever even hit break-even emissions let alone positive power output.
No, NIF didn't hit break-even emissions. They hit break-even for the amount of energy in the laser beam hitting the fuel pellet. They did not hit break even for the power consumed generating those beams. And also, the research at NIF isn't about generating power, and never was or will be. It's about studying high energy plasma for nuclear weapon design purposes.
No,
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You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. No fusion reactor has ever even hit break-even emissions let alone positive power output.
You are mixing up your old school knowledge with what is currently going on.
As I mentioned before we have over 100 companies that have break even. Just not in electricity, as their reactors do not even try to make some ...
You are simply completely out of the loop.
VASIMIR (all capitals because it's an acronym) doesn't use fusion energy. It's not a fusion rocket. It's a
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From doing some research on the Internet. I know, I know, maybe not a reliable source of information... except that I specifically checked the Ad Astra webpage on the VASIMIR [adastrarocket.com] engine and they say: "we believe for missions between Low Earth Orbit and the Moon, solar panels would be a practical power option. And as space nuclear electric power matures, we believe that it too could provide a sustainable electric power option for VASIMR®." It sounds like fusion is in the potential future plans, but it's cer
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VASIMR is an electric rocket. It uses electricity to accelerate a propellant for thrust. The rocket itself is fairly agnostic about where the electricity comes from. Most designs use solar power as current flight hardware can achieve specific power of 2kg/kW. Small fission fast reactors like SNAP or TOPAZ can only get ~50kg/kW. Even modern fission reactors like Kilopower [wikipedia.org] can only achieve 30-35kg/kW.
When Ad Astra talks about a nuclear power source for VASIMR, they mean a small fission fast-reactor and not a
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I know. I was replying to Angel'o'sphere who wrote that: "the Vasmir team has a fusion rocket, based on that plasma rocket, working since a decade." I was pointing out that this seems completely incorrect.
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As I mentioned before we have over 100 companies that have break even. Just not in electricity, as their reactors do not even try to make some ...
Name one. Name a single fusion reactor that has ever even claimed to hit break-even energy. If there are "over 100" of them, it should be simple. What's their name? What's their website? Where's an article talking about them hitting break-even? That would be a major milestone if they did. They'd be on the front page of Scientific America, if not the Times.
But it's never happened. Not once. The only fusion research that's even come close is the Nation Ignition Facility. And even they only hit "break-even" i
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Every fusion reactor ever designed aims to operate reliably and continuously the problem is that, so far, none of them has achieved that.
That is completely wrong. You are out of the loop. I guess you are not in a single mailing group for fusion reactors. There are probably 100 companies on the planet that HAVE a working reactor with positive yield,
Name one. And show a citation.
We even have fusion rocket engines since about 10 years ... the Vasimir project run by JPL is working on that since ages, and they have success. Yes, before the nitpickers jump up: Vasimir was long focused on "plasma engines" and now they are moving from "plasma" to fusion.
VASIMIR is, as you say, a plasma rocket, not a fusion reactor. It is Ad Astra Rocket Company, not JPL. And maybe they are "working toward" a fusion reactor with positive yield, but they haven't made one. For information, try: https://www.adastrarocket.com/... [adastrarocket.com]
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Untli then though, nobody really care how great others think the design is if it does not actually work as a viable fusion reactor..
No, *you* don't care because you're just a guy sitting at the end of a power cable. Science is not built on the work of one person, it's built on the collective development of countless people working on different things and sometimes converging in one discovery. There are many many people who care about a potentially different reactor design as there are many people who will look to this and see how well it works and if it can be made better.
You're just not one of them.
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Science is not built on the work of one person, it's built on the collective development of countless people
Yes, I know this because I'm a scientist. However, science accolades come from actual success. You do not get accolades simply for coming up with a clever design for something, you get your accolades when that clever design actually works and, in the case of science, teaches us something new about the universe. It's quite common that we come up with clever designs for analyses or experiments that turn out not to work and, the only "accolade" you get then is a sympathetic pat on the back from a colleague an
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That is definitely not true. Many fusion reactors were only intended to operate for brief time periods. Every fusion reactor built so far has been a research machine. They've ALL been either prototypes, or something a bit earlier in the process than a prototype. Several of them were only intended to produce data to feed into the models of "what's happening here".
I can't tell from this squib whether the machine they intend to build is intended to produce more power than it consumes, though that seems plau
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That is definitely not true. Many fusion reactors were only intended to operate for brief time periods.
No, those are fusion experiments designed to study fusing plasma confinement. Such things, like NIF or JET, are built by research institutes to study the scientific and engineering issues around fusion. Notice the lack of "reactor" in their names. ITER - which is a reactor - is specifically designed to be operated for extended periods of time and to generate power.
The company in this article is a commercial startup that has the stated aim to build a commercial fusion reactor, not just a plasma fusion ex
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Sure. But these are the Wendelstein X-7 people. They have a pretty good grasp on the tech and Physics. I would say they have about a 50% change of making it work and that is excellent value for money.
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They have a pretty good grasp on the tech and Physics. I would say they have about a 50% change of making it work
People with a really good grasp on technology and physics have been working on fusion power since the 1950s and none of them have ever made it work. Eventually I am certain that we will eventually make it work though and, whoever does so deserves absolutely all the accolades that will come their way but, until then, let's hold off on the accolades because history is full of failed fusion experiments because it is a _really_ hard problem to solve that seems deceptively easy.
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Sure. But did these people in the 1950 actually have a working research Stellerator and a ton of experience with it? No, they did not. And the X-7 has produced a lot of new tech and new Physics. The X-7 people think it may be enough. I agree with them. Nothing is sure, but this is not some startup with grand claims that want a lot of money,
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But did these people in the 1950 actually have a working research Stellerator and a ton of experience with it?
No, they had their own ideas and were just as confident of success with them as those today with a Stellerator. That has been the case constantly since then with lots of very clever and experienced people claiming that their idea is going to give us a viable fusion reactor. One day one of them will be correct but until one of them actually demonstrates something that actually works as a viable fusion reactor I am not going to get excited because there is literally 75 years of history of really knowledgable
Sure (Score:2)
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
The way you spell it out it seems like a reasonable gamble.
They put 2% of the cost of a reactor into this project. Assuming there is any credible (even quite low) chance this works it sounds like a far less expensive technology.
Assuming it's not a scam (I'm not a physicist) it seems exactly like the type of thing government should invest a little in to see if it works. Fission should be encouraged too, but that's a more allow the private sector to do it thing that doesn't need as much money involvement from government.
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There are over 400 world-wide working nuclear reactors, there are proven to work, and been improved for over 50 years.
Only if you are stupid. Which you clearly are.
Paper progress (Score:2)
I'm a fan of fusion energy, I'd say, but even I'm getting tired of all these startups popping up every few months with a design they claim they can bring online in five years or whatever. Just do it already, and let me know when our almost unlimited cheap energy is here!
That being said, my money is personally on a stellarator being the first useful fusion reactor to come online, so maybe these guys will be more than just another concept, you never know.
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The energy might be "unlimited" - but it won't be cheap.
For running a fusion reactor you need the fuel to, well: run it.
And getting that fuel is not as cheap as you might think.
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It won't be "unlimited". Nothing in this universe can be, and thinking of it in that way leads to mistakes. It *may* eventually be cheap, though it sure won't be at first.
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It won't be "unlimited". Nothing in this universe can be...
Except for human stupidity.
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And getting that fuel is not as cheap as you might think.
Care to elaborate? Deuterium is pretty cheap ($100/g) and the reactor designs I have seen make their own tritium so where does the fuel cost come from?
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This is a startup by the Wendelstein X-7 people. That is a bit different. Details matter.
Chinese and Americans (Score:2)
Our American friends can see it. Our Chinese friends can see it. Our claim is that we can execute on this faster than anyone else
You sure that's a good plan? You know we play dirty here right?
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Didn't Germany ban nuclear power? (Score:2)
What was Germany's rationale for banning fission reactors, and does it apply to fusion?
A fusion reactor doesn't produce high-grade nuclear waste, but it creates plenty of the low-grade sort by blasting its containment vessel with neutrons.
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Actually, no rationale, only rationalisation from the Green party, and fear of radiation.
45 years ago, the Green parties should have feared CO2.
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They did, and still do?
What has CO2 to do with radiation and radioactive waste?
Nothing obviously.
Not to talk about all the other problems had with nuclear reactors.
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Just read a science book?
What has fusion - in a reactor - to do with fission?
Nothing obviously.
Re: Didn't Germany ban nuclear power? (Score:2)
Unless they're one of the very few working on p+B11 fusion, which produces an excited C12 that decays into 3 x He4 almost immediately.
Shame about Polywell but them's the breaks I suppose.
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The reality is that nobody actually wanted to continue to run their nukes without massive subsidies, because they are far too expensive to make any economic sense. Switzerland, for example, has started shutting down nukes that were still allowed to run for a few more years. Too expensive.
And no. It does not apply to fusion.
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What was Germany's rationale for banning fission reactors, and does it apply to fusion?
Germany didn't ban any fission reactors. They shut them down as a policy by revoking permits to operate for the facilities. Nuclear isn't banned in Germany unlike some other countries. E.g. slightly south in Austria there is a law forbidding Nuclear reactions (not reactors, but reactions) which was passed in 1978. In Germany there's no law preventing a new nuclear reactor starting up, only a policy of the government to not grant operating permits to do so.
It's an important distinction that is about to comic
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So
Hope that helps (Score:2)
I hope the accolades themselves will solve the energy problem in Germany, a country that started by shutting down on purpose all its nuclear plants, became dependent on Russian gas, and now imports electricity made by its neighbors with nuclear, gas and coal.
Because as with all fusion tech we've seen, the actual question is whether it really works in the real world. The track record is not encouraging.
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If will not solve _those_ problems, because they do not actually exist. I would advise listening less to Fox News.
I'm going to assume (Score:2)
I'm going to assume "demonstrates it can operate reliably and continuously, without the instabilities and disruptions seen in tokamaks and other approaches "...is meaningfully different from "operates reliably and continuously" yes?
Have they actually run and produced POWER or only produced peer reviews so far?
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They haven't built the machine yet. Papers is all they *can* have produced.
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What the fuck are you talking about?
You need to update your trollpost scripts, they're replying to the wrong thread again.
These are the X-7 people (Score:2)
The only fusion startup that really knows what they are doing, because they actually have the Wendelstein X-7 as basis, reference and experience.
Not an assured result, but different from others I would think they have a 50% chance of actually making good on their claims.