fuck yeah magnetized target fusion

[Nuka-Cola: Beta-ray Blue Rasbe(...) No.7206772]

http://www.generalfusion.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/General-Fusion-CNS-2013.pdf

can we have an mtf thread?

just read the abstract and try not to get a boner from how brilliant this design is

[Anonymous No.7206783]

>83% Pb, 17% lithium
>reaction breeds tritium from the lithium
>the tritium just bubbles out as a gas for collection
whydidntithinkofthat.jpg

[Anonymous No.7206801]

>>7206772
I don't understand half of it, but it sure as hell looks interesting.

[Anonymous No.7207234]

>>7206801
isnt not even that high level

[Anonymous No.7207429]

>>7206772
>can we have an mtf thread?
sure!
i'm mtf majoring in mechanical engineering and i start HRT in a week. wish me luck!

[Anonymous No.7207430]

>>7207429

>majoring in engineering

nice touch

[Anonymous No.7207431]

>pulsed device
not suitable for steady state commercialized power generation

[Anonymous No.7207441]

>>7207431
the heat draw will be essentially continuous due to the thermal mass of the lead

by "pulsed" they mean like 4 times a second

[Anonymous No.7207448]

>>7207441
i know i just mean a device capable of operating at steady state (like a mirror or stellarator) is superior for commercial use. and this is a really poor idea for advanced fuel cycles like D-He3

[Anonymous No.7207520]

>>7207448
>a device capable of operating at steady state (like a mirror or stellarator) is superior for commercial use
A device which exposes structural elements to fusion neutrons is inferior for commercial use.

If it works as they hope it will, this will be far more practical than any kind of magnetic bottle fusion. The question is whether it will work.

>this is a really poor idea for advanced fuel cycles like D-He3
It's not an idea for D-He3. It's an idea for D-T. D-He3 is a distant dream beyond distant dreams.

[Anonymous No.7207529]

>>7207520
>this will be far more practical
it's far more mechanically complex, with moving parts and is more prone to maintenance requirements, a big negative for a commercial device

[Anonymous No.7207537]

>>7207529
Yeah man. Pistons are expensive and dodgy. Huge superconducting coils are cheap and maintenance-free.

[Anonymous No.7207544]

>>7207537
you clearly dont even understand the argument. lel, why bother discussing things outside of the mental grasp of /sci/

[Anonymous No.7207567]

>>7207544
You don't have an argument. You had an idea, which you didn't think through before posting. And now that someone has examined it, you're making a rude and ridiculous declaration to spare your ego and running away.

[Anonymous No.7207589]

>>7207567
lel good luck with the upkeep on those pistons. if you bothered to read the article youd have notice the pitting in the device after "several" impacts. that good luck running that thing for any significant amount of time without needing upkeep. and to your comment about the magnets, their heavily shielded, as this device needs to be, because lead is a horrible neutron absorber/moderator. and the temperatures theyve demonstrated so far are pretty poor

[Anonymous No.7207596]

>>7207234

Just like your grammar.

[Anonymous No.7207613]

>>7206772
pretty cool

>>7207589
the cavitation doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem, and those pistons don't look very difficult to maintain (by fusion standards).

[Anonymous No.7207622]

>>7206772
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GyPnoNaiIM

[Anonymous No.7207637]

>>7207589
Can't you use capitalization and punctuation like a person who actually graduated high school?

>pitting in the device
This is what's known as a "bug". New systems have bugs. You fix bugs.

Do you have any idea of the difficulties and costs magnetic confinement fusion devices are having as they reach toward useful net energy?

Anyway, your original claim was that any pulsed device was inherently inferior to steady state fusion systems. Which is fucking stupid. Which is why you're backpeddling and skimming the article looking for a different argument to validate your ignorant comments.

[Anonymous No.7207648]

>>7207637
steady state > pulsed it's very simple. i'm not saying every steady state device > any pulsed device, i said that steady state is much more desirable. and im not backpeddling, you're not intelligent enough to understand how your claims are wrong, so i'm coming up with additional problems with the device so youll understand it's not even close to being the best option we have

[Anonymous No.7207650]

>>7207637
>theres a problem
>thats just a bug
>you fix bugs
great insight there m8, really

[Anonymous No.7207659]

>>7207648
>you're not intelligent enough to understand how your claims are wrong, so i'm coming up with additional problems with the device so youll understand
You know, you'd have a better chance of pulling this off if:
1) you wrote in a way even slightly resembling an educated person,
2) you showed any ability to articulate a meaningful position, and
3) your first resort on being challenged wasn't to declare victory and intellectual superiority.

Frankly, you're coming off as 14-year-old kid playing, "Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet."

[Anonymous No.7207662]

>>7207659
>>you're not intelligent enough to understand how your claims are wrong, so i'm coming up with additional problems with the device so youll understand
>You know, you'd have a better chance of pulling this off if:
>1) you wrote in a way even slightly resembling an educated person,
>2) you showed any ability to articulate a meaningful position, and
>3) your first resort on being challenged wasn't to declare victory and intellectual superiority.
>Frankly, you're coming off as 14-year-old kid playing, "Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet."
great job refuting my arguments there, oh wait, youre just playing armchair psychologist. pro-tip: if you consentrate on the content of the text, instead of how its written, youd get a lot further in gaining actual information and learning something

[Anonymous No.7207664]

>>7206772
that's...surprisingly simple
damn it science trying to be convoluted while the answer is right infront of you

[Anonymous No.7207680]

>>7207664
If it works, it's brilliant. But this isn't getting taken terribly seriously among physicists, for some good reasons.

The compression has to be really perfectly symmetrical, and you're dealing with real-world fluids which are subject to turbulence. And the plasma can't lose energy to the much colder metal compressing it by direct mechanical contact.

[Anonymous No.7207696]

>>7207659

Given similar performance

Fewer moving parts > Greater moving parts

Always.

[Anonymous No.7207727]

>projected energy output per pulse; 20gW
WHAT, that'll make this thing a 9 gigawatt power plant. what the fuck? thats huge

[Anonymous No.7207733]

>>7207727
more like 6 GW

[Anonymous No.7207740]

>>7207727
>>7207733
...and that's thermal. There will be conversion losses as well.

[Anonymous No.7207752]

If your looking for a pulsed plasma form of fusion why not just use the Dense Plasma Focus?

[Anonymous No.7207753]

>>7207752
>dem ion temps

[Anonymous No.7208116]

>>7207740
no its 20gw thermal, after conversion losses (best high pressure + low pressure steam system = 46%) its probably around 9gw electrical

[Anonymous No.7208616]

>>7206772
>can we have an mtf thread?
why not just a fusion thread? and why does /sci/ always gravitate towards the most obscure and lesser funded projects? /sci/ nuts over muh thorium and the general fusion design but never wants to talk about the more significant and viable projects

[Anonymous No.7208707]

>>7208616

what are some of the more viable projects and are there examples of them being built?

[Anonymous No.7208733]

>>7208707
germanys stellarator, iter, nstx, ltx, gamma10

[Anonymous No.7208769]

>>7208616
Because they're not significant or viable. They're funding dogpiles, where people can go get jobs for life and retire without producing results.

[Anonymous No.7208803]

>>7208769
>Because they're not significant or viable. They're funding dogpiles, where people can go get jobs for life and retire without producing result
this is wrong

[Anonymous No.7208812]

>>7208733
>this
seriously, am i the only person that's hyped about ITER?

[Anonymous No.7208849]

>>7208812
>ITER
>years behind schedule
>ballooning budget already up to triple original estimate, with years of construction left
>attempts at D-T fusion off over the planning horizon somewhere
>design is known to be unworkable due to neutron flux damage, but instead of fixing those points first, let's spend decades and billions building it anyway "for research"

This is not how you build toward a practical power source. This is just parasitic bureaucracy growing like a tick.

If fusion is really so difficult that this is the only way to do it, we should be waiting for advanced construction technology, and develop this fusion technology when we're able to rapidly and inexpensively prototype these reactors.

For now, only simpler, faster, cheaper methods are worth experimenting with.

[Anonymous No.7208909]

Think that realistically USA has known for a long time they could achieve fusion energy production in under a decade if they threw Manhattan project tier funding at it, but also that due to their aversion to police state restriction of freedoms the tech would be copied in very short order which given their dominant position on the world scale with things the way they are, changing it up is an unnecessary risk to take.

Basically I would expect a rival to be more interested in trying to figure it out and implement it because they have more to gain, but most of the rivals who might be interested probably don't have the resources to waste..

[Anonymous No.7208958]

>>7208909
>but most of the rivals who might be interested probably don't have the resources to waste..

Does China not fit the criteria of rival with lots of resources?

[Anonymous No.7208982]

>>7208958
Yeah I said resources to waste.

Plus by resources I didn't just mean cash monies and materials; you need top-class minds as well.

Don't think China's physics team has what it takes but that could just be my biases talking.

[Anonymous No.7208992]

>>7208982
I don't know much about China's physics community, but I do know that they have a shitload of people, lots of universities, and a focus on STEM education. Not to mention all the rich chinese people who send their kids to good international universities

[Anonymous No.7208999]

>>7208992
I know what you mean, they have the numbers I guess, and on paper the level of education. My impression is that China's academia is full of cheats and frauds with no innovative drive nonetheless.

Idk you might discard my opinion for saying so but meh.

[Anonymous No.7209014]

>>7206772
A challenger appears:
Polywell fusion
The (Energy Matter Conversion Corporation)
EMC2

http://www.physics.umd.edu/jaeyoung_park_slides.pdf

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-project-steps-out-shadows-looks-money-n130661

[Anonymous No.7209032]

>>7208909
>they could achieve fusion energy production in under a decade if they threw Manhattan project tier funding at it
People keep bringing up the Manhattan Project as an argument for why the government could do this or that. It's bullshit.

NUCLEAR BOMBS AREN'T HARD, they're just expensive. It's remarkable that the Manhattan Project produced two types of practical weapon and three ways to make them in four years, but it's not remarkable that it succeeded in producing a practical weapon in a reasonably brief time.

Commercial fusion power is hard. In part because it can't be expensive. Throwing money at it might make something that technically works, but not something that's practical and cost effective.

The space shuttle is a better example to consider. People thought a reusable launch vehicle might be a good idea to make space cheaper. The government threw money at it, and they made an RLV, but it didn't make space cheaper. Instead, it just went on requiring money to be thrown at it. And RLVs give every indication of being far easier than fusion.

This is the kind of fusion power we could expect from a throw-money-at-it approach: not worth having.

[Anonymous No.7209039]

>>7209032
Billions and billions have been thrown at fusion: Tokamak reactors.
...
Now no-one wants to touch polywell or magnetized target fusion.

Shame really.

[Anonymous No.7209076]

>>7209039
According to their own advocates, it's an approach which you could spend a billion dollars a year on forever, while other technologies are advancing and making the problem dramatically easier, and never see results.

Now, how could that possibly make sense?

Well, there's a large, established group of "conventional fusion" researchers and bureaucrats. Their salaries come first, and cutting any of them is absolutely off the table. Their minor facilities and pet projects come second, and cutting any of them is only acceptable to continue the flow of salary.

But these salaried men and their minor facilities and pet projects, which, in the political realm of conventional fusion research, will necessarily suck up the first billion dollars a year of fusion funding, and never accomplish anything in any amount of time.

This is what ADVOCATES of this approach tell us.

[Anonymous No.7209085]

>>7207662
>if you consentrate on the content of the text, instead of how its written, youd get a lot further in gaining actual information and learning something

Not the same guy, but that mindset gets you nowhere in academia. Actually, it gets you nowhere if you ever need to talk to people. Conveying your ideas clearly is pretty fucking vital.

[Anonymous No.7209091]

>>7209076
Too much vested interest in "conventional" fusion projects. As I said, its a shame really.
The US navy funded polywell research with a very low budget for decades. Probably did not want it appearing on the radar because it would be squashed by traditional fusion research in other DoD departments. [Wild speculation]
What is good about things like polywell is that most of the older patents have expired, so its usable by corporate research and even a guy in a shed.

[Anonymous No.7209208]

>>7209085
i think he meant the guy was attacking the way he posted (you're on 4chan btw, not a professional setting) and not what he posted. theyre both idiots tho

[Anonymous No.7209223]

>>7209208
>i think he meant
>theyre both idiots tho
This is so obviously the same semiliterate twit, attempting to elicit some support for the proposition that he wasn't the only idiot in that exchange.

[Anonymous No.7209236]

>>7207637
Why do you put a big gap between every sentence? I think you're the confused one here

[Anonymous No.7209854]

>>7208616
like the funding vacuums that are ITER and tokamak?

[Anonymous No.7209872]

reminder; even if tokamak and iter produce no viable fusion power plant with their respective technologies, they are excellent sources of research into the sector.

research which actually make the general fusion approach possible in the first place

not advocating the kind of crazy funding tokamak and iter receive but....

[Anonymous No.7210045]

>>7209872
>research which actually make the general fusion approach possible in the first place
That's bullshit, though.

Tokamaks weren't the original approach to fusion or anything.

General Fusion isn't doing anything clever with plasma physics, beyond the original plasma smoke ring trick MTF is based on (and which has nothing to do with tokamaks). They're just injecting some plasma into the chamber and compressing it in a collapsing lead sphere.

All of the difficulty here is with the fluid dynamics of the lead.

[Anonymous No.7210056]

>>7210045
>doesn't understand the need for data
>neutron wall loading
>control of micro instabilities
>neutral beam injection
>cryogenics
>diverted region/scrape off layer pumping
>sputtering and erosion
You need data to determine the optimal materials to use, plasma characteristics, fueling and ash removal, and all kinds of shit. And the data from iter and other devices is more applicable to other types of devices than general fusions because there are so many different magnetic confinement schemes that can utilize the data whereas general fusion is some special pet project, which is why I think 4chan is so drawn to it for some reason. It's like the contrarian fusion device

[Anonymous No.7210066]

>>7210056
>neutron wall loading
>cryogenics
Seriously?

This thing doesn't use huge superconducting magnets, and it doesn't keep them near where the fusion will be happening, which is going to be surrounded by meters of molten lead/lithium mixture to multiply, moderate, and absorb the neutrons.

You listed a bunch of things that have no relevance to this technology.

[Anonymous No.7210086]

>>7210066
>this technology
it's relevant to all magnetic confinement fusion devices, which far outnumber the ONE general fusion device. how do you not understand that the data obtained from ITER JET or JT-60, or MFTF, or MFTR, or any previous fusion device is relevant to future work, even if not everything is specifically relevant to this one specific design? dont be so dense

[Anonymous No.7210127]

>>7210086
>>>>>research which actually make the general fusion approach possible in the first place
>>>>That's bullshit, though.
>>>[list of things that aren't relevant to the general fusion approach]
>>You listed a bunch of things that have no relevance to this technology.
>how do you not understand that the data obtained from ITER ... is relevant to future work, even if not everything is specifically relevant to this one specific design?
Don't try and pull this shit.

[Anonymous No.7210138]

>>7210127
i wasn't the guy who originally said that but it's true. that "plasma smoke ring trick" is two spheromaks injected and compressed into the chamber. spheromaks are a magnetic confinement device (but not to be confused with the spherical tokamak). they utilize data from past fusion experiments, they provide data for future experiments, one being your precious general fusion. it's all connected baby. just because you cant see the forest for the trees doesn't mean that you're right

[Anonymous No.7210147]

>>7210138
He was crediting tokamak research specifically. I was objecting to that specfic claim. Stop being a shit.

[Anonymous No.7210151]

>>7210147
>I was objecting to that specfic claim.
and your objection was incorrect and unfounded

[Anonymous No.7210183]

>>7210151
Look, jackass, this design isn't very sensitive to the details of what's going on in the plasma before it's compressed by the collapsing chamber. The FRC is just a way to get some reasonably localized plasma into the chamber. It's an old trick, and it's not the hard part here.

Insisting that the money spent on tokamaks will have been necessary for the success (if any) of this approach is bullshit.

[Anonymous No.7210193]

>>7210183
>Insisting that the money spent on tokamaks
literally nobody said that. tokamaks are pretty mediocre tier in terms of fusion devices (a step ahead of general fusions design tho) and it's a shame that tokamaks are being invested in more heavily than other devices, especially stellarators, but theres all kinds of data not only relevant to fusion, but to materials science, magnets, cryogenics, vacuum technology, etc that comes from large scale fusion research, including tokamaks.

[Anonymous No.7210203]

>>7210193
>>>>He was crediting tokamak research specifically. I was objecting to that specfic claim.
>>>and your objection was incorrect and unfounded
>>Insisting that the money spent on tokamaks will have been necessary for the success (if any) of this approach is bullshit.
>literally nobody said that.
literally you are human garbage.

[Anonymous No.7210204]

>>7210203
>be you
>be wrong
>be mad