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by smaddox 845 days ago
Tokamaks are 1960's technology. The future of economical fusion appears much more likely to be based on the field-reversed configuration (FRC). Helion expects to produce net positive energy production from a reactor designed primarily for He3 production in the next few years: https://www.helionenergy.com/
3 comments
jszymborski 845 days ago
I'm not sure the date of invention is relevant. The wheel is stone-age tech.

What matters is how we build Tokamak's has changed. A huge notable difference are the magnets used for example.

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smaddox 845 days ago
It's relevant when it doesn't work after all that time. As I argue further down the thread, the trajectory of FRCs looks much more promising.
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theptip 845 days ago
This seems like spurious reasoning. It’s like saying “rockets are 1950s technology therefore SpaceX is going to fail”.

Commonwealth are using cutting-edge high-temp superconductors which can generate much stronger fields:

https://cfs.energy/

The idea is old, the tech is new.

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smaddox 845 days ago
If tokomaks worked as well as Rockets, then I would agree. But the age of a technology does become relevant when you're discussing the history and development trajectory. The trajectory for FRC's looks far more promising. Direct electric conversion reduces the required efficiency by ~2x and the use of a low-neutron emissions fuel dramatically reduces shielding complexity and maintenance costs. And FRC requires much smaller reactors to reach net positive energy. Even considering high-temperature superconducting tokomaks, FRC's appear far more promising.
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raverbashing 845 days ago
Remains to be seen.

Helion would have to ship something that gives positive net energy first.

Sure, they have prototypes, but we don't know how well they are currently performing

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smaddox 845 days ago
Agree, that will be the proof. But tokomaks have yet to do the same despite decades of investment.

We know that helion is able to recover 95% of the energy of every pulse. And they've measured the scaling laws. There doesn't seem to be anything that will prevent net positive energy in the reactor they're building right now.

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