MIT Designs Less Expensive Fusion Reactor That Boosts Power Tenfold

jan_jes writes: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak (donut-shaped) fusion reactor. The stronger magnetic field makes it possible to produce the required magnetic confinement of the superhot plasma — that is, the working material of a fusion reaction — but in a much smaller device than those previously envisioned (abstract). The reduction in size, in turn, makes the whole system less expensive and faster to build, and also allows for some ingenious new features in the power plant design.

Comments

Re:Smaller, but still pretty big

[vux984]

"Smaller, but still pretty big"

Down from 5m and 2m. That's substantial progress.

Re:Good for experiments, not powerplant ready

[mspohr]

Or... we could spend the money on solar and wind (and battery storage) which we could implement in just a few years using proven technology.
Why wait 20 or 30 years for something that might (or might not) work when we have a solution now that we know works.
Nuclear has gone from "too cheap to meter" to "too expensive to matter".

Re:For variable values of "faster"

[gweihir]

Go where? Mars? You are kidding yourself.

Re:Smaller, but still pretty big

[Rei]

It really could be a game changer. REBCO tapes are still pretty expensive but their prices should drop to competitive levels when scaled up. This could cut costs 1/2 to 1 order of magnitude for the same amount of power generation. And beyond that, smaller reactors are much easier to get funds to build, and are more useful in that they can supply power to smaller markets.

The "30 years" joke is annoying; the amount of advancement that's been occurring has been huge. But the projects are so big and expensive that you don't go through iterations very fast. So again the ability to "scale down" is a massive benefit.

Re:Good for experiments, not powerplant ready

[garyisabusyguy]

One of the sure signs of an idiot is an easily repeatable phrase

The primary reasons that Nuclear is expensive is the constant lawsuits and attempts to derail efforts to implement it

And even after all of those efforts, the only reason that Nuclear is more expensive than Coal (the only competitive power generation, solar is waaaay off the mark) is because Coal does not have to contain the waste that it spews from its smokestacks, which contains mercury, uranium and enough CO2 to cook a planet

It is painful that the idiots who carry around signs like "you can't hug a child with nuclear arms" and want to save the planet from nuclear power are the same idiots who are forcing industry to use Coal power

Only if it works

[Roger W Moore]

It's only progress if it works. The field of fusion has a well established track record of reactor designs that do not work when built for one reason or another. I'll get excited when they have demonstrated that it works and not before.

Re:Only if it works

[turbidostato]

"Tokamaks work. Their flaw is that they are energy-negative."

So they don't work since the premise to be a "working device" is not fusion, you can easily get that with a bomb, but doing it in a controlled (i.e.: not a bomb) and energy-positive way (i.e.: not a home farnsworth fusor).

Does Lockheed believe in that design? Where's $$?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

At the ICOPS conference (International Conference on Plasma Science) I asked a couple of professors what they thought of this.

They thought it was pretty telling that Lockheed wasn't investing a lot more money in this concept than they are.

If Lockheed isn't putting significant money into it, maybe you should think twice about putting your money (figuratively speaking) into it.....

That said, I really hope Lockheed does succeed with this, and starts shipping units like crazy and displacing coal power production worldwide.

--PM

Re: Smaller, but still pretty big

[alzoron]

That's like saying we shouldn't use ethanol as a fuel because of all the lives that have been ruined due to alcoholism.

Re:Good for experiments, not powerplant ready

[Sardaukar86]

Do you want to live near nuclear plant? I don't, no matter how new and shiny with latest "bug-free" design it is.

Well done, NIMBY. I hold you arseholes partially responsible for the fucking mess we're in today. Thanks so much for your efforts!

Re:Work = Achieves Goals

[Altrag]

All fusion reactors absolutely generate energy. What they don't do is generate more energy than they consume (ie: they're net-negative.)

It would certainly be nice if they can make it commercially viable, but there's plenty of science you can do in an net-negative reactor and advancing the tech is still an overall benefit to mankind -- just not necessarily a financial benefit.

Re: Smaller, but still pretty big

[TheRaven64]

From the first source I found, nuclear deaths per TWh are 0.04 (coal is 15-170, depending on the statistics you pick). While 0.04 is not quite zero, that's where it would end up if you did any rounding...

The articles write themselves

[q4Fry]

"The sun was too far away from my solar panels, so I built a closer sun."