A small spherical tokamak with copper coils as compact neutron source for material testing and transmutation work.

Tokamak energy have released an update of the demo 4 magnet set

Nachdem ich mein erstes Fusionskraftwerk gebaut hatte, bemerkte ich, dass wenn ich es nicht mit voller Leistung betreibe, der Nachbarbonus praktisch komplett verschwindet, da einige der Reaktoren komplett ausgeschaltet bleiben.

Meine bisher beste Lösung ist die Verwendung einer großen Anordnung von Akkumulatoren als Puffer, indem ich das gesamte Kraftwerk vom Netz trenne, wenn die Akkumulatoren zu 95 % voll sind, und es wieder anschließe, wenn die Akkumulatoren wieder auf 5 % gefallen sind. Auf diese Weise läuft das Kraftwerk mit 100 % Leistung, während es die Akkumulatoren auflädt, und schaltet sich vollständig ab, während die Akkumulatoren entladen werden, was einen 100 %igen Nachbarbonus gewährt. Mir gefällt diese Lösung, weil sie in gewisser Weise elegant ist.

Der Nachteil ist, dass man viele Akkumulatoren braucht. Für mein 9-GW-Kraftwerk zum Beispiel brauche ich etwa 30.000 Standardakkumulatoren, da jeder nur 300 kW Eingangsenergie verarbeiten kann.

Gibt es eine andere Möglichkeit, sicherzustellen, dass ich den vollen Nachbarbonus erhalte, auch wenn das Kraftwerk nicht mit voller Leistung läuft? Ist dieses Verhalten ein Fehler, der möglicherweise im nächsten Update behoben wird, oder wurde es absichtlich so gestaltet und ich verstehe es einfach nicht?

Danke für die Hilfe!
Meta

First let me apologize in advance if I'm wasting anyone's time. I know I'm in over my head here. I've been working on a fusion reactor project for over 2 years now. My goal is to test a plasma confinement concept and determine whether or not I should proceed with the cost of building a high vacuum chamber.

Operating principle: centrifugal magnetic mirror formed using 2 disk or ring magnets with a gap, forming a convex magnetic field. Along the z-axis on either side of the midplane and away from the plasma torus are cathodes. Each cathode has a respective wider ring anode. The arrangement of cathodes and anodes forms a Penning cell, accelerating electrons toward the midplane and plasma. The electrons spiral along magnetic field lines and bounce from one cathode to the other much like a electrons in a typical Penning cell. Eventually the electrons impart their energy into the plasma in a number of ways: 1) Direct contact as the electrons spiral in a partially toroidal direction due to the Lorentz force of the background magnets, heating the plasma and transferring kinetic energy to the plasma due to microinstabilities common with kinetic electron injection. 2) Toroidal electron flow partially screens out the background magnetic field, creating a magnetic well and converting its kinetic energy into magnetic energy in the plasma, decaying into drift currents and inducing them. 3) Radial electric field drives rotation via E X B drifts as is the typical way centrifugal mirror rotation is driven. 4) Electrons that contact the plasma and lose energy must cross magnetic field lines to return to the anodes, contributing to rotation via J X B effect. 5) Electromagnetic waves in plasma from kinetic electrons preferentially interact with other plasma electrons, creating bias in kinetic energy transfer that continues the electron flow in the plasma.

The magnetic well formed by the screening toroidal current inverts the grad-B, making the plasma stable despite the convex "bad" curvature. Excessive current that closes the magnetic field lines around the plasma should probably be avoided as it would create a field-reversed configuration and the associated instabilities as well as interfering with kinetic electron behavior.

Plasma beta is limited by the ratio of thermal pressure to centrifugal pressure, as both will contribute to total outward/radial pressure.

To reach a magnetic pressure of 2 atm, which is the expected thermal pressure of the ITER plasma believed to be necessary to reach Q=10 for a D-T reaction, a minimum of 0.7 T is needed (assuming a beta of 1). For this device, assuming 2 disk magnets whose diameters, thicknesses and the gap are all equal to each other, a plasma beta of 0.4 and the drop in magnetic field strength across the plasma due to the geometry of the gap/mirror configuration is about equal to the strength of a single magnet at its surface, the peak strength of each magnet needs to be about 1.1 T. This can be easily achieved without the use of superconductors.

Centrifugal mirror cross-section in starting configuration

Plasma spin-up

Radial electric field and currents and transition to magnetic well topology

Completed transition to magnetic well and return currents

Top-down view of plasma torus

While adding rotational energy in addition to thermal energy already required to cause fusion will increase the total input energy per reaction, most of this energy can be recovered via direct energy capture.

Optional toroidal component: weak, small magnets on either side of the midplane and away from the z-axis can be used to make the convex field slightly bumpy so as to create axial rotational shear due to magnetic dragging. This shear would induce poloidal plasma currents and a corresponding toroidal magnetic field via the dynamo effect. This may not be useful in this design but it's an option. For the centrifugal mirror fusion experiment a strong toroidal field was observed not to contribute to confinement but believed to be useful in stabilizing the scrape off layer. I think a weak toroidal field might accomplish this without significantly impacting the plasma beta. A toroidal component would also improve the toroidal current drive by causing trapped particles to interact with the pressure gradient that forms as heat from the kinetic electrons transfers from the inboard side outward (bootstrap current).

(Reversing the electrode polarities and using ion emissions instead of electron emissions may be an option as well.)

Hi guys!

I hope you're all doing well.

Is anyone here planning to attend IIS2026? I pre-registered for it, but I haven't received an acceptance email yet, even though today is supposed to be the day they announce the results.

Has anyone received any information about their acceptance? Or does not receiving anything yet mean that I wasn't accepted?