Fixing the Main Problems in a Scientifically Proven Nuclear Fusion Design

by

Thea Energy has new simpler, cheaper, faster approaches to nuclear fusion. They have many design and engineering innovations using Stellarators. THEA Energy fixes the main weakness of Stellarators, the complex and costly magnetic coils. They have taken one of the most promising and well studied nuclear fusion approaches and figured out how to make them simple, cheap and hopefully make research faster. THEA Energy has gotten $20 million in funding.

The Stellarator Design has been proven with the Wendelstein 7-X reactor with operations and tests at tens of megawatts. THEA Energy is fixing the complexity and cost problems.

They transfer the complexity of 3D magnetic fields to modern electronic control systems. They leverage the significant developments in computing and control systems. The result is a radically simplifying (and cost-reducing) new paradigm.

The THEA Stellarator architecture and magnet systems can be built in simpler, less expensive ways, while solving long-standing barriers to fusion energy.

Here is how the US Dept of Energy describes Stellarators:

Fusion power may be able to provide the world with safe, clean, and renewable power. The stellarator is one of the technologies scientists believe could lead to real-world fusion power. A stellarator is a machine that uses magnetic fields to confine plasma in the shape of a donut, called a torus. These magnetic fields allow scientists to control the plasma particles and create the right conditions for fusion reactions. Stellarators use extremely strong electromagnets to generate twisting magnetic fields that wrap the long way around the donut shape.

Stellarators have several advantages over tokamaks, the other main technology that scientists are exploring for fusion power. Stellarators require less injected power to sustain the plasma, have greater design flexibility, and allow for simplification of some aspects of plasma control. However, these benefits come at the cost of increased complexity, especially for the magnetic field coils.

The Stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (Germany) achieved higher temperatures and densities of the plasma, longer pulses and the stellarator world record for the fusion product. At an ion temperature of about 40 million degrees and a density of 0.8 x 10^20 particles per cubic meter Wendelstein 7-X has attained a fusion product affording a good 6 x 10^26 degrees x second per cubic metre, the world’s stellarator record. New fusion experiments in February 2023 demonstrated longer confinement and increased power. The goal of this phase is to gradually increase power and duration for up to 30 minutes of continuous plasma discharge, thus demonstrating an essential feature of a future fusion power plant: continuous operation.

To advance stellarator design, scientists have turned to high performance computing and state-of-the-art plasma theory. These tools have helped researchers optimize the Helically Symmetric Experiment (HSX) stellarator in Wisconsin and the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany.

Related Videos:
How close is perfect nuclear power? Perfect Energy?

Worldchanging Molten Salt Nuclear Energy

Follow Brian Wang on https//nextbigfuture.substack.com

10 thoughts on “Fixing the Main Problems in a Scientifically Proven Nuclear Fusion Design”

  1. why not permanent magnets wrapped in electromagnet to save on the electricitybill ?

  2. Permanent magnets are fantastic for small devices. Look at a modern loudspeaker, the high end drivers can have field strengths of around to 2 T in the air gap. That doesn’t scale up, though. The larger the volume you’re trying to fill with flux, the more “diffuse” it gets. It’s a surface-area-to-volume scaling problem. Large fusion devices use superconductors not because it’s hard to get that flux density, but because it’s absolutely impossible (for the forseeable future) to achieve it with permanent magnets. That 2 T field is achieved with N52 neodymium magnets, which are less than 20% away from the theoretical maximum strength as we currently know it.

    You may be able to create the /shape/ of the field for a stellarator with PMs for cheap and effective iterative testing, but for any device to actually demonstrate useful fusion you’re going to need electromagnets.

    • You should check out Rennesance fusion in France.
      The print the circuit on pipes to keep cost down.

  4. Helion are looking to achieve breakeven next year with their new Polaris machine – they have a very short runway to commercial power production (this decade) that tends to put all other legacy approaches severely in the shade.

    ZAP energy is looking good too, expecting breakeven in next two years.

    Stellarators and tokamaks are a waste of time with their enormous expensive steady state magnetic confinement schemes, they can never be economic.

    • Have you seen anything from Helion or ZAP on how much power their reactors can output?
      Helion looks like they will have problems with neutron radiation warping.
      ZAP looks a lot like LPP fusion, but with liquid walls.

      Stellarators and tokamaks talk over 1 GW, so while expensive they can generate a lot of output?

      • ZAP have a solid record of publishing good scientific papers on their system that provide data supporting their main innovation – which is to stabilise the pinch by creating shear-flow within the plasma. Very different to the LPP saga that seems to have very little mainstream scientific support – and therefore funding, thus the public is constantly asked for money. Based on ZAP’s latest publication (which reports record energies from an earlier prototype FuZE, from 2022) it seems to me likely they have already broken even with their latest device (FUZE-Q) and will probably publish it either later this year or next.

Comments are closed.