Here are a Lawrence Livermore and ARPA-E presentation on the science and roadmap details for Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). CFS has completed and validated their 20 Tesla magnet system which is critical for massively reducing the size of a commercial Tokamak. CFS has raised $215 million and now have a staff of over 240. They …
Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have demonstrated a magnet with a record-breaking 20 Tesla magnetic field. This is the core technology that they planned to create. They now have to mass produce it at ten times lower cost and assemble it into a net energy gain system by 2025. …
On Aug. 8, 2021, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). This is still twelve times less than the 20 megajoules that simulations indicate can be achieved. Everything would need to be redesigned to try to get to …
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. The FDP will demonstrate General Fusion’s proprietary Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology. Construction starts 2022. Liquid Metal Wall A liquid metal wall will be inside the outer wall. It absorbs energy from the …
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are adding tiny, Swiss-cheese-type holes to components to improve fusion energy generation processes. Above -PPPL physicist Andrei Khodak next to diagrams showing his concept for a porous fusion facility wall (Collage by Elle Starkman / PPPL Office of Communications) New computer simulations …
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion have announced an agreement under which General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. General Fusion will enter into a long-term lease with UKAEA following construction of a new facility at Culham to host the FDP. The FDP will …
The Limitless Space Institute had a report from its Interstellar Initiative Grant recipients. One of the presenters is from the University of Albama who are working on a sub-kilowatt system to generate nuclear fusion pulses for propulsion. Dr. Jason Cassibry, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and an assistant research professor at the …
TAE has produced a stable plasma at 50,000,000°C within a compact reactor and repeated this over hundreds of testing cycles. They have had over 25,000 fully integrated fusion reactor core experiments. The experiments were optimized with machine learning from a collaboration with Google. The current goal is a commercial fusion power plant by 2030. They …
The Helicity Drive concept is a novel magneto-inertial fusion concept designed for a fusion space propulsion system. It has promising Lawson criterion performance scaling with input geometry resulting in power output that is uniquely scalable across thrust power classes (10s kW to GW levels) at high specific power. It exploits magnetic reconnection as a fast, …
Fission/fusion hybrid and pulsed fusion propulsion have been shown to significantly reduce the trip times for space travel. The specific approach being pursued at UAH PRC is called z-pinch. Jason Cassibry has been funded by Limitless Space Institute to study and advance 100 kev nuclear pinch propulsion. They have a near-term goal of scaling to …
Direct Drive Centrifugal Fusion has achieved 25 MW for parts of demonstrations in the lab. The ISP is 60 times too high for an optimal Mars mission and the thrust is 60 times too low. They have received a Limitless Space Institute grant and are working towards improving their system to become practical for rapid …
