Is it true that this reactor doesn't use the latest REBCO superconductors? I watched a talk where they claim they can make reactors 10x smaller now, because they increased the strength of the magnetic field (can go up to 10-20T, instead of 3T). And the superconducting tape is cheap, much more flexible and only needs to be cooled to 100K instead of 4K.
If that's true and I'm not mistaken, the MIT ARC reactor would be much better posed to win the race than Wendelstein 7-X, especially that W7X doesn't aim to generate surplus energy. A commenter above was wondering at the expensive diamond window they had to use. This project is going to be too expensive and with dated technology. We could do it cheaper now.
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The design for ITER was finalized in 2001, amended in 2007. Construction for W7-X started 2003. W7-X is now built, fully functional and operational. At several points during its construction, the construction process for its required parts had to be invented first.
That's 15+ years of research, breakthroughs and inventions in plasma confinement physics and engineering that have had to happen first.
As a noncommercial research reactor, W7-X will continue to be useful for many years to come. For material testing alone I would imagine access to reactor capable of producing a stable, continuous fusion reaction is invaluable.
The ARC is a design proposal from 2015. As such they have access and can utilize all the achievements, results and processes from W7-X, ITER and other material science advances of the last 15 years. If their proposal was not better than already built specimens, it would be a bad proposal. To declare it a race against the research foundation they built upon seems ignorant at best.
In 10-20 years, when the ARC is built, a new design proposal will emerge, based on even newer advances in material science and the lessons learned from building the ARC. And it again will be better than the then current, assembled reactors. That is how it is supposed to be.
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W7X isn't a reactor. It is not even fusion. It's just plasma physics research.
Is it true that this reactor doesn't use the latest REBCO superconductors? I wat... | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13150782