Re: Heating for fusion, Why toast plasma when you can microwave it?

On 8/08/2024 8:23 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Thu, 8 Aug 2024 17:13:36 +1000) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <v91r78$3pjer$3@dont-email.me>:
 

On 7/08/2024 3:27 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Heating for fusion: Why toast plasma when you can microwave it!
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240806131216.htm
    Carving a new path forward for compact fusion vessels
Date:
   August 6, 2024
Source:
   DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Summary:
   Can plasma be sufficiently heated inside a tokamak using only microwaves?
   New research suggests it can! Eliminating the central ohmic heating coil
   normally used in tokamaks will free up much-needed space for a more compact,
   efficient spherical tokamak.

>
Not so much carving a new path as looking for one. Maybe be gyrotrons
can heat the plasma enough, but planing to do experiment which can test
whether they can isn't exactly carving a new path - more just looking at
a possible new path.
>

Bye bye ITER and that otehr fusion attempt mayonaise thing
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240806131357.htm
    Researchers dig deeper into stability challenges of nuclear fusion -- with mayonnaise
>
Now all I am waiting for is a 10 year old kid doing a better than break even fusion experiment in its parents kitchen...

>
You may have to wait a long time. Mayonaise may exhibit Rayleigh-Taylor
instability, but the lessons it might be able to impart would be
difficult to translate into totomak design.

 I like that Farnsworth fusor thing

Of course you do. You are too dim to notice that it can't generate enough energy to be a useful energy source - though it can be a handy source of neutrons if you need them.
This spelled out if the link you posted, but clearly didn't read.

They mention the grid gets too hot as a problem.
Why not use a water filled pipe as grid,
heat the water to steam, drive a small steam engine
that drives a generator that drives a HV converter,
simple electronics, there is a table top experiment.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
   so many simple ways to improve that setup!

But none are going to make it an energy source.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
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