Re:Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X stell...
by loblollyboy on Sunday December 11, 2016 @11:25AM
(#13151729)
Same as all current power plants - heat energy to a working fluid to spin turbine but I don't know details. Seems like you would need a much bigger device than today's to fit that in - need to be a lot bigger anyway as their effectiveness scales with size.
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Re:Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X stell...
by vilhelm_s on Sunday December 11, 2016 @12:49PM
(#13152125)
The Wendelstein 7-X is already water-cooled --- it has too be, or it would melt. (It has a 10 MW heating system to create a hot plasma like what would be in a fusion reactor, and then the cooling system has to remove 10MW of heat). So I think you could hook that up to a turbine already.
However, it is too small to break even. A smaller device will loose plasma faster (bigger surface area/volume), so too make it produce enough energy it needs to be big. See this picture of the planned ITER, note the human figure for scale:
https://www.iter.org//doc/www/content/com/Lists/Stories/Atta...
Re:Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X stell...
by Sir_Substance on Sunday December 11, 2016 @12:08PM
(#13151942)
If you're burning fuels that result in charged particles, you can use direct energy conversion: