LK-99 isn’t a superconductor – how science sleuths solved the mystery

Re:LK-99 isn’t a superconductor – how science sleuths solved... by DennisP on Wednesday August 16, 2023 @08:32PM (#37155697)

REBCO is revolutionizing fusion reactors. Several companies are using it to build tokamaks with the same performance as ITER, but in a tenth the size.

REBCO supports stronger magnetic fields, and conveniently, tokamak output scales with the fourth power of magnetic field strength.

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Re:LK-99 isn’t a superconductor – how science sleuths solved... by pfdietz on Thursday August 17, 2023 @07:49AM (#37160186)

> same performance as ITER, but in a tenth the size

So instead of being 400 times the volume of a PWR with the same gross power output, they're just 40 times the volume. It's no panacea to the economic challenges facing fusion.

The other way to get high volumetric power density is go with a configuration of higher beta, the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure (fusion power at a given magnetic field scales as beta^2). Helion isn't using superconductors at all.

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Re:LK-99 isn’t a superconductor – how science sleuths solved... by u320 on Thursday August 17, 2023 @07:57AM (#37160259)

REBCO was a bigger deal for fusion than LK99 would have been. We can't make tokamaks smaller, the magnetic forces would rip them apart.

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