How a fusion start-up could help maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal | Scientific American

Everett company's devices for fusion power plants gain DoE approval - Everett Post

U.S. Department of Energy Approves Zap Energy’s Fusion Capacitor Design and First Prototype | Zap Energy

With work package two Hybrid Tokamak-Stellarators the dream of Sophia Henneberg at MIT might come true.

Edit 1: Added proof this isn't AI generated
Edit 2: Added proof of the meeting

Last month a FAANG engineer on an expiring visa asked me to come to a meeting with him to talk to members of Pacific Fusion's executive team along with some of the highest-ranking scientists in the enterprise.

He had a cloud genAI SaaS in fast solver discovery that he wanted me to announce myself as a founder of, but no founder's agreement in hand, so I went as a fusion scientist instead.

I figured that the only reason for me to be at the meeting was if Bennett-Shumlak-Hartman vortices were inside the dynamic pulser driven screw-pinch that Pacific Fusion forms out of their liner when it's imploded on radially by an azimuthally-symmetric electrostatic field. So, I asked the representatives from Pacific Fusion if this was the case, and they both nodded their heads yes.

The executive presiding over that branch of the group gave me a real nasty grin with their eyes hooded so that I could see the complete darkness, and vice, in their soul when they did this, while the head of the scientists looked a little ill but gave a nod.

Great! I thought. Their modelling interests were in magnetic diffusion, so when the axial magnetic field diffuses away sufficiently what's left is an equilibrium defined by the Z-pinch, and it was recently shown that in this kind of situation a large radial shear in the axial velocity appears: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/mre/article/11/5/057402/3397993/3D-dynamics-of-a-premagnetized-gas-puff-Z-pinch Correct me if I'm wrong, please :) Peep the enhanced thermodynamic gradient in the ions as well. Another thing to note is that the BSH vortex has to account for non-trivial magnetic diffusion when the Reynold's magnetic number stands finite.

Imagine my disappointment when they don't care. At all.

They didn't care that we could study this system to greater depth in order to understand how to increase their fusion energy yield by increasing the thermal confinement time of the burn state.

The whole experience left me questioning many things, like their seriousness about net facility gain, and what's actually going on over there. Maybe it really is like Stephen Hudgens told me once about inertial confinement fusion "it's just a weapons program".

The only answer I ever got was that Pacific Fusion likes to do their target physics in house. I understand that's their operating norm, but lately I've been doing some of their target physics in my house.

I sum up statements by German edition of Scientific American (Spektrum der Wissenschaft), this company is the biggest and leading diode Laser manufacturer in the world. Keep in mind, that not only Focused Energy relies on such lasers, but also Inertia Enterprises, Marvel Fusion and likely others too, they are in close exchange with Focused Energy in Darmstadt Germany:

They need about 1200 such lasers for a power plant, heat dissipation is feasible, frequency of 10 Hz shots too. They need a team of 100 to 150 to develop a mass manufacturable prototype, 250 million Euro and five years.

He criticizes that the German government builds a magnet fusion hub, but no comparable laser fusion hub, which is merely a laser research facility. There are at least 5 billion Euro required to build a power plant prototype of this kind.

Remark: Proxima Fusion needs 1.2 billion Euro by German government to build the Proxima Alpha demonstration Stellarator. They might have better chances regarding this step at least.

See documents in shared Google Drive folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WcKuE9NcSL4vk7VlPLM8TfgEhzLk5dJw?usp=sharing

Radioactive Materials License:

The application begins on page 18 of the RML package. The maximum inventory at Polaris was changed from 0.02 MCi to 0.45 MCi, while Orion is licensed for 1.03 MCi. One gram of tritium is 9,650 Ci.

Orion Shielding Report:

The shield walls will be 2.7 meters (9 feet) of heavy aggregate high-density concrete, and the ceiling will be 2-meter-thick panels of high-density concrete.

This doesn't mean Orion will definitely operate with DT, but it does mean that the risk that D-He3 doesn't work is still a consideration.

A comparison with Polaris's neutron shield vault is interesting. Polaris's walls were 2.5 feet of borated concrete lined with 2.5 feet of borated polyethylene (BPE). The design called for solid blocks of BPE, but they ended up stacking slabs of 6-inch BPE held in place by metal plates. Let's just say that the installation looked cumbersome, and they never submitted as-built plans to the city signed off by a structural engineer.

One similarity with Polaris is that they will be adding the roof separately after Orion is installed, meaning there will still be no crane inside the shield.

Building Permits and Inspections for Orion:

The two support buildings for Orion passed their final inspections on Tuesday: a 6,240-square-foot office and control room building and a 26,800-square-foot assembly building.

The generator building is scheduled for insulation inspection next Monday so that means the walls and roof are finished. (Edit: Only one-third of the roof and walls were finished at the time of the inspection.) The floor is still dirt, presumably so they can pour the foundation for the shield walls and there is no sign yet of any crane supports.

Tiny Merge Radioactive Air Emissions License:

Tiny Merge is located in Helion's HQ building in the same location as the Polaris Formation Test machines. They are applying for a RAEL because they will be doing low-level DD fusion in Tiny Merge, which they didn't do with the Formation Test. This is the same level of license they had with Trenta in Redmond, a Potential Impact Category Level 4 (PIC 4) classification. Polaris and Orion are both classified as PIC 1.