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Raphael Thys
Could a new fusion reactor design finally unlock this ultimate energy source?
Nuclear fusion power could save the world. With it we would have, on-tap, near-limitless energy with zero carbon emissions. We could power our modern lives and beyond without fear of killing Mother Earth. In our quest to unlock this elusive power we have built ever larger and more complex contraptions. Yet even these behemoth machines can’t unlock fusion power. However, ex-Blue Origin engineers have a plan not only to build a working fusion reactor that generates power, but one you could carry in a backpack. Welcome to the astonishing world of Avalanche Energy’s orbitron fusion battery.
Before we dive into the orbitron, we first need to look at why our current fusion reactor designs got so massive and complex, without being able to generate a net gain in power.
Take JET (Joint European Torus). This 2,800 tonne reactor can hold 100 m³ of hydrogen plasma and produce 16.1 MW of power! Yet it took considerably more power input to achieve this. Why?
Inside the JET reactor — JET
There is a multitude of reasons. But one of the most significant is the machine’s complexity. Tokamak reactors like JET require massive supercooled electromagnets to confine, heat and squeeze their hydrogen plasma. But that means having something very cold next to something very hot creates very complex and bulky engineering challenges. The heating, cooling, confining and power solutions required to make these reactors work are incredibly complicated and so have lots of opportunities for unintended losses to occur. This ultimately reduces efficiency, meaning we can’t get a net gain in energy from the reactor.
But this complexity (and sheer size) also slows down development. It takes decades and millions of dollars to engineer, test, prove solutions and optimize these immensely convoluted machines, which is why these rectors still can’t generate power.
This is where Avalanche and their orbitron reactor come in. They have done away with powerful magnets and giant reactors. Instead, they have taken an entirely different approach and designed a new reactor from scratch. What’s more, they reckon their unique design could soon create a fusion reactor the size of a lunch pale that can produce 5 kW of energy (net gain). But how?
Illustration of the orbitron — Avalanche
Well, it has everything to do with two things, using a different aspect of plasma dynamics and rapid prototyping.
Firstly, the orbitron uses a device similar to the magnetron found in microwaves, to create a spiraling jet of hydrogen plasma. We can make quite powerful jets with very little power as we understand this technology well. However, there are two spirals inside the orbitron and their paths cross multiple times inside the reaction chamber. During these ‘glancing blows’ the collisions between the hydrogen atoms have enough kinetic energy to cause fusion and release a lot of energy!
So rather than creating and squeezing a big bubble of hot plasma, like a tokamak, the orbitron uses ‘glancing blow’ dynamics to create fusion. Intheory, this could be far more efficient than tokamak’s as the devices needed are far less powerful and complex. However, we don’t understand how to optimize the ‘glancing blow’ dynamics yet. But more on that in a minute.
3D printing has brought rapid prototyping to most industries — Photo by Tom Claes on Unsplash
Secondly, the simplicity and size here mean that they can quickly develop this reactor for very little money. Rapid prototyping has become a given in many industries, but it is very novel for fusion power. Yet fusion is a technology that can significantly benefit from it.
We are awful at predicting and managing the chaos within these superheated hydrogen plasmas. This is why we need to use trial and error to find the best setup. But there are literally hundreds of dead-end solutions. For massive multi-billion dollar projects like JET this costs vast sums of money and time to try out all the different solutions and hone in on the correct setup. This is the exact opposite of rapid prototyping.
Modelling and prodicting plasma mechanics is hard — Photo by Amos from Stockphotos.com on Unsplash
This won’t be the case for the orbitron. As their reactor is small and simple they can build new parts for a staggeringly low price and even include exotic materials without breaking the bank. What’s more, the turnaround from a ‘concept solution’ to a tried and tested ‘functional solution’ will be far, far quicker than any other fusion reactor. So they can optimize their design far faster, and for far less money, whilst quickly getting a deep understanding of ‘glancing blow’ plasma dynamics.
So, even though the tokamak design has decades of development behind it Avalanche is confident that it can catch up and overtake tokamaks in a matter of years, thanks to their rapid prototyping capability.
Avalanche recently landed $5 million of private funding to build a ‘proof of concept’ reactor. This may sound like a lot, but other fusion startups like Helion needed far more to get their first reactor off the ground. This shows just how astonishingly cheap the orbitron reactor could be.
Orbitron reactor on a work bench — Avalanche
With this funding they hope to develop a fusion reactor the size of a lunch palethat can produce 5 kW of net gain power. For context, that is enough to power a home, assuming you have a battery to cope with high-demand times. Such a reactor could then be used as a modular power solution. You need 10 to power a car? Sure thing! You want to run a city off fusion? Use a few thousand!
So, once Avalanche cracks its design, they could revolutionise the world by providing the fully flexible and modular carbon-neutral power solution we have been begging for.
But they do need to develop their design before they can take over the world and they have some substantial engineering challenges along the way. For example, materials within the reactor can have a dielectric breakdown (electric insulation failure) as the voltages are immensely high. But, they have rapid prototyping on their side. So who knows, the world may soon be powered by modular fusion power reactors developed by ex-Blue Origin engineers.