REALTA FUSION INDUSTRIAL HEAT & POWER FROM FUSION Dec 2023 – Japan – Industry Introduction Vision Realta Fusion’s development of compact high-field magnetic mirrors and a strategic focus on industrial heat & power will be the lowest capital, least complex path to commercially competitive fusion energy outline • Introduction to Realta Fusion • The high field and compact magnetic mirror path to fusion • Status report on Realta Fusion activities • status of WHAM • Digital Twins • Engineering of BEAM • Summary timeline • October 2020: $10M ARPA-E funded project, WHAM (Wisconsin) • September 2022: Spin-out company established (Realta Fusion) • May 2023: Seed round led by Khosla Ventures • May 2023: Selected for U.S. Dept. of Energy Milestone Award (ENERGY.GOV) • 2028: Break-even class device operating • 2030s: Decarbonizing heavy industry Realta Fusion Team • Cary Forest, PhD - CSO & Co-Founder • Kieran Furlong, MBA - CEO & Co-Founder • Doug Endrizzi, PhD - Research Scientist • Sam Frank, PhD - Theorist • Dominick Bindl, PhD - Director of Technical Development • Craig Jacobson, PhD - Systems Engineering Manager • Jay Anderson, PhD - Co-Founder (Plasma heating and stability, U.Wisconsin Scientist / PhD) • Oliver Schmitz, PhD - Co-Founder • Ben Lindley, PhD - Co-Founder • Toni Hofhine, B.Sc - VP Operations • Jesse Viola, B.Sc - Research Associate ...& growing... The mirror path was abandoned by the US in the mid-80s: Why now? Apply new enabling technologies to a mature concept that was ahead of its time: • High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) Magnets: ...up to 32T • Breakthrough in plasma stability: shear stabilization of plasma in GDT (Budker Institute) • Extreme Computing Power: simulating plasmas at particle level & "fly-by-wire" • Advances in fusion technologies: High energy Neutral Beam Injectors, Gyrotrons, Plasma Facing Materials, etc. (Image: Gas Dynamic Trap experiment, Budker Institute) High magnetic fields and axisymmetry open up a path to high mirror ratio and breakeven in a single mirror and simplifies the tandem mirror reactor • High-field Axisymmetric Magnetic Mirror Reactor (Reference: T. K. Fowler, R. W. Moir, and T. C. Simonen, A New Simpler Way to Obtain High Fusion Power Gain in Tandem Mirrors, Nucl Fusion 57, 056014 (2017)) • Break-Even Axisymmetric Mirror (BEAM) (Reference: C.B. Forest et al, Prospects for a high-field, compact Break-Even Axisymmetric Mirror and Applications, Journal of Plasma Physics (2023)) • Historical vs. Projected parameter space chart showing 2XIIB (1976), TMX-U (1979/1982), Gamma10, MFTF/MFTF-B, WHAM, HAMMiR, and BEAM with lawson criterion scaling (n*tau vs. T_i, increasing B x radius). Technology risk reduction path Risk vs. Time roadmap: • 2023: "Bench scale" WHAM + upgrades - Demonstrate magnets - Validation of Plasma stability models - Direct energy conversion (DEC) - RF acceleration of beam ions • 2028: "Pilot scale" BEAM - Plasma Stability at modest pulse length ~5s - Demonstrate control of plasma profiles - Test next generation of magnets (bigger, stronger) - Demonstrate required energy efficiency of heating systems • 2029: BEAM upgrade HAMMiR (Steady State, Tritium operation, Qs>1) • Early 2030s: Demo plant on industrial site (Stable fusion core, Working blanket, Tritium fuel cycle, Qe>1) • Mid 2030s: First Commercial Plant @ full scale (Completed Process integration) WHAM: Vessel assembled and under vacuum • Realta is leading the diagnostic coordination and V&V of digital twins (above and beyond ARPA-E) • Paper reference: "Physics basis for the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM)", J. Plasma Phys. (2023), vol. 89, D. Endrizzi, J.K. Anderson, M. Brown, J. Egedal, B. Geiger, R.W. Harvey, M. Ialovega, J. Kirch, E. Peterson, Yu.V. Petrov, J. Pizzo, T. Qian, K. Sanwalka, O. Schmitz, J. Wallace, D. Yakovlev, M. Yu and C.B. Forest. • Year 1 diagnostics: - mm wave interferometer - IR, visible, SXR, HXR cameras - fusion product detectors - Edge phi, b-dot, Langmuir probes - Thomson Scattering (ORNL via Realta INFUSE) - NBI shine thru array - Da array - Diamagnetic loops - WISP gauges WHAM Milestone: Glow discharge created 11/27/23 (Photographs of glow discharge plasma inside vacuum chamber, supported by ARPA-E and University of Wisconsin-Madison) WHAM Milestone: Glow discharge created 11/27/23 (Close-up viewport photograph showing internal vessel glow discharge discharge components) WHAM: Control, data acq and 4 critical subsystems ready • Fuel system prefills vessel • ECH breakdown timed at t=0 • 1 MW NBI after density buildup • Bias supplies for limiters and bias rings ready for experiments (Shot 231128063 data showing P_ves, P_ECH dummy load vs vessel, NBI power, and bias limiter/ring voltages and currents over time) Electron Cyclotron Heating ready • Power supply internally rebuilt with more robust IGBTs and drivers; • Several improvements to capacitor bank and bus work implemented (including output fuse) • 20 msec pulse demonstrated at target 70kV; 30A • Power supply fault 11/17/23: output filter. Repairs underway. • Gyrotron power output >600kW; controllable. (Plots: Gyrotron Output Power at MOU Window vs Cryomagnet Current; Shot 231211029 showing Gyrotron Voltage, Current, and Dummy Load Power) NBI conditioning progress • 2023 10/09 • 2023 10/23 • 2023 11/07 • 2023 11/21: P_ion ~ 836 kW (Sequential optical images of neutral beam injector plasma source conditioning) WHAM Mirror coils (pacing item) (Feb 2024) In collaboration with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS): • Thing 1.1 tested to full field: 17.05 T, 8/13/23 2:22:00 AM. – Outperformed design: 12% more dense superconducting winding pack, decreased internal resistance. – L/R increased required test time at CFS on Thing 1; schedule adjusted. • Thing 2 into final assembly with testing scheduled for January 2024. 2D & 3D kinetic simulations of open-field devices out of reach ~30 years ago (Los Alamos National Laboratory collaboration) • Mirror expander in 2D full PIC, mi/me=400 (Wetherton+ 2021, PoP): matches kinetic model of electric potential • 3D mirror device in Hybrid-VPIC: particle ions, fluid electrons (Le+ 2023, PoP) • On-axis ion distributions, left to right (x = 25, 75, 125, 175) • See also: - GBS drift-reduced two-fluid (Rogers+ 2010; Fisher+ 2015, 2017) - Gkeyll gyrokinetics (Shi+ 2017, 2019; Francisquez+ 2023) High ion beta and radial voltage biasing suppress interchange turbulence (Los Alamos National Laboratory) • Simulations catching up to theory and experiment for mirror devices • Mirror ratio RM = 5; duration 8 (left) and 24 (middle/right) thermal-ion bounce times L / v_th,ion • Test cases evaluated: T_i = 5 keV, T_i = 45 keV, and T_i = 45 keV + bias • 3D mirror device in Hybrid-VPIC: particle ions, fluid electrons (Le+ 2023, PoP) • Plasma radius: a / rho_ion = 24 (left), 8 (middle/right) • Ion composition: thermal + beam. Beam ions ~1–10% by number, 40x energy, 45 deg. pitch angle High ion beta and radial voltage biasing suppress interchange turbulence • Low cost! (~10k CPU-hr) -> tight iteration loop • Looking ahead: • WHAM Phase 2 simulations (RM = 20) • Collisional Fokker-Planck model distributions -> Hybrid-VPIC to test kinetic-ion instability • Tuning of bias control (cf. LAPD results) • 3D mirror device in Hybrid-VPIC: particle ions, fluid electrons (Le+ 2023, PoP) • Plasma radius: a / rho_ion = 24 (left), 8 (middle/right) • Ion composition: thermal + beam. Beam ions ~1–10% by number, 40x energy, 45 deg. pitch angle BEAM could be FIRST—integrated DT blanket testing at ~1-10 MW scale • Realta has started the integrated project planning for BEAM; mission being refined • Major technical challenges identified: high field, larger bore magnets; steady-state NBI at 100 keV • As FIRST: • Low tritium usage (< 1 kG/FPyr) • Single facility to allow full scope integration testing with DT • Geometry in principle allows multiple blanket concepts to be tested at same time • Phased approach would also derisk the FPNS mission: start with short pulse D-D fusion and gradually work towards extended D-T operation. • BEAM is of the technical maturity to meet FIRST requirements on a competitive timeline • Parameters table (WHAM vs BEAM): - Q_DT: ~0.05 vs ~1 - Beta: 0.3 vs 0.3 - L_p (m): 2.0 vs 8 - a_0 (m): 0.12 vs 0.30 - a_M (m): 0.025 vs 0.10 - R_M: 20 vs 10 - B_0 (Tesla): 0.85 vs 2.5 - B_M (Tesla): 17 vs 25 - E_NBI (keV): 30 vs 100 - P_NBI (MW): <1 vs 10 - T_i (keV): 17 vs 80 - T_e (keV): 2.5 vs 10 - n_20 (m^-3): 0.3 vs 1 - tau_p (sec): 0.15 vs 0.25 - n*tau*T: 0.7 vs 20 (10^20 m^-3 keV sec) - Pulse length (sec): <2 vs >5 - kA*m of HTS tape: ~10^4 vs 4.3 x 10^5 - Cost of tape ($M): ~1 vs 40 • Reference: Journal of Plasma Physics (2023) "Prospects for a high-field, compact Break Even Axisymmetric Mirror (BEAM) and applications", C.B. Forest et al. Summary • Realta is an early stage startup pursuing the high-field, compact mirror path to fusion • Realta has hit the ground running • boots on the ground for WHAM first plasma • leading validation efforts (diagnostics and theory) for digital twins on WHAM for projection to BEAM • Has started engineering project for BEAM • BEAM could be FIRST