Kalistani Major History

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Kalistani SFZP-EFR project reaches milestone
Fusion Reactor sustains Plasma compression for 1.383 seconds
Bozo River Experimental Reactor, Ananto
May 17, 5089


The remains of an experimental prototype which produced a stable column of burning plasma for just over one second before burning out

Dr. Janice Schmidt announced today that the Experimental Fusion Reactor has reached a milestone in the fusion "In this afternoon's test," Said Dr. Schmidt, "we sustained a stable compression of the plasma for just over one second, before the containment shear collapsed. While maintaining the compression still required more energy than was produced, we do have evidence of energy output from the reactor at a ratio of about .08, to the tune of about .89 Megajoules of energy and evidence of the tritium breeding cycle also occurring. This is an amazing step forward and demonstrates that we are so much closer to creation of the first commercially viable DT Plasma Fusion Reactor: We are on the very doorstep of ignition."

Backers in the Republican Government, concerned with the crisis in Lourenne, and potential budget pinches this will put on the National Budget, have begun helping the experimental reactor seek large scale private sector investment in an effort to shift the project to a more equal public-private partnership. "Financiers at KALNAPECO have worked with the project to set up a shall investment company to handle private sector investment into the project," said CFO Mike Green. "The company, Ananto Futures, will handle all the public money and accept private investment, which will then go to continue funding Dr. Schmidt's work at Bozo River." In this way, even foreign companies can contribute investment to the project to ensure that it will be a successful venture.

"The ultimate pricetag of just over 8.5 million Rubles is a bit steep, and that is not including the hundreds of millions that have already been spent on development," said Green. "Naturally, the Republic will insist that the reactor, once completed, will remain in the public space, and all return on all investments will be calculated at that time. But as you can imagine, it is hard to sell that to foreign investors who are keenly interested in the project, but hope to use the reactor to earn profit." Green noted that building the working reactor is one thing. Selling it will be comparatively easy.

"Once the working reactor is up and running," said Green, "You can see it here in the prototype: This can fit onto the back of a flatbed semi truck and assembled on site. The scalable model, the ones which can power whole cities, whole islands, those will be somewhat larger, but not by much. It will be easy, we think, to produce models that can be disassembled and transported to other countries. And of course, those who maintain their investments will receive a return from that. But Schmidt estimates that we are still at least 10 years away from large scale production of these fusion reactors. This test is a major achievement in that direction."

Dr. Schmidt was enthusiastic. "We have demonstrated that we can maintain a compression reaction over a relatively long time. One second may not seem like that long, but it is proof of concept that our gas sheer gas sheer served to keep the plasma compressing and generating energy. While we are still far below the Q=1 ratio that we seek to make this an actual power generator, we have nonetheless demonstrated that we can eventually get there. Think of a bolt of lightning: In nature, there is no way to contain lightning, and the bolt kind of goes everywhere. What you see there is plasma with a relatively weak static charge running through it. Now imagine compressing that whole 4 miles long bolt of lightning into a cylinder compressed together by the charge itself to pressures and temperatures many millions of times greater than anything we have on earth. Something like in the center of the sun. That is what we are working with here, and we have contained the reaction and can now therefore sustain it for a longer period of time. And the potential is infinite."

Dr. Schmidt intends to do more tests in the coming months, and says that she expects that the experimental reactor will reach the 1.0 threshold within a year, meaning that the reactor will generate more energy than it takes to run--Technically this will mean that ignition has been achieved. "At that point, we will still need fine tune the reactor for the purpose of containment and sustaining the reaction over much longer periods, days, weeks, months, or years, perhaps," said Dr. Schmidt. "Our primary issue is with the pulse current and the ability to vary the speeds of the plasma along the column- We need the plasma inside to flow slower that the plasma toward the edge of the column which contains the reaction at the center. We will accomplish this when we get the sheathing gas blanket to the right speeds that will sort of drag the plasma along, creating a heavily magnetic field around the outside of the plasma cylinder, without the need to use electromagnets. With each test, we calibrate our instruments closer and closer to create the pulse which sustains the field that contains the plasma without instability, and increase our efficiency to produce more power than we are supplying to the machine. That will require a lot more trial and error, but once it is achieved, it will be reproducible. We think the actually current needed is around 650,000 amperes to hit our breakeven point."

The SFZP-EFR Program at Bozo River continues, and gets closer and closer to the goal of clean fusion energy for the Republic and the world.