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Higher magnetic fields are challenging. ITER has up to 13.5 T at its coils, which is the maximum Freidberg considers in his paper for current coil materials. YBCO can handle 20 T, fine - but that is just a 50% increase, and making coils out of high-temperature superconductors is a huge mess. It was considered for an LHC upgrade, but they chose to keep using Nb3Sn. It is still planned to go to 20 T in the dipole magnets if a larger ring will ever be built, but that is a field over a few centimeters, not a few meters. Cable links (but not coils) use HTS in some places (article).
Freidberg's paper predicts costs that increase substantially with increasing magnetic field strength (figure 7b). It also predicts lower costs/MW for larger power plants (8b).
Stellarators could be an answer. We'll see what Wendelstein 7-X does.
Freidberg's paper predicts costs that increase substantially with increasing magnetic field strength (figure 7b). It also predicts lower costs/MW for larger power plants (8b).
Stellarators could be an answer. We'll see what Wendelstein 7-X does.