Homopolar Motor Generator Designs for Cheap Inertial Energy Storage

One of the limitations to the research in fusion power is the need for a cheap method of storing large amounts of energy. This energy is needed for the main confinement magnetic field in the next Tokamak and must be capable of transfer from the store to the coil in a short time (1 to 10 sec.). Conventional power supplies are unnecessarily expensive since it is quite possible that the existence of the field for l or 2 seconds would be sufficient. An inertial energy storage system utilizing a homopolar generator was studied for feasibility and found to be satisfactory resulting in the design, construction and testing of a bench model along with the design of an intermediate 50 M.J. machine to power the present Texas Tokamak.