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Tests Confirm That Germany's Massive Nuclear Fusion Machine Really Works

posted by Snow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the pocket-full-of-sunshine dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

At the end of last year, Germany switched on a new type of massive nuclear fusion reactor for the first time, and it was successfully able to contain a scorching hot blob of helium plasma.

But since then, there's been a big question - is the device working the way it's supposed to? That's pretty crucial when you're talking about a machine that could potentially maintain controlled nuclear fusion reactions one day, and thankfully, the answer is yes.

A team of researchers from the US and Germany have now confirmed that the Wendelstein 7-X (W 7-X) stellerator is producing the super-strong, twisty, 3D magnetic fields that its design predicted, with "unprecedented accuracy". The researchers found an error rate less than one in 100,000.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:40PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:40PM (#438127) Journal

    Sadly, life isn't like sci-fi, and "containment" doesn't mean "preventing a nuclear explosion" but is instead a requisite state for the plasma to be in before fusion is even possible.

    H-Bombs essentially use a small fission explosion as containment for the tritium-deuterium reaction that fuels the big boom.

    It turns out to be really really really hard to keep particles with the same charge in close proximity.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:47PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:47PM (#438130)

    Not just in proximity of each other, but far away from walls, windings and people which wouldn't be very happy to meet them up close, even if there aren't too many of them for now.

    I like calling the fission igniter explosion a "containment". A 100t hydraulic press is also a container, I guess.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:41AM (#438176)

      "Containment" (in this context) refers to its relationship to the object being contained.

      A press is only a container if it is containing something in that might come out...

      I nuclear fission reactor that fails to contain plasma is just a giant, incredible expensive metal donut...