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Speeding the development of fusion power to create unlimited energy on Earth
Can tokamak fusion facilities, the most widely used devices for harvesting on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars, be developed more quickly to produce safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy for generating electricity? Physicist Jon Menard of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has examined that question in a detailed look at the concept of a compact tokamak equipped with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Such magnets can produce higher magnetic fields – necessary to produce and sustain fusion reactions – than would otherwise be possible in a compact facility.
Menard first presented the paper [open, DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2017.0440] [DX], now published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, to a Royal Society workshop in London that explored accelerating the development of tokamak-produced fusion power with compact tokamaks. "This is the first paper that quantitatively documents how the new superconductors can interplay with the high pressure that compact tokamaks produce to influence how tokamaks are optimized in the future," Menard said. "What we tried to develop were some simple models that capture important aspects of an integrated design."
The findings are "very significant," said Steve Cowley, director of PPPL. Cowley noted that "Jon's arguments in this and the previous paper have been very influential in the recent National Academies of Sciences report," which calls for a U.S. program to develop a compact fusion pilot plant to generate electricity at the lowest possible cost. "Jon has really outlined the technical aspects for much smaller tokamaks using high-temperature magnets," Cowley said.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 25 2019, @09:29PM (1 child)
That heat pump is going to need a beanstalk for a radiator, and I don't thing carbon fibers are strong enough. Either that or you're going to need to make some really high plateau hot enough to change the climate over the entire globe. A low red hot should probably be hot enough. Now, how do you pump the heat into that? (This isn't a matter of generating the heat there, it's a matter of collecting the heat from all over and pumping it onto that plateau. Of course, you run into the same problem with the beanstalk, but there the radiator is cold enough at the top end, that you could use it to cool the poles, so I guess you need two of them.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:55AM
The oceans would seem to be a good heat conductor for global distribution, let them bring the heat to the pump.
A breakthrough in higher temperature superconductors would be a nice thing to conduct heat up a beanstalk, although I think that replacing the telescope farm at the top of Mauna Kea with a big-hotter than lava radiator wouldn't be a bad thing. You could also run a higher gradient heat pump into Mauna Loa - pushing heat from the ocean back into the mantle, if the vulcanologists can identify a strong subduction current in the lava that would take hotter lava down.
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