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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 takyon on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:43AM (1 child)
Fusion was "invented" decades ago.
[citation needed]
Maybe, but you still won't get Iron Man (you'll just melt). Maybe 8-meter tall mechs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:36AM
A workable form of human-initiated hydrogen fusion was invented decades ago*. It wasn't discovered as there was a worked example hanging around in the heavens for all of mankind's existence. Once the theory was understood, the rest was engineering. Actual nuclear fusion was demonstrated somewhat earlier, sometime between 1921 and 1925.
*It's not when you think. Many people think the first demonstration of hydrogen fusion was the Ivy Mike test [wikipedia.org] on 1st November 1952, but the Teller-Ulam design [wikipedia.org] fuses Deuterium and Tritium, which, while being isotopes of hydrogen, are not the primary fusion reaction that takes place in the Sun [wikipedia.org]. Actually, hydrogen fusion (if you count the isotopes) was first demonstrated in laboratory by Mark Oliphant [wikipedia.org] in 1933, working with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish laboratory - and atomic fusion of any kind was first performed by humans, again in the Cavendish laboratory, this time by Patrick Blackett [wikipedia.org], sometime between 1921 and 1925, converting nitrogen into oxygen by absorption of a deuteron. I'm not sure when the first hydrogen-hydrogen fusion was demonstrated.