Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Friday August 02 2019, @12:49AM   Printer-friendly

Submitted via IRC for FatPhil

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is set to launch operations in 2025. A multination project to build a fusion reactor cleared a milestone yesterday and is now 6 ½ years away from "First Plasma," officials announced.

Yesterday, dignitaries attended a components handover ceremony at the construction site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in southern France. The ITER project is an experiment aimed at reaching the next stage in the evolution of nuclear energy as a means of generating emissions-free electricity.

The section recently installed—the cryostat base and lower cylinder—paves the way for the installation of the tokamak, the technology design chosen to house the powerful magnetic field that will encase the ultra-hot plasma fusion core.

"Manufactured by India, the ITER cryostat is 16,000 cubic meters," ITER officials said in a release. "Its diameter and height are both almost 30 meters and it weighs 3,850 tons. Because of its bulk, it is being fabricated in four main sections: the base, lower cylinder, upper cylinder, and top lid."

[...] Thirty-five nations are cooperating on the project to bring fusion power to the masses.

Achieving controlled fusion reactions that net more power than they take to generate, and at commercial scale, is seen as a potential answer to climate change. Fusion energy would eliminate the need for fossil fuels and solve the intermittency and reliability concerns inherent with renewable energy sources. The energy would be generated without the dangerous amounts of radiation that raises concerns about fission nuclear energy.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-experiment-clears-milestone/?fbclid=IwAR0n9_ECQPV8c4WFUI11lqXeZF9l0xz2oEqJxOYXEwONA05zGhgZiMWWfBE


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @01:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @01:57PM (#874615)

    i am kindda excited abou this. it's giving many smart people the chance to manufacture something outrageous (some part of iter) that might not ever get produced if it were just profit oriented. maybe in the process something new pop up.
    however what is rather enthusiasm dampening is the fact that this reactor will also produce copious amounts of free neutrons.
    this, coupled with another fact that is that the torus design has more or less been studied to death.
    in the 90's, the design was already 30 years old ... and didnt work.
    the excuse for the torus design not to die and try something new seems to be:"But it just needs to be BIGGER!"
    if the torus design eventually produces more energy then put in, i suspect that it will be of such an enormous size that it's operation will cement into place endless reliable energy BUT ALSO "the financial ruling party" of the planet!
    because, you know, judging from just the puny energy freedom solar pv produces and the hurdles involved to connect it to the big boy grid, a cupboard sized working fusion reactor would upset the balanced of the "powers that be" something massively.
    so, there's probably a way to do fusion that way (go 3-phase synchrogenerator+supermagnets+MHD) but would upset the worlds (financial) ruling class (and their philosophy, culture, mentality) too much.
    so, maybe, fusion being good, the "good" radioactif waste will spearhead (soften sentiment) the reopening of defered radioactif dump sites?

    note: also i figured it out: if the "heat of helium" can be decelerated in a magnetic field there's no need to go the "long way" to extract fusion energy by heating water to steam to turbine. if the "hot helium ion could do work on a field, the field gains energy and the helium cools down and loses energy?