Three decades and $23.7 billion later, the 25,000-ton International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is close to becoming something like the sun.
Circa 2018
The ubiquitous particles are helping to map the innards of pyramids and volcanoes, and spot missing nuclear waste.
Kilopower is a small, light-weight fission nuclear power system capable of providing up to 10 kilowatts of electrical power — enough to run several average households continuously for at least 10 years.
Four Kilopower units would provide enough power to establish an outpost on the Moon or Mars.
#engineering
Fusion research began in earnest in the 1960s, when scientists developed mirror machines. These linear tubes have pinched magnetic field lines on either end that act like mirrors, reflecting the charged plasma particles inward and retaining them and their heat in the machine. American researchers halted mirror research three decades ago, mainly due to an inability to contain the plasma.
WHAM will essentially take the team’s research back to the mirror machine days, but with significant upgrades.
“We hope to go well beyond what was done in the mirror program because we have access to very-high-field superconducting magnets like those being built by our partners for toroidal (donut-shaped) plasmas,” Forest says. “These magnets and heating systems simply weren’t available 20 years ago. It’s a new look at an older concept using new technology.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the winners of $32 million in funding for 15 projects as part of the Breakthroughs Enabling THermonuclear-fusion Energy (BETHE) program. These projects will work to develop timely, commercially viable fusion energy, with the goal to increase the number and performance levels of lower-cost fusion concepts.
“Fusion energy technology holds great potential to be a safe, clean, reliable energy source, but research and development of fusion technology is often constrained by prohibitive costs,” said Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes. “BETHE teams will build on recent progress in fusion research and the growing fusion community to lower costs and further foster viable commercial opportunities for the next generation of fusion technology.”
“These BETHE projects further advance ARPA-E’s commitment to the development of fusion energy as a cost-competitive, viable, energy generation source,” said ARPA-E Director Lane Genatowski. “Commercially viable fusion energy can improve our chances of meeting global energy demand and will further establish U.S. technological lead in this crucial area.”
Circa 2009 could used for a new fusion reactor using only a magnet.
Physicist Stewart E. Barnes and his collaborators at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, Japan, have created a device that can store energy in nanomagnets.
Long Haul
There’s a lot that needs to happen before that pilot fusion plant gets built — if scientists had already conquered the challenges of practical nuclear fusion then the report wouldn’t have been necessary.
“This is the first time in a generation when the fusion community has been called upon to self-organize and figure out its highest priorities for getting from fusion science to fusion energy,” Bob Mungaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, said in the release. “How we can get ready, with data, experience, test facilities — the things that are needed to support the science, and eventually an industry.”
[en] In order to continue cold nuclear fusion reaction reliably and easily, gases of deuterium or deuterium compounds are introduced to a plasma reaction vessel and electric energy is applied to convert the gases into plasmas. Further, deuterium ions are attracted to the surface of materials which cause nuclear fusion by an electric field which is negatively self-biased or externally biased. Atomic deuterium collides against the surface of a cathode on the side of palladium to cause nuclear fusion reaction at the surface or the vicinity of the inside of the cathode. Since a metal absorbing a great amount of deuterium is used as the material for the cathode in order to improve the efficiency and the absorption is increased at a low temperature, the cathode is cooled by liquid hydrogen. Further, the deuterium is introduced in the form of blowing so as to increase the absorption of the deuterium. When the scale is increased by 10 to 1000 times, practical fusion reaction can be caused to utilize as a controllable energy source which can provide a remarkable industrial effect. (N.H.)
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