Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

[Yuli Ban]

Oof, that's a VERY critical piece of information. Never trust a headline!

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Efficiency breakthrough cuts cost of fusion power

20th December 2021

Tokamak Energy has announced a more efficient design for the cryogenic electronics in fusion reactors. This provides a 50% reduction in the power needed for the cooling of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets.

https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... meline.htm

[weatheriscool]

General Fusion Raised US$130 Million for Demo Nuclear Fusion Plant Around 2025
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/12/d ... n2025.html
December 29, 2021 by Brian Wang

At the end of November, 2021, General Fusion announced they had raised $130 Million to build their demonstration nuclear fusion reactor.

The Series E funding round included the Business Development Bank of Canada, the hedge fund Segra Capital Management and several family-office investors.

General Fusion designs from the ground up to enable a practical, commercially-viable power plant. Electricity is generated from the fusion plant by pumping hot liquid metal through a heat exchanger to heat water, which then turns a steam turbine. General Fusion power plants will also be modular, allowing multiple units to energize large cities or heavy industry.

The key components of a Magnetized Target Fusion power plant are the plasma injectors, pistons and liquid metal vortex. Currently, General Fusion is developing and optimizing these components in parallel to accelerate construction of a demonstration power plant.

General Fusion was founded in 2002 with a goal to transform the world’s energy supply by developing the fastest, most practical, and cost-competitive path to commercial fusion power.

In 2006, Dr. Michel Laberge completed proof-of-principle experiments, and with the support of leading venture capital firms, General Fusion began building a team that today is recognized as a global leader in commercial fusion energy. The company has now grown to a team of more than 100 at its world class laboratories in Burnaby, just outside Vancouver, where it is developing the key components of the world’s first fusion power plant.

General Fusion hopes to have a large scale demo plant by 2025 and a commercial fusion system around 2030. The timelines slipped over the decades.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. The FDP will demonstrate General Fusion’s proprietary Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology. Construction starts 2022.

[weatheriscool]

Chinese Fusion Reactor Maintains 70 Million Degrees Celsius For More Than 17 Minutes
https://www.heise.de/news/Chinesisches- ... 16278.html
https://www.heise.de ^

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei in the east Chinese province of Anhui reports a new temperature record. At the end of last year, a plasma temperature of 70 million ° C could be maintained in the experimental nuclear fusion reactor for 1056 seconds, i.e. a good 17 minutes, reports the Institute for Plasma Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP). That is the longest time in which such a temperature could be kept constant.

This creates a solid basis for further research into energy generation from nuclear fusion, writes the ASIPP. Its general director Prof. Yuntao Song believes that the perfect ASIPP team will face any difficulty, no matter how difficult it is.

In May, the research team was able to maintain a plasma temperature of 120 million ° C for 101 seconds in the superconducting reactor of the tokamak type in an experiment, and the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported 160 million ° C for 20 seconds. An important step at the EAST is to be able to maintain a temperature of over 100 million ° C for a week. China participates in ITER

EAST is working on the international nuclear fusion project ITER in Cadarache in southern France. In addition to China, the EU, Japan, the USA, Russia, South Korea and India are involved in the project. The knowledge gained in China should help in southern France. In addition, the ASIPP is sending teams of experts to Cadarache, for example in the first quarter of 2021 when it came to installing the 330-ton PF6 field coil for the floor of the ITER, which was also manufactured in China.

[wjfox]

Japan seeks nuclear fusion reactor prototype by midcentury

January 9, 2022 06:00 JST

TOKYO -- Japan aims to hammer out its very first research and development strategy for nuclear fusion by summer, Nikkei has learned, with the goal of achieving a prototype reactor by around 2050.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Techno ... midcentury

[paywalled]

[Xyls]

Belgium to close all existing nuclear power plants

Boy these European Green parties are working hard to undermine the fight against climate change by shutting down perfectly good 0 emissions plants to replace with coal and fossil fuels...

https://www.dw.com/en/belgium-to-close- ... a-60236059

[Xyls]

This video kills any enthusiasm I had for nuclear fusion.

Clearly an overhyped technology. A real shame.

The future isn't with fusion at this time it is with improved fission technologies like those based on SMRs and other advancements to fuels. Fusion is a way out and I don't expect this before mid to late century at earliest...

[weatheriscool]

Hot stuff: Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power
Source: AP

By SETH BORENSTEIN

With 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the sun, scientists hit — at least for a fraction of a second — a key milestone on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California were able to spark a fusion reaction that briefly sustained itself — a major feat because fusion requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.

The ultimate goal, still years away, is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by smooshing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.

A team of more than 100 scientists published the results of four experiments that achieved what is known as a burning plasma in Wednesday’s journal Nature. With those results, along with preliminary results announced last August from follow-up experiments, scientists say they are on the threshold of an even bigger advance: ignition. That’s when the fuel can continue to “burn” on its own and produce more energy than what’s needed to spark the initial reaction.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-fusi ... dc80b8dd07

[caltrek]

Fusion Power Experiment in The UK Smashes Its Old Record in Major Step Forward
by Mike McCrae
February 9, 2022

https://www.sciencealert.com/european-f ... -of-energy

Introduction:

(Science Alert) Late last century, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, churned out 22 megajoules of energy in what was, at the time, a record in fusion power.

Now, experimental upgrades have brought the facility into line with the technology anticipated for a major international project, resulting in the production of nearly three times that amount of power.

The advances are a major step forward for tokamak-based fusion, bringing us ever closer to a balance point where we can harvest a near endless stream of energy without the cost of polluting emissions or large amounts of radioactive waste.

"What we have learned in the past months will make it easier for us to plan experiments with fusion plasmas that generate much more energy than is needed to heat them," says Sibylle Günter, the Scientific Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

Tokamaks might be the horse to back for reaching this milestone in energy production. Consisting of a relatively simple torus surrounded by a bank of seriously powerful magnets, they facilitate fusion by channeling bursts of hydrogen heated to dissolve into a plasma.

[Yuli Ban]

THE INSIDE OF a tokamak—the doughnut-shaped vessel designed to contain a nuclear fusion reaction—presents a special kind of chaos. Hydrogen atoms are smashed together at unfathomably high temperatures, creating a whirling, roiling plasma that’s hotter than the surface of the sun. Finding smart ways to control and confine that plasma will be key to unlocking the potential of nuclear fusion, which has been mooted as the clean energy source of the future for decades. At this point, the science underlying fusion seems sound, so what remains is an engineering challenge. “We need to be able to heat this matter up and hold it together for long enough for us to take energy out of it,” says Ambrogio Fasoli, director of the Swiss Plasma Center at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

That’s where DeepMind comes in. The artificial intelligence firm, backed by Google parent company Alphabet, has previously turned its hand to video games and protein folding, and has been working on a joint research project with the Swiss Plasma Center to develop an AI for controlling a nuclear fusion reaction.

In stars, which are also powered by fusion, the sheer gravitational mass is enough to pull hydrogen atoms together and overcome their opposing charges. On Earth, scientists instead use powerful magnetic coils to confine the nuclear fusion reaction, nudging it into the desired position and shaping it like a potter manipulating clay on a wheel. The coils have to be carefully controlled to prevent the plasma from touching the sides of the vessel: this can damage the walls and slow down the fusion reaction. (There’s little risk of an explosion as the fusion reaction cannot survive without magnetic confinement).

It will be AI that gifts us nuclear fusion, mark my words.

[weatheriscool]

Selecting the right structural materials for fusion reactors
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-materials ... ctors.html
by Tokyo Institute of Technology

Do two promising structural materials corrode at very high temperatures when in contact with "liquid metal fuel breeders" in fusion reactors? Researchers of Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST), and Yokohama National University (YNU) now have the answer. This high-temperature compatibility of reactor structural materials with the liquid breeder—a lining around the reactor core that absorbs and traps the high energy neutrons produced in the plasma inside the reactor—is key to the success of a fusion reactor design.

Fusion reactors could be a powerful means of generating clean electricity, and currently, several potential designs are being explored. In a fusion reactor, the fusion of two nuclei releases massive amounts of energy. This energy is trapped as heat in a "breeding blanket" (BB), typically a liquid lithium alloy, surrounding the reactor core. This heat is then used to run a turbine and generate electricity. The BB also has an essential function of fusion fuel breeding, creating a closed fuel cycle for the endless operation of the reactors without fuel depletion.

[weatheriscool]

Scientists confirm thermonuclear fusion in a sheared-flow Z-pinch device
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-scientist ... pinch.html
by Benny Evangelista, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

In findings that could help advance another "viable pathway" to fusion energy, research led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicists has proven the existence of neutrons produced through thermonuclear reactions from a sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinch device.

The researchers used advanced computer modeling techniques and diagnostic measurement devices honed at LLNL to solve a decades-old problem of distinguishing neutrons produced by thermonuclear reactions from ones produced by ion beam-driven instabilities for plasmas in the magneto-inertial fusion regime.

While the team's previous research showed neutrons measured from sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinch devices were "consistent with thermonuclear production, we hadn't completely proven it yet," said LLNL physicist Drew Higginson, one of the co-authors of a paper recently published in Physics of Plasmas.

"This is direct proof that thermonuclear fusion produces these neutrons and not ions driven by beam instabilities," said Higginson, principal investigator of the Portable and Adaptable Neutron Diagnostics (PANDA) team that is doing research under a Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) cooperative agreement. "It's not proven they're going to get energy gain, but it is a promising result that suggests they are on a favorable path."

LLNL physicist James Mitrani was the lead author on the paper, which demonstrates how the lab's broad range of research is benefiting the larger fusion community beyond the major advancements made by LLNL's National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's most energetic laser system.

"The research only focused on this one device," Mitrani said, "but the general techniques and concepts are applicable to a lot of fusion devices in this intermediate magneto-inertial fusion regime." He noted that regime operates in the area between laser fusion facilities, such as NIF and the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester, and fusion devices that confine plasmas in the purely magnetic regime, like ITER (a multinational project in southern France), SPARC (under construction near Boston) or other tokamak devices.

[wjfox]

New record temperature for spherical tokamak

14th March 2022

Tokamak Energy, based near Oxford, UK, has demonstrated a world-first with its privately-funded ST40 spherical tokamak. The reactor achieved a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the threshold required for commercial fusion energy.

At nearly seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun, this is by far the highest temperature ever generated within a spherical tokamak and also by any privately-funded tokamak. The ST40 had previously achieved a temperature of 15 million degrees in June 2018. While several government laboratories have reported plasma temperatures above 100 million degrees in conventional tokamaks, this milestone has been achieved in just five years, for a cost of less than £50m ($70m) and in a much more compact fusion device. This provides further proof that spherical tokamaks are a viable route to the delivery of clean, secure, low cost, scalable fusion energy.

Read more: https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... meline.htm

[weatheriscool]

A new law unchains fusion energy
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-law-uncha ... nergy.html
by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Physicists at EPFL, within a large European collaboration, have revised one of the fundamental laws that has been foundational to plasma and fusion research for over three decades, even governing the design of megaprojects like ITER. The update shows that we can actually safely use more hydrogen fuel in fusion reactors, and therefore obtain more energy than previously thought.

Fusion is one of the most promising sources of future energy. It involves two atomic nuclei combining into one, thereby releasing enormous amounts of energy. In fact, we experience fusion every day: the sun's warmth comes from hydrogen nuclei fusing into heavier helium atoms.

There is currently an international fusion research megaproject called ITER, which aims to replicate the fusion processes of the sun to create energy on the Earth. Its aim is the creation of high temperature plasma that provides the right environment for fusion to occur, producing energy.

Plasmas—an ionized state of matter similar to a gas—are made up of positively charge nuclei and negatively charged electrons, and are almost a million times less dense than the air we breathe. Plasmas are created by subjecting "the fusion fuel"—hydrogen atoms—to extremely high temperatures (10 times that of the core of the sun), forcing electrons to separate from their atomic nuclei. The process takes place inside a donut-shaped ("toroidal") structure called a "tokamak."

[weatheriscool]

Magnetizing laser-driven inertial fusion implosions
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-magnetizi ... sions.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Phys.org

Nuclear fusion is a widely studied process through which atomic nuclei of a low atomic number fuse together to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing a large amount of energy. Nuclear fusion reactions can be produced using a method known as inertial confinement fusion, which entails the use of powerful lasers to implode a fuel capsule and produce plasma.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Delaware, University of Rochester, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Imperial College London, and University of Rome La Sapienza have recently showed what happens to this implosion when one applies a strong magnetic field to the fuel capsule used for inertial confinement fusion. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, demonstrates that strong magnetic fields flatten the shape of inertial fusion implosions.

"In inertial confinement fusion, a millimeter-size spherical capsule is imploded using high-power lasers for nuclear fusion," Arijit Bose, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "Applying a magnetic field to the implosions can strap the charged plasma particles to the B-field and improve their chances of fusion. However, since magnetic field can restrict plasma particle motion only in the direction across the field lines and not in the direction along the applied field lines, this can introduce differences between the two directions that affect the implosion shape."

Over the past decade, several physicists investigated the possible effects of magnetizing fusion implosions. Most of their studies, however, were numerical in nature and did not test hypotheses in an experimental setting.

[weatheriscool]

Discovering unsuspected hurdle for stellarator fusion facilities
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-unsuspect ... ities.html
by John Greenwald, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Investigation of a possibly critical issue with twisty magnetic stellarators, promising candidates to serve as models for a U.S. fusion pilot plant, has clarified the potential impact of a largely overlooked concern.

The finding at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) demonstrates how periodic changes in the strength and shape of stellarator magnetic fields can, under certain theoretical conditions, facilitate the rapid loss of confinement of high-energy plasma particles that fuel fusion reactions.

High energy

"If you want to do nuclear fusion you must have high energy," said PPPL senior physicist Roscoe White, lead author of a Physics of Plasmas paper that editors have selected as a "scilight," or science highlight.

His paper identifies a new type of energetic particle loss, said Felix Parra Diaz, head of the Theory Department at PPPL. "Studies have so far focused on controlling other types of energetic losses that are dominant, and we are now trying to reduce energetic particle losses even more," Parra Diaz said. "The paper on which these findings are based identifies a mechanism that we need to include when designing the optimal shape of stellarator magnet fields.

[caltrek]

Fusion Simulation Code Developed to Project Fusion Instabilities in TAE
August 1, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) On 1 August, the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE) announced that a new fusion simulation code was developed to project and analyze the Toroidal-Alfvén-Eigenmode (TAE). In TAE, instabilities occur in the course of interactions between fast ions and the perturbed magnetic fields surrounding them. It disturbs a tokamak’s plasma confinement by disengaging fast ions from the plasma core.

Because fast ions have much more kinetic energy than normal ones, they play a significant role in facilitating fusion reactions by increasing the plasma temperatures and performance. Stably confining them in the plasma core is therefore considered one of the most important tasks for sustaining fusion reactions.

Several studies were conducted to understand the relationship between fast ions and the TAE in order to prevent TAE instabilities and increase fast ion confinement. At KFE, Dr. Youngwoo Cho has improved the Gyro Kinetic Plasma Simulation Program (gKPSP) to calculate and project the changes in TAE following fast ion movements.

The gKPSP, a domestically developed fusion simulation code, was mainly used for analyzing plasma transport phenomena until Dr. Cho added a feature to enable electromagnetic analysis. With the amendment, it is now capable of analyzing the TAE instabilities, and has passed cross-validation with other existing codes.

The new code will be utilized for analyzing the confinement performance of fast ions generated by different methods, including various heating devices and fusion reactions. It is expected to contribute to developing plasma performance enhancement technologies by optimizing fast ions’ confinement performance.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960309

A highly technical review of this study was published in the journal the Physics of Plasmas: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0086570

[caltrek]

Scientists Achieved Self-Sustaining Nuclear Fusion… But Now They Can't Replicate It
by Felecity Nelson
August 16, 2022

Introduction:

(Science Alert) Scientists have confirmed that last year, for the first time in the lab, they achieved a fusion reaction that self-perpetuates (instead of fizzling out) – bringing us closer to replicating the chemical reaction that powers the Sun.

However, they aren't exactly sure how to recreate the experiment.

Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms combine to create a heavier atom, releasing a huge burst of energy in the process.

It's a process often found in nature, but it's very difficult to replicate in the lab because it needs a high-energy environment to keep the reaction going.

Additional extract:

Ignition is highly sensitive to small changes that are barely perceptible, like the differences in the structure of each capsule and the intensity of the lasers, (nuclear physicist Annie) Kritcher explains.

Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientist ... licate-it

[weatheriscool]

Researchers generate fusion at 100 million Kelvin for 20 seconds
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-fusion-mi ... conds.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in South Korea working with two colleagues from Princeton University and one from Columbia University has achieved a new milestone in the development of fusion as an energy source—they generated a reaction that produced temperatures of 100 million Kelvin and lasted for 20 seconds. In their paper published in journal Nature, the group describes their work and where they plan to take it in the next few years.

For the past several years, scientists have been trying to create sustainable fusion reactions inside power plants as a means of generating heat for conversion to electricity. Despite significant progress, the main goal has still not been met. Scientists working on the problem have found it difficult to control fusion reactions—the slightest deviations lead to instabilities that prevent the reaction from continuing. The biggest problem is dealing with the heat that is generated, which is in the millions of degrees. Materials could not hold plasma that hot, of course, so it is levitated with magnets.