Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Often when considering the relative merits of fusion energy reactor designs the focus lands on underlying scientific principles or construction costs. Rightly so since these are the upfront hurdles to reach viability. Less often is the proposed fusion fuel a topic of comparison. A recent article discussing theoretical extra-terrestrial mining operations touched on the availability of Helium-3 on the moon. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium with one less neutron than the far more abundant helium-4 variant. In fact, there’s only one or two atoms of helium-3 on earth for every million atoms of helium 4. This scarcity makes helium-3 harvested from earth a poor choice for powering a fusion reactor. However, […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. The world is in desperate need of energy. Growing populations, dwindling natural resources and continuing global strife place enormous strains on delivering enough energy to all earth’s inhabitants. The primary goal of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics research is to deliver abundant, cheap, green fusion energy to the world. A story recently carried by Reuters emphasizes the ever present need for such energy solutions, and the horrific lengths society can go to satisfy those needs. A town called Douma in war torn Syria supports an energy production facility detrimental to both its workers and the environment. In a series of open furnaces, workers feed plastic waste into the flames. The fumes generated by this […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Recently we posted an update on the Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (MPIPP) in Greifswald Germany. This week sees more news on the stellarator front. Southwest Jiaotong University announced plans to build a stellarator fusion reactor. This undertaking will be in partnership with Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS). NIFS already operates a similar reactor in Japan called the Large Helical Device. NIFS and Southwest Jiaotong University will design, implement and construct, plasma heating, technical diagnostics and ultimately conduct plasma experiments. They will then introduce the helical device to be called CFQS (Chinese First Quasi-axisymmetric Stellarator). This announcement is on the heels of another […]
Read MorePictures of energy technologies in the present and near future. Written by Mark Nelson. On June 13, 2017, Stanford University futurist Tony Seba gave a presentation at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society(CRES). He predicts a 13-year ramp up of solar power, autonomous electric vehicles, and large energy storage capacities, all with decreasing prices in the market. This convergence of technologies will cause a disruption in our transportation and energy systems. He presents his case in a YouTube video here. He says it will also disrupt our economic systems, just as the internet, the cell phone, and the adoption of business models have changed the speed of communication. Mr. Seba uses historical references, and a leverage of data trends, asking the […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. At the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (MPIPP) in Greifswald Germany, a team of scientists and engineers continue working to bring the worlds largest stellarator online. A stellarator is a type of toroidal magnetic confinement fusion reactor. The most common form of toroidal fusion reactor is a tokamak. Tokamaks are shaped like ordinary doughnuts. Stellarators retain the basic doughnut shape but twists its way around to make the loop. This design, while far more complex, allows physicists to craft more ideal magnetic confinement fields. The machine under construction in Germany is called the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). The W7-X was first powered up at the end […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. A team of Princeton University researchers hope to create fusion power rockets. One proposed use would be to enable rapid mission payloads to Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft ended a nine year journey to Pluto in 2015 with a dramatic flyby. A fusion driven mission could deliver both an orbiter and lander to Pluto in just four years. Princeton Satellite Systems (PSS) and the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL) are collaborating to develop Direct Fusion Drive: a revolutionary direct-drive, fusion-powered rocket engine. The rocket engine being designed by PSS uses magnetic confinement to create a ring of plasma. This plasma would be composed of deuterium and […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Edited by Ignas Galvelis, Supervising Director. In March an international team of physicists reported on a novel approach to nuclear fusion. Foregoing the standard containment approaches, they propose using ultra-short bursts of lasers to nudge nuclei together. These photonic nudges could be used to provide the conditions for nuclei to overcome their electrostatic repulsion until the strong force could take over. Once nuclei are in close enough proximity the chance of fusion reaction becomes much more likely. Scientists from Rice University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chile collaborated on a two dimensional simulation between deuterium and tritium. Authors Peter Wolynes of Rice, Martin Gruebele of Illinois and […]
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