Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Far and away the largest fusion project on earth is the ITER reactor under construction in France. An international slate of countries support this research effort with billions of euros. The timeline for development and testing of this facility stretches into the 2050s. As the king of fusion projects ITER draws widespread press coverage. But bigger isn’t always better. In an article published in February of 2018, fusion research physicist physicist Daniel Jassby lays out some drawbacks of the ITER project. Dr. Jassby outline four critiques of ITER: electricity consumption, tritium fuel losses, neutron activation, and cooling water demand. When operational ITER will consume as much electricity as a medium sized city. […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. The School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at American University in Cairo (AUC) recently published an energy piece in their quarterly Cairo Review of Global Affairs. The article about renewable power sources was written by Jeffrey Ball, scholar in residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and a lecturer at Stanford Law School. The article posted last week here at focusfusion.org covered renewable energy trends in western Europe. Mr. Ball’s article extends that story to the Middle East and Northeast Africa (MENA). Here too, renewable energy is beginning to make a significant contribution to the regional energy demand. The article lays out the global trends for […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. The About page of FocusFusion.org describes our group as “a grassroots campaign and educational organization, fighting to bring cheap green energy to all.” Of course the ultimate green energy would be aneutronic fusion like that being pursued by LPPFusion and other groups. However, while that pursuit is underway, there has been progress in the move away from traditional fossil fuel energy production. On April 30, 2017, Germany set a record by generating 85% of its electricity from renewable resources. This day was particularly windy and sunny. The power generated from solar and wind farms added to that from biomass and hydro plants summed up to 85% of the country’s demand. The remaining […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. FocusFusion.org has featured several laser based fusion stories. This is another, but from a slightly different angle. A couple summers ago Dr. Kate Lancaster gave a presentation to the Royal Institute in London. Her talk covers laser basics, high energy laser interactions with matter and laser driven fusion. Fortunately this talk was captured on video and preserved on Youtube. Dr. Lancaster studies the use of lasers for inertial confinement fusion. The lecture begins by covering laser basics. She explains how laser light is generated and its unique characteristics. One interesting fact she shared is that the average home has three lasers. This contrasts with the sentiment right after discovery; that the laser […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Prior FocusFusion.org posts covered the intersection between fusion research and artificial intelligence (AI). AI is likely to become more important to the advancement of fusion research. Recent reports highlight more projects bringing AI to bear on the challenge of viable fusion power generation. A December report provides insight into what researchers are calling a Fusion Recurrent Neural Network (FRNN). Scientists affiliated with Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are trying to craft a neural network that predicts failure of magnetic containment in tokamak fusion reactors. The common tokamak design in fusion research is prone to reactor damage if hot plasma escapes containment. Julian Kates-Harbeck is the lead architect for software that uses artificial […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Here at FocusFusion.org we love aneutronic fusion. Aneutronic fusion is fusion without neutrons. The same type being pursued by LPPFusion. Another effort in pursuit of aneutronic fusion is TAE. Formerly known as Tri-Alpha Energy, TAE recently made news by securing time on a national super computer. TAE intends to achieve usable aneutronic with the help of computer modeling and guidance. TAE calls its approach to fusion “Friendly Fusion” power. Their device, called a field reversed configuration, or FRC, generates two large rings of plasma and heats them with an externally accelerated ion beam. These rings collide generating fusion reactions between hydrogen and boron fuel constituents. The fusion fuel is controlled without magnets […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. LPPFusion has been working toward net energy gain from a hydrogen-boron fusion reactor. LPPFusion’s approach uses natural plasma instabilities to generate the high temperatures and densities necessary for fusion. They have already demonstrated world record ion temperatures in their device. New beryllium electrodes will allow them to tackle the needed densities. However, an Australian lead international team is approaching hydrogen-boron reactions driven by a completely different mechanism. Physicist Heinrich Hora plans to use picosecond laser pulses to initiate aneutronic fusion. Two prior Focus Fusion Society posts have discussed laser driven fusion. This Australian team seems to be inspired by the promising outlook from this earlier research. In fact, the Australian team has […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Fusion fans have the opportunity to give themselves a most welcome gift this holiday season. Amazon Video recently began carrying a fusion documentary called Let There Be Light. Principally filmed in 2015, it presents the state of the ITER project at that time. However, throughout the movie alternative approaches to fusion are presented. Researchers from General Fusion, LPPFusion and Wendelstein 7-X are covered. Directed by Canadian filmmakers Mila Aung-Thwin and Van Royko, the documentary highlights the hurdles to fusion-based power generation. By examining the challenges before ITER, the filmmakers illuminate the complexity of the problem, the costs required and the significant project time scales that result. The difficulties plaguing ITER; funding, international […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Fusion has problems. Chief among them is that we haven’t been able to make it work efficiently here on earth despite over sixty years of research. But fusion also has broader problems. Inadequate funding, difficulty communicating, unequal funding, long development times, uncertain outcomes and over-hyped prospects haunt fusion to this day. Yet the possibility of fusion power is pursued ardently all over the world. That’s because the potential of fusion power can’t be overstated. This potential translates into some of it’s problems. Fusion is hard. Trying to coerce fundamental forces of nature to follow our bidding has proven exceptionally challenging. Lifetimes have been spent to gain only incremental improvements. The monumental difficulty […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Recent posts have outlined the struggle for non-mainstream fusion project to secure funding. Meanwhile, legacy tokamak projects continue forward with their out-sized budgets. This week brought news from ITER, MAST and W7-X. With much fanfare, the press carried news that ITER construction reached the half complete mark. The construction site in southern France hosts the multi-billion euro international research effort. While half complete, the construction schedule stretches for another eight years. At that point, in 2025, project planners anticipate first plasma. An additional ten years of testing will follow while the plant reaches full design power. However, these timelines are being imperiled by the Trump administration’s budget. Both funding in 2017 and […]
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