Written by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator reactor at Greifswald is restarting for a second round of experiments. These tests are slated for higher temperatures now that reactor modifications are complete. The reactor changes will also allow for longer plasma confinement times. An important goal of this round of experimentation centers on the proper functioning of ten plasma divertors. After an initial round of shakedown tests, the Wendelstein 7-X went offline last year. This downtime allowed for more construction to take place. Upgrades to instrumentation occurred. The metal walls of the reaction chamber were lined with over 8,000 graphite tiles. These tiles protect the metal walls from the extreme plasma temperatures. The tiles will allow […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. LPP Fusion recently released a newsletter. The letter outlined three items and gave insight into the research program for the balance of 2017. News of a new cathode along with reactor data analysis and maintenance updates were included. The most significant news was the arrival of a new beryllium cathode. A beryllium anode was received earlier in the year. With both in hand, plans for swapping out the current tungsten terminals can proceed. The balance of September will see some final testing with these tungsten electrodes. Then disassembly of the vacuum chamber will begin. The reaction chamber will receive a fresh titanium coating and have the electrodes changed out. “We expect that […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. A few weeks ago we wrote about researchers adding impurities to fusion fuel to improve outcomes. In that case noble gasses added to the fuel prevented runaway electron currents. A new report details another study of fusion fuel additives. In this case scientists examine ways to improve radio frequency (RF) plasma heating. This work recently appeared in the journal Nature Physics. The team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explain how adjusting the nuclear fusion “recipe” allowed them to increase the energy output. Replicated results produced by researchers at the largest active fusion device in Europe, the Joint European Torus (JET), confirm this finding. Nuclear fusion attempts to bring […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. So much resources have been devoted to ITER it must be mankind’s best hope for achieving clean sustained fusion energy. Right? Many countries have devoted billions to its construction. Vast teams of researchers have engaged multiple fronts of science and engineering challenges. Road maps with timelines stretching into decades have been drawn. With so much activity this must be the ideal path to fusion, right? Last month the BBC posted a summary report that paints a pretty grim picture for ITER’s prospects. ITER is an international effort to construct the worlds largest tokamak fusion reactor. The plans call for ITER to be built in southern France. Long ago the scientific community deemed […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. These days the term hybrid normally refers to automobiles. Most car companies now offer models propelled by both battery powered electric motors and fossil fuel engines. Nuclear reactors can also come in hybrid varieties. In this case the hybrid design features both a nuclear fusion and a nuclear fission component. An article recently posted to power-technology.com offered a comparison of this hybrid reactor design in relation to some of the leading fusion research efforts. All nuclear power stations in the world today use fissile materials for fuel. They use heavy atomic isotopes which split into lighter elements under the right conditions. The most common reaction is when a heavy atom absorbs a […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. One of the most challenging aspects of sustainable fusion power are the high temperatures required. These high temperatures stress any imagined containment device. Researchers from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) tested a containment model lined with liquid metal. They believe such an approach could improve dealing with the severe temperature gradients of fusion plasma. Their findings are documented in an article published in the journal Nature. A plasma reactor trying to sustain fusion is a very corrosive environment. Solid reactor walls and any equipment in proximity to the plasma will become degraded over time. Metallic parts become pitted and brittle with prolonged plasma exposure. Refreshing the liquid metal in this […]
Read MoreWritten by Tim Lash, Focus Fusion Society Contributor. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics fusion research has aneutronic hydrogen-boron fueled fusion as its energy production goal. Another fusion project that proposes to use hydrogen-boron fuel takes a clever approach to finding a hot plasma regime. Tri Alpha Energy (TAE) is building a colliding beam fusion reactor. A recent article published in the journal Science Reports outlines a high tech approach to optimize the operating characteristics of their device. By its very nature producing energy via fusion is complex. The science can be daunting, and the machines that attempt to achieve fusion incredibly intricate. These machines generally have a multitude of operating parameters that need to be tuned and calibrated. Response to input parameters […]
Read MoreWritten 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 […]
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