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New record for fusion

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posted on Feb, 15 2019 @ 02:00 PM
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The National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) announced on Jan. 13 that KSTAR maintained the plasma core temperature of 100 million degrees (9 keV) for 1.5 seconds in an experiment conducted from August to December last year.

A plasma ion temperature of 100 million degrees is seven times higher than the temperature of the core of the sun (15 million degrees). The temperature is regarded as the most critical operating condition of a nuclear fusion reactor.


However, the NFRI argues that KSTAR's plasma ion temperature of 100 million degrees is technically superior to China's since it increases the ion temperature by effectively heating the center of the plasma using the neutron particle beam heater (NBI-1). In 2017, KSTAR has succeeded in high-performance plasma mode (H-mode) operation in which plasma with an electron temperature of 70 million degrees was maintained for about 90 seconds.

KSTAR’s goal for this year is to use NBI-2 to maintain super-high-temperature plasma over 100 million degrees for more than 10 seconds. This will allow Korea to lead the high-performance plasma experiment at the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER), which is under construction in Kadaracheu, France. Currently, seven countries, including China, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the European Union (EU) and India, are pushing to complete the ITER by 2025. ITER is working on enabling experimental verification of the maintenance of voluntary nuclear fusion at 150 million degrees without supplementary heating starting from 2035.

businesskorea.co..kr, Feb. 14, 2019 - KSTAR Reaches Ion Temperature of 100 Million Degrees for First Time.

Another new record for fusion!

Why this information was tucked away in a business journal is beyond me! I think they are talking Celsius here. Because in the article they mention in passing that they need to get to 150 million degrees for fusion regime range. If it was in Kelvin, they would have already been there!

This is also the first tokamak to reach this temperature. They point out that China's EAST tokamak hit 100 million in electron measurement. They kindly point out that KSTAR reached 100 million in ion temperature (core of the plasma).

1.5 seconds on the way to 10! Throw in another NBI and get that reactor up to 150 mil and start making helium! Ye-hah!




posted on Mar, 6 2019 @ 12:08 PM
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Lockheed Martin, with its decades of engineering experience and government connections, hopes to unlock fusion's power by creating a compact reactor that's 10 times smaller than existing reactors. It will be so small that it will fit on the back of a truck, it says on its website.

While the company declined an interview, it says online that it's trying to mimic the way sun creates fusion. Its cylindrical reactor, which it calls a small magnetic bottle, is similar to a tokamak, but it's much smaller and uses different magnetic technology.

CNBC.com, March 6, 2019 - Why Bezos and Microsoft are betting on this $10 trillion energy fix for the planet.

Huge announcement in 2014 then dead silence. Here we are 5 years later and Lockheed points CNBC back to their website which hasn't been updated since it was first thrown up for all to see after their initial announcement.

I guess we will have to live with "no comment" from Lockheed.

Oh, the rest of the article is another "fusion is the process which powers the sun" type of gloss over although they name the top team out there working including Commonwealth Fusion in addition to "we decline to be interviewed" LM comment (which is probably the biggest news to come from them!! LOL).

Other fusion news:

phys.org, March 5, 2019 - New reactor-liner alloy material offers strength, resilience.

This is an article that kind of answers another article posted about a year ago saying "tungsten is too brittle" for use in a nuclear fusion reactor. I quipped, "What about liquid lithium?" So I guess the answer to my question is "science"! Again, don't care what it is made of as long as it works!

And news about China's EAST Reactor "going live" but I am blocked from certain countries including the one the story is from. It sure would be news if it is "going live" because they seemed to be having heating issues. Again, China likes to hype their reactor over others so I taking this with a grain of salt. A whole pinch!

ETA: It is not EAST it is a new tokamak HL-2M that is smaller and by design will be used to study high temperatures. And it is not "going live" they are going commission it this year (lousy overseas headlines!). Firstpost.com - HL-2M info
edit on 6-3-2019 by TEOTWAWKIAIFF because: Found english news at a country I could reach!



posted on Mar, 9 2019 @ 07:56 PM
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Hello to all of you, and especially to TEOTWASWwtc, i call him TEOT for short....i realy like your dedication and input my freind, and therefore i will tell you that the Lockheed reactor is a pulse reactor design, it will indeed fit into and power an aircraft....but that is not what they were designed for.....we can have sutch a d2-d2 or even a He3 reactor working at every street corner, obliviating not only our dependence on fossil fuels but also the oil based ogliarchy that surrounds it.
Keep up the good work old mate, but be also aware that the ITER and all projects surrounding itare as of NOW officcially on hold....that's from the horses mouth,as it were......:It's The End Of The World As We Know It, But I Feel Fine.......

edit on 9-3-2019 by playswithmachines because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 11 2019 @ 01:50 PM
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a reply to: playswithmachines




CFR is pulsed!?! I did not know that! It makes sense now that I think about it. I thought it was steady state which is why they think the duration is about 5 years. But the "the coils do not have to be perfectly aligned" comment just had me wondering... and now I know! Thanks!

There is an in-depth write up of a couple fusion projects from the "providing energy to the grid" perspective at power-technology.com: Nuclear fusion: is halfway good enough?

They are specifically asking about smaller reactors, 50 - 100 MW size. They address MIT's SPARC, Tokamak Energy's ST-x0 (spherical tokamak series), and MAST. From the article comes some interesting info...


"The project [SPARC] is enabled by the arrival of a breakthrough technology, high-temperature superconductors, which opens the ‘smaller, faster, cheaper’ path we are pursuing,” says MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center deputy director Martin Greenwald. “Our plan is to carry out R&D leading to a demonstration of a high-performance, high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet at the scale required for fusion, followed by construction and operation of SPARC, which would be the world’s first net-energy fusion experiment. SPARC is – roughly – the smallest and least expensive fusion experiment that could achieve this goal.”

In the UK there is MAST, or the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak, an alternative fusion project that is making big steps forward, and is also focusing on smaller reactors.

“Essentially, the whole genesis of the spherical tokamak is to look at whether there’s a way of doing fusion on a smaller and therefore we assume cheaper capital cost basis,” says UK Atomic Energy Authority CEO Ian Chapman. Elsewhere, Tokamak Energy is developing modular reactors, with the aim of having a grid-connected power plant by 2030.

“Tokamak Energy is working on the design of a small modular fusion reactor to produce 175MWe or 450MW of heat,” says Tokamak Energy executive vice chairman David Kingham. “We are confident that the technology will be commercially viable and that fusion will be an important part of the long-term solution for electricity generation. We also expect fusion to become an important source of industrial process heat, for example to produce hydrogen without any carbon emission.”


They spell it out this way. 1/3 the expense is for the magnets, another 1/3 is the building to house the reactor. They said that smaller reactor size with smaller and stronger superconducting magnets keep costs down on the initial capital expense.

The timeline is a nice addition! And I like the use of thermal energy to produce carbon-free hydrogen. Now if they can be one more forward looking step ahead and spin a supercritical CO2 turbine instead of a steam turbine then you can really reduce your power plant's foot print!

The path for MIT is a bit different than what is quoted above. First, SPARC is to prove that it can be done. Then ARC will be the demo modular power plant.

The article addresses the electricity cost with the thought that a fusion reactor would similar to a fission reactor on a per megawatt basis.

Anyway, a good read for those who have the time and wonder about "how does this all fit together" in the real world type questions.




posted on Mar, 19 2019 @ 03:04 PM
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I just came across this today

www.sciencedaily.com...


Speeding the development of fusion power to create unlimited energy on Earth
Date:
March 19, 2019
Source:
DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Summary:
A detailed examination of the challenges and tradeoffs in the development of a compact fusion facility with high-temperature superconducting magnets.



Can tokamak fusion facilities, the most widely used devices for harvesting on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars, be developed more quickly to produce safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy for generating electricity? Physicist Jon Menard of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has examined that question in a detailed look at the concept of a compact tokamak equipped with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Such magnets can produce higher magnetic fields -- necessary to produce and sustain fusion reactions -- than would otherwise be possible in a compact facility.

Menard first presented the paper, now published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, to a Royal Society workshop in London that explored accelerating the development of tokamak-produced fusion power with compact tokamaks. "This is the first paper that quantitatively documents how the new superconductors can interplay with the high pressure that compact tokamaks produce to influence how tokamaks are optimized in the future," Menard said. "What we tried to develop were some simple models that capture important aspects of an integrated design."

"Very significant" findings

The findings are "very significant," said Steve Cowley, director of PPPL. Cowley noted that "Jon's arguments in this and the previous paper have been very influential in the recent National Academies of Sciences report," which calls for a U.S. program to develop a compact fusion pilot plant to generate electricity at the lowest possible cost. "Jon has really outlined the technical aspects for much smaller tokamaks using high-temperature magnets," Cowley said.

Compact tokamaks, which can include spherical facilities such as the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) that is under repair at PPPL and the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) in Britain, provide some advantageous features. The devices, shaped like cored apples rather than doughnut-like conventional tokamaks, can produce high-pressure plasmas that are essential for fusion reactions with relatively low and cost-effective magnetic fields.

Such reactions fuse light elements in the form of plasma -- the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei -- to release energy. Scientists seek to replicate this process and essentially create a star on Earth to generate abundant electricity for homes, farms, and industries around the world. Fusion could last millions of years with little risk and without generating greenhouse gases.



200-to-300 megawatts of electric power

Sustaining the plasma to generate the 200-to-300 megawatts of electric power the paper examines would also require higher confinement than standard tokamak operating regimes typically achieve. Such power production could lead to challenging fluxes of fusion neutrons that would limit the estimated lifetime of the HTS magnets to one-to-two years of full-power operation. Thicker shielding could substantially increase that lifetime but would also lower the delivery of fusion power.

Major development will in fact be needed for HTS magnets, which have not yet been built to scale. "It will probably take years to put together a model of the essential elements of magnet size requirements and related factors as a function of aspect ratio," Menard said.



posted on Mar, 19 2019 @ 07:11 PM
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a reply to: punkinworks10


And here's another story...


A new cable made by KIT, the High-temperature Superconductor Cross Conductor (HTS CroCo) can be used at minus 196 degrees Celsius already. "This is due to the special material we use," say Dr. Walter Fietz and Dr. Michael Wolf of KIT's Institute for Technical Physics (ITEP). The material is rare-earth barium-copper oxide (REBCO for short), whose superconductivity has been known since 1987. However, long lengths of the superconductor can only be manufactured in the form of thin tapes. "We have developed a method where several REBCO tapes are arranged such that they form a cross. The resulting cable can transport very high currents," Fietz says.

phys.org, March 19, 2019 - Energy-efficient superconducting cable for future technologies.

Instead of making lots of lengths of tape (or wires then wrapping them together), they layering them, it looks like they made specific sized ones and layered those all at once (or nearly, they didn't specify) into one cable. They did this at an actual industrial facility and if it scales up, then they make longer wires (they hit 1 meter a minute). If they can scale it would be "several hundred meters a minute" (same source). If that happens costs would start to drop.

They say "electrical transmission lines, like [wind and solar]" and mention in passing, "high magnetic fields," but you add this news to your post, well it made the long day go better!




posted on Mar, 21 2019 @ 02:08 PM
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ASDEX Upgrade is the tokamak in Germany whos sole purpose is to investigate conditions in ITER and DEMO (DEMO will be the pilot power plant after ITER shows fusion is possible). There was a steam leak in 2017 so they had to shut down operation while repairs were made. While down, they added more instrumentation. They started everything back up in 2018. In September they re-started the plasma science experiments. The news letter is out!

IPP.mpg.de - ASDEX Upgrade Letter 20/2019.

It has a bunch of science stuff and acronyms but it basically has 3 parts. First, they took readings from DIII and ASDEX, and merged those with predictions from modelling; they then ran real plasma shots to check on their models; they agreed! It is nice to see the numbers especially "Beta" which is the ratio of kinetic ion push against magnetic pressure. It is an indication on how efficient the fusion reactor is performing (for example, Lockheed's CFR is claimed to be a "high beta" reactor where they claim a beta of 1 and say it may even be bigger than one). ASDEX U has a magnetic field of only 2.5 T so this where ITER is speced to so at the end of the day, there should not be any surprised when ITER is fired up.

Secondly, they got better measurements of magnetic flux due to new instruments installed after the repair. The 5 internal flux and 1 external "diamagnetic flux" measurements were spot on.

Last, they did a study of the edge localized mode (ELM) touching parts of reactor vessel especially the divertor (the part that opens to discharge impurities). The reactor vessel is made of tungsten which has a high melting point but fusion plasma is much hotter. They did one type of demo of melting and plan on doing the second one in the next run.

All of the experiments and data gathered basically say that tokamak functionality is known and estimates and calculations match with actual data from plasma shots.

A bit dull and boring but that is how science works. Predict, make observations, validate predictions. Wash, rinse, repeat.



posted on Mar, 22 2019 @ 01:37 PM
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In my near desperate attempt to sniff out any news from Lockheed about their compact fusion reactor (CFR current version T4B. T5 will have upgraded magnets and be near demonstration temperatures. TX will be the operational model. They have not released any info in a couple years except the PDF with time-line, no dates, and these CFR designations), I run across a stock market earnings call news item from a different company, Superconductor Technologies Inc.

OK. I've heard of them but what did they have to say? "[Intro] First quarter... "


Last year this time, we discussed on the earnings call our decision to focus our Conductus wire product development efforts on superconducting magnet applications. In large part, due to the attractive revenue potential forecast by several key customers. One year later, we believe that the expected demand from potential customers and the related potential revenue clearly confirms the correctness of that decision.

The ever-increasing number of companies are now pursuing high field low temperature magnet applications such as next generation electrical machines, NMRs, proton and particle accelerators and fusion devices. For example, there are approximately two-dozen nuclear fusion participants, including start-ups, government initiatives, and commercial company projects such as Lockheed Martin's compact fusion reactor. All these entities are attempting to accomplish the goal of delivering energy in a clear environmentally friendly and cost-effective manner.

In 2018, we successfully developed enhanced conductors wire that delivered 1.5 times the critical current performance and more importantly doubled the in-field magnet performance.

-Jeff Quiram, CEO, STI

seekingalpha.com, March 21, 2019 - Supercondu ctor Technologies Inc. (SCON) CEO Jeff Quiram on Q4 2018 Results - Earnings Call Transcript.

Oh! The CFR has been designed for 15 Tesla superconducting magnets. Brian Wang at Next Big Future, tried to create a name for himself by doubling the output to 200 MW and cutting the magnetic field strength to 5 T which makes the CFR "100 times worse" in an attention grabbing headline that google still returns to me when searching.

Looks like if you cut the power to 100 MW, put the magnetic field strength back to 15 T, which is what I think STI is hinting at in their earnings call, then it looks like the CFR is spot on to be 18 meters long at the demo model!

Since Lockheed is not showing info, anyone can fill the information gap with anything they want. And if you look hard enough you can find hints that something is coming together without any FUD or distractions.

Go Conductus!




posted on Mar, 23 2019 @ 03:29 PM
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a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Yes that new wire certainly sounds interesting, i daresay you can't buy it at Walmart

Whatever happened to Litz wire? octagonal and silver doped, you can make one hell of a dense coil with it, havent seen it in years, LOL
I really like this thread, lots of info and pretty accurate


The early pulse reactors were very simple designs running at low RF frequencies, they served to prove the concept but were tempermental and costly since the feedback would often overload the rf transmitter. But you can effectively pulse these things at a very wide range of frequencies.There are also several methods of heating the plasma. I think that the Lockheed one may even be smaller than they say it is....it all depends on how much power they want and how they are using it, it seems to me that if you have such a reactor it would be easier to simply 'open' one end of it after every cycle and you have a powerful fusion rocket rather than use the electricity for something else...unless you already have an electrical drive system a la T.T.Brown...heck maybe you can do both!..... Keep up the good work dude

ETA: Graphene may be essential as a membrane for filtering helium / tritium from the Deuterium fuel. Tritium has more power but also more radiation

edit on 23-3-2019 by playswithmachines because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 23 2019 @ 05:37 PM
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a reply to: playswithmachines

...Just in case peeps were wondering where i get my info from....
I have been studying magnetic fields, and fusion physics since i read a book on Tesla when i was 14,i am now 54, so i have been studying this for 40 years, and i have in that time, gathered a great deal of information. Not only that but i have confirmed most of this info in my own lab, having funded my own research over the years. That amounts to a great deal of time and money, and a lot of arguments with my dear wife god bless her, but i am not in the habit of fantasising, i know what i know, and, like TEOT, i seek to know just a little more, and to post it when i can. Obviously there are things i simply cannot post, but i like to give hints now & then, and i like to be able to hitch a ride on threads like this, no not arrogance or being lazy, i put 10 years of research into the flux liner thread and gave it away for free...why? Because peeps should know the facts, is all, and TEOT is someone i really appreciate, he is consistent, logical and does his homework

....... Later peeps................



posted on Mar, 26 2019 @ 03:16 PM
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a reply to: playswithmachines


I thought about the CFR again (again), and I do not think it would work being pulsed (I wish I could draw a diagram, it just makes a lot of sense).

If you surround your reactor with stronger coils than the ones creating the lossy cage (cusp fields) in the center of the reactor, then your plasma meets in the middle (like two armies charging each other on the battlefield). Plasma from one side collides with plasma from the other and it pushes outward from the center towards the vessel wall. That is where the 15T coils are held and creates another field pushing the plasma back down. The plasma then wants moves towards the ends where it meets a mirrored set of fields and a reverse pinch field which shoots it back down the center line where it is heated up and fed more D-T fuel. It like one of those "endless fountains"!

Pulsing the plasma defeats the purpose of this design!

LM said they wanted to make the CFR like "jet engines on an assembly line" which makes sense if you run the reactor until some set time (IIRC, 5 years, I'll just use that figure). You accept the embrittlement as fast neutrons shoot through the reactor wall into the FliBe blanket surrounding it. It is not meant to last but to be replaced. The reactor can sit for 12 years until the radiation leaves it and the vessel material recycled into another reactor.

Buy one and you automatically become a repeat customer! "See ya' in 5 years!" *counts money*

The smart thing to do would be to figure out a way where you didn't have to become a drug addict and keep buying new reactors every 5 years. Maybe add a mod to yours (you bought it right? No leasing here!), say use liquid lithium (somehow) to keep embrittlement to, oh, let's say 10 years. You also do not need as huge shielding as fast neutrons stay inside the reactor (you have to collect the liquid lithium, clean it, heat exchange, and recycle it, but that should just be industrial ceramic pumps and a centrifuge [or some cleaning method], which is doable) and if using some Li6, you can generate tritium inside the CFR thus cutting your fuel bill!

Take that "100 times worse" people! They have not made one and I have made it better (minus a few details).

And yeah, if you uncapped one end, that would be a heck of a push in zero G!

ETA: Thanks for the luv in your next post



posted on Mar, 27 2019 @ 05:26 PM
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a reply to: TEOT



There! I have figured out a way to put into a picture what those words from the post I am responding to mean.

Ignore the green arrows because they are only showing the magnetic fields of the original CFR. The upgrade removed the need of the center coil which means they have 2 main central magnets (not sure how strong but compared to the external coils, they are relatively weak). At either ends, the diffuse plasma that is filling the reactor's vessel is trying to escape but hit the external coil's fields and flow towards either end which is where it is concentrated to beam-like strands and shot back down the centerline towards the middle of the reactor. That is what I meant by the "continuous fountain"; the more the plasma pushes out, the more it is concentrated into those beams and shot back into the center (where the two black arrows are located).

DISCLAIMER: All descriptions above are my own from reading the Aviation Week article and trying to understand how they got it to work without being a tokamak design. All incorrect, misstated, dumb, and down right wrong descriptions are clearly my own. Thanks to Wikipedia for the CFR cusp PNG that I marked up for the above. Sorry Lockheed if I have this totally bassackwards!!




posted on Mar, 27 2019 @ 06:48 PM
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Thanks mate, for your kind words, but i still think (in fact i know) that a pulse reactor is feasable, it is quite an old design, but very simple, it's just like a 'tank' circuit or Colpitts oscillator, you discharge caps into the coil, this compresses the plasma, which is excited to the point it will glow very bright.
The fusion happens only in the very core which is less than 1mm at that point, but when it fuses, the plasma expands and pushes outward, what that also does is, it pushes a huge current through the coils, as it expands it rapidly cools off and the fusion stops..
..having now charged your capacitors from the coils, you can now discharge them again into the coils, compressing the plasma again, it is excited by the high voltage from the coil itself (or a secondary system) and so the process repeats, and it is remarkably efficient, the surrounding mag field can be tapped at several points by what i call PTO or Power Take Off coils.
..of course in th LM concept the coils can be used both ways.I have already said too much, since i am under contract to build and market such a design. Not my design, it comes from someone much smarter than me, but i can see how it works, and i can see what LM are up to.
Yes the moderator is a problem (arent they always, Armap) no just kidding, Armap is an old freind. Yes a replaceable mod is probably the only way, but even these can be made from relatively cheap composites, and the fact that you are getting several megawatts from a gram of Deuterium or Tritium or He3, it's almost free, and completely limitless....and your waste fuel is ordinary Helium-4....and that stuff is expensive.....so your waste product is worth 50% the cost of your fuel.
It is clean, it is safe. Of course TPTB will stop at nothing to convince you otherwise it is what they are paid to do, and they are good at it, maybe better than the guys who airbrush the mars pics at JPL, hahahahahahah

I will study this diagram TEOT, and give an opinion on it's authenticity and tech details later, if i may?
Right now i have a small Brexit problem to deal with, i don't want it to interfere with my business

Later guys n gals



posted on Mar, 28 2019 @ 04:26 PM
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Ahh i see it now.
You need to picture the plasma beam not as a static object, but more as a travelling wave running up & down the tube.
It is in essence, a spiral, electrically seen (remember the electric theory of the universe? it has many faults but the bottom line theory is kinda solid) so you have a spiral, a coil of plasma if you like, and it has currents circulating that would simply melt a copper coil in a second....but still, you can use it as a kind of transformer. I postulated such a plasma transformer a few decades ago, but i did not then realise it's significance in fusion reactors.
Now i do, but sadly that is all i can say onthe subject, i have already given Lockheed all the info they need to go the next step......OK if it doesent work they can always call me, hahaha. I'm dirt cheap at 10 grand a month, but no, they went ahead and lost yet another X 31B, next time DOD MIB's, call me back, it may save you a couple hundred million, ok?
Well you have to laugh now & then, don't you?
Later!



posted on Mar, 29 2019 @ 03:42 PM
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Brexit be damned!!


A contract extension for the world’s largest fusion research facility, Joint European Torus, has been signed by the UK and the European Commission

The contract extension will secure at least €100m in additional inward investment from the EU over the next two years.

The news brings reassurance for the more than 500 staff at site in Culham, near Oxford.

Staff at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Oxfordshire undertake research in the latest technologies aimed at providing clean, safe, inexhaustible energy. The new contract guarantees its operations until the end of 2020 regardless of the EU Exit situation, and secures at least €100m in additional inward investment from the EU over the next two years.

gov.uk, 29 March 2019 - Future of JET secured with new European contract.

At least, for us fusionfanboys, we do not have politics to muck things up as JET will continue operations as a dry run for ITER. They should have a couple pulses soon seeing as ITER is 76% complete.

2 years is not a long time. I think NSTX-U has been down that long. That is also how long the LHC will be down for upgrades. Just sayin'...



posted on Apr, 4 2019 @ 02:00 PM
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In another thread, just the other day, somebody gave me a poke about fusion.

Universe responded!


While there are many steps from here to a viable reactor, the demonstration points to the potential use of a Z pinch in future compact fusion-energy generators.

physics.aps.org, April 4, 2019 - Synopsis: Igniting Fusion in the Lab.

Using a Z pinch device, for 5 micro seconds they observed high energy neutrons during a 16 micro send pulse.

Lockheed's CFR uses part of a Z pinch after the mirror reflects it back down the center line. And I figured out to explain the plasma device: it is like an immersion heater. The coils sit inside the plasma circulating it around themselves using 3 different magnetic confinement schemes. The faster it circulates, the faster it is pushed back into the center, the more chances for fusion reactions to occur.

Sounds like they have a Flibe blanket inside the reactor to breed tritium and one outside the reactor wall as a shield and heat blanket.

I also figured out what the name for spirals in the plasma travelling the length are called, Wakefield waves. I would bet that they will use Wakefield acceleration within the plasma to further control it and confine it. (tokamaks)



posted on Jun, 24 2019 @ 06:48 PM
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Tokamaks. The donut shaped reactors that everybody is betting on (at least a majority of fusion researchers use them) operate in a couple modes: L-, and H-mode. This is pretty much the two well studied and known about methods for years. They just stand for "low" or "high" pressure (plasma pressure). You clean, test instruments, upgrade parts, and what not in L-mode and when looking at turbulence correction, you crank up both temp and pressure to near reactor energy levels (called "regimes").

A couple years ago, a new regime was noticed within the data: Super H-mode.

It was theoretical. It was a crazy idea. Computer models were created. You basically let your plasma pressure split into two streams. One of the streams runs around in regular, H-mode. The other one is heated until it reaches an island of stability called a, "pedestal." The theory has now been demonstrated in a paper just published by both GA's DIII-D and MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamaks.

iopscience.iop.org - High fusion performance in Super H-mode experiments on Alcator C-Mod and DIII-D.

That is the paper proper. A more user-friendly version is from Yahoo! news...


Super-H Mode, as the researchers dub the approach, allows tokamaks to achieve higher fusion performance than previously possible. In recent experiments operating in and near the Super H-mode regime, researchers have achieved record-breaking values of fusion gain for a device of DIII-D’s size. Fusion gain is the ratio of fusion power generated to heating power.

Recent Breakthrough on DIII-D Enables Major Step Toward Economical Fusion Energy.

They actually showed nearly a 4 fold increase which is very good for the compact fusion reactors like SPARC/ARC and their magnetic fields are different shaped and this finding should make it easier to hit the Super H-mode. Either way, the overall size and cost of future demo fusion plants can/will incorporate this and keep cost lower by reducing overall size.

This is what General Atomic's David Hill had to say about this announcement...


“Fusion energy research historically advances with steady and marked improvements over time,” said David Hill, the director of DIII-D. “It is not often you see a significant leap in results like we have seen with Super-H Mode. This discovery has significant ramifications for future fusion energy plants, and we’re excited to see how far it will carry the field forward.”


Humanity has taken a leap towards fusion energy!




posted on Jun, 25 2019 @ 12:31 PM
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Researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego noted that the Super-H operating mode helped the laboratory’s tokamak, a device that converts fuel to fusion energy, reach ion temperatures of over 30M degrees and enabled the core plasma to achieve fusion levels of more than 150M degrees, resulting in “record-breaking” fusion gain, the company said Monday.

blog.executivebiz.com, June 25, 2019 - General Atomics Explores New Nuclear Fusion Approach.

There are some numbers for you! The article says if D-T fuel were used, they would "4 M watts output" (same source).

And at these high of temperatures, you can use either Kelvin of Celsius because each at 150 Million both are about equal! Since they only need to get to 110 M degrees, I would say, "Get the liquid lithium limiter ready!" because we are about ready to see ignition!




posted on Jul, 17 2019 @ 07:02 PM
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* sigh *

Here is how not to do a "nuclear fusion news article"...


Scientists have started to build Britain’s largest privately-owned nuclear fusion facility.

The project near Bletchley – home to World War II’s codebreakers – is being developed by Pulsar Fusion, a company spearheaded by nuclear entrepreneur Richard Dinan.

Dinan and his team have shipped in state-of-the-art equipment from around the world to fit out the new ground-breaking 10,000 sq ft facility.

He is confident they will achieve the temperature target within the next three months which means they have created matter hot enough to replicate the temperature of the Sun.

[photo, dude standing in an empty warehouse]

Dinan is pictured inside the vacuum chamber which will form the heart of the reactor and will soon reach temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius.

Once the facility is fully operational, the nuclear physicists plan to harness the technology to power a host of advanced clean energy innovations.

powerengineerginint.com, 16 July 2019 - Work starts on UK nuclear fusion facility.

Oh, the article goes on (and on, and on) about "nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun but is here on earth" and "clean power from the most abundant element in the universe" etc.

What is missing from this story?

Details!!

I could overlook the bad photo identification because the dude is standing in an empty warehouse and not a vacuum chamber of nuclear fusion reactor. Strike 1! We did get "10,000 square feet" so that was something. What is missing is WHAT TYPE OF FRICKIN' REACTOR IS BEING BUILT!!!

You figure a news story would have information like that in it!!

Off to googles...


Although it would be easy to dismiss Dinan as a dreamer, his startup Applied Fusion Systems is one of a growing number of firms investing in the promise of fusion.

Strike 2! It is not "Pulsar Fusion"!!

Dinan’s approach to cracking fusion draws on research conducted by scientists at Culham over the years. Dinan’s company is planning to build a spherical tokamak based on the design of an experimental reactor at Culham, the £40 million Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (Mast).


“We want to build several of these and test out our ideas,” says James Lambert, head of operations at Applied Fusion Systems. “It is unlikely that our first reactor will produce a net energy gain, but we are aiming for an electrical output of 100 MW or just below.”

BBC.com - The British reality TV star building a fusion reactor.

PEI? Strike 3 for assuming people know who this cat is!

I don't watch reality TV except maybe Japan's Extreme Ninja Challenge ("Let's go ice cream!"), so throwing around his name is meaningless.

Finally. Pieced it together... [TEOT's version]


16 July 2019, London, England

Construction has started on a spherical tokamak nuclear fusion reactor near the famous Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, by former reality TV star, turned entrepreneur, Richard Dinan's company, Applied Fusion Systems. The 10,000 square foot facility will be filled the machinery necessary to create the conditions for nuclear fusion here on earth. At 100,000,000 C, hotter than the sun due to the fact the reactor does not have the assistance of gravity, the spherical tokamak, a squat, donut-shaped vessel, will use state-of-the-art technology like superconducting magnets to confine a heated gas, plasma, of hydrogen isotopes to the point of fusion.

The first few reactor are not expected to produce energy but prove that the technology behind building such a reactor is a viable path.

[email protected]

That is much gooder! Correct information. Don't treat your readers like 4th graders and say stupid things like, "Star in a jor" and what have you. Give hints within the article to help interested readers understand what is happening. And throw in BS like "in 3 months" as there is no way in h3ll you can from empty warehouse to functioning reactor in that time. A year? That would be hopeful. A startup company with no previous experience building a tokamak? You get the idea.

I guess we should actually welcome a new private company to the table!




edit on 17-7-2019 by TEOTWAWKIAIFF because: typo negative




posted on Jul, 23 2019 @ 01:03 PM
link   

Project Innovation + Advantages:

MIFTI is developing a new version of the Staged Z-Pinch (SZP) fusion concept that reduces instabilities in the fusion plasma, allowing the plasma to persist for longer periods of time. The Z-Pinch is an approach for simultaneously heating, confining, and compressing plasma by applying an intense, pulsed electrical current which generates a magnetic field. While the simplicity of the Z-Pinch is attractive, it has been plagued by plasma instabilities. MIFTI's SZP plasma target consists of two components with different atomic numbers and is specifically configured to reduce instabilities. When the heavier component collapses around the lighter part, a shock front develops that travels faster than instabilities can grow, allowing the plasma to remain stable, long enough for fusion to occur. The approach also allows researchers to perform experiments in rapid succession, since it does not involve single-use components. MIFTI's design simplifies the engineering required for fusion through its efficiency and reduced number of components.

arpa-e.energy.gov - Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technologies, Inc. (MIFTI) Staged Z-Pinch Target For Fusion.

There are several of these devices one in SoCal, one in Nevada, and another one somewhere. I had not really paid attention as they were (or at least seem) intended to generate neutrons for medical purposes and not generate power.

But check this out!


US Nuclear ($18 million market cap) partner's MIFTI (Magneto Inertial Fusion Technologies, Inc.) and MIFTEC Labs, are the first to crack the code of Thermonuclear Fusion Energy by using their patented Staged Z Pinch technology to generate history making neutron flux of 10 to the 10th power.


When asked what the biggest milestone achievements have been since they first announced their breakthrough technology last year, Jerry Simmons, CEO and co-founder of both MIFTI and MIFTEC said, "In the second half of last year we did what nobody else has ever been able to do. Not even the big government projects. We made history by generating Neutron Flux in excess of 10^10 from fusion power using an isotope of hydrogen from seawater instead of radioactive enriched uranium. This proves beyond any doubt that our machine can make the isotopes used in nuclear medicine (i.e. Mo-99, Tc-99m, cobalt 60, iodine, etc.). It is only a matter now of simply scaling the power or electric current flow of our machine up so we can achieve the greater Neutron Flux of 10^12+. Dr. Hafiz Rahman, President and Chief Scientist and his staff at MIFTEC Labs and the University of Nevada, Reno National Terawatt Facility, tells us that our scientific experimental predictions and the device will work as designed."

oilandgas360.com, July 23, 2019 - Long Awaited Fusion Energy Breakthrough Finally Arrives.

I added the "^" in the second quote above as appropriate as they seems to be missing.

The article/press release goes on to say they are designing a new reversed Z-pinch (RZP) to run at 10 MA and produce 10^15 neutron flux!! Or more!

At that point, you wrap a lithium blanket around it, breed more tritium, add more deuterium and wango! Nuclear fusion is producing energy! The data was in a technical report that has been vetted and verified and most importantly, published [!!!], in a physics journal. As stated above, it was achieved last year, published this year and the press release just came out today!

Science, it may take for ever and seem to crawl at time but when real science is taking place it is worth the wait! This is not China making announcements. This is not Lockheed talking about various stages of design with no data or no date. This is not about funding and investment announcements. This is real science. Real science takes time.

May this scale up! Have we finally cracked the fusion code? From all looks, a neutron flux of 10^10 sounds impressive as nobody (all other nuclear fusion devices to date) have gone as high as 10^5 (second source). Fingers crossed. Not only do we need this as an energy source, we need to clean up this rock before we head out to the stars!








 
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