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#151 2024-04-05 17:10:48

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: The fusion age has begun.

Korea’s Artificial Sun Just Shattered a Fusion Record

https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc … or-plasma/

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#152 2024-04-06 13:52:28

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: The fusion age has begun.

China strives for development, intl cooperation of nuclear fusion to seek ultimate solution to power shortage
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202404/1310066.shtml


and more than 1 month ago another record reported


European scientists set nuclear fusion energy record
https://www.ft.com/content/629fc9ca-f44 … 22b7a8ca15
Experiment was ‘fitting swansong’ for UK’s JET facility outside Oxford

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#153 2024-04-19 13:37:54

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: The fusion age has begun.

Fusion Experiment Demonstrates Cheaper Stellerator Using Creative Magnet Workaround

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/ … d#comments

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#154 2024-04-20 13:07:05

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: The fusion age has begun.

Hannover's expertise boosts groundbreaking fusion project
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hann … t_999.html

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#155 2024-04-23 03:36:20

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,440

Re: The fusion age has begun.

A new Stellarator startup in Germany, reported here by Sabine Hossenfelder.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0H2-Dnsbk

The donut shaped tokamak relies on a current within the plasma to create the magnetic field needed for plasma confinement.  This reduces the required strength of the confinement magnets, but also creates instabilities in the magnetic field as plasma conductivity is a function of temperature.  The stellarator does not rely upon plasma current for magnetic confinement.  It requires stronger magnets and a more complex geometry.  But the plasma is far more stable.  German experiments have succeeded in maintaining a stable plasma for 8 minutes.

The problem with this approach is common to all magnetic confinement approaches.  Power density is limited by low plasma density, due to limitations on the achievable strength of confining magnetic fields.  Unless there is progress in materials science allowing us to build much stronger superconducting magnets, it is difficult to see any magnetic confinement fusion device functioning as an economically competitive powerplant.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-04-23 03:36:56)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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