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Korea’s Artificial Sun Just Shattered a Fusion Record
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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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Fusion Experiment Demonstrates Cheaper Stellerator Using Creative Magnet Workaround
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Hannover's expertise boosts groundbreaking fusion project
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hann … t_999.html
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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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This article will have gone largely unnoticed in the energy community, but could have revolutionary implications for the future development of nuclear power.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 … 655/abfb4b
Whilst muon catalysed fusion is unlikely to produce a new energy source on its own, it could provide an energy efficient source of high energy neutrons. The 14MeV neutrons produced by D-T fusion will fast-fission any actinide nucleus, including depleted uranium, which Britain, France and the US have in enormous abundance thanks to 80 years of uranium enrichment for weapons and nuclear reactor programmes. Using muon catalysed fusion as a neutron source, would allow the construction of travelling wave reactors, using natural or depleted uranium as fuel, obviating the need for enrichment or fuel reprocessing. This dramatically simplifies the nuclear fuel cycle.
Up until now, fusion-fission hybrids have been discussed theoretically, but fusion has been too technically challenging to deploy as a neutron source in a hybrid reactor. But if the conclusion of this article is to be believed and muon catalysed fusion can at least break even in its stand alone energy gain, then it could provide an efficient source of neutrons driving a travelling wave fission reactor.
I would wager that the Russians and Chinese will have more adptitude developing this technology than any western country. In the western world, political activism has made new nuclear development slow and expensive. That needs to change if are to find a practical replacement for the cheap energy that once was provided by fossil fuels.
"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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'Tungsten Wall' Leads To Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough
https://qz.com/new-fusion-record-achiev … 1851459488
A tokamak in France achieved a new record in fusion plasma by using tungsten to encase its reaction, which enabled the sustainment of hotter and denser plasma for longer periods than previous carbon-based designs. Quartz reports:
A tokamak is a torus- (doughnut-) shaped fusion device that confines plasma using magnetic fields, allowing scientists to fiddle with the superheated material and induce fusion reactions. The recent achievement was made in WEST (tungsten (W) Environment in Steady-state Tokamak), a tokamak operated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). WEST was injected with 1.15 gigajoules of power and sustained a plasma of about 50 million degrees Celsius for six minutes. It achieved this record after scientists encased the tokamak's interior in tungsten, a metal with an extraordinarily high melting point. Researchers from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory used an X-ray detector inside the tokamak to measure aspects of the plasma and the conditions that made it possible.
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