Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

weatheriscool
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China’s ‘artificial sun’ breaks record, marking latest milestone in quest for efficient thermonuclear fusion reactors
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science ... ear-fusion
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak generates and sustains plasma for nearly seven minutes – four times as long as its previous record
It uses powerful magnetic fields to confine super-hot plasma, forcing hydrogen to combine into heavier atoms and releasing energy in the process

China’s “artificial sun” set a world record on Wednesday night by generating and maintaining extremely hot, highly confined plasma for nearly seven minutes.

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in the city of Hefei in eastern China generated and sustained plasma for 403 seconds, breaking its previous record of 101 seconds in 2017 and marking another key step towards building high-efficiency, low-cost thermonuclear fusion reactors.

“The main significance of this new breakthrough lies in its ‘high-confinement mode’, under which the temperature and density of the plasma increase significantly,” said Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built EAST.
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raklian
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Microsoft agrees to buy electricity generated from Sam Altman-backed fusion company Helion in 2028

Microsoft said Wednesday it has signed a power purchase agreement with nuclear fusion startup Helion to buy electricity from it in 2028.

The deal is a vote of confidence for fusion, which has thus far not been commercialized.

Silicon Valley insider Sam Altman has invested $375 million into Helion, the largest investment he personally has ever made. His other big bet is artificial intelligence company OpenAI, in which Mirosoft is a large investor.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/10/microso ... -2028.html


They're pretty confident about this but I'm sure there are clauses in the agreement that allows each party to withdraw without penalties.
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raklian wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 1:23 pm Microsoft agrees to buy electricity generated from Sam Altman-backed fusion company Helion in 2028

Microsoft said Wednesday it has signed a power purchase agreement with nuclear fusion startup Helion to buy electricity from it in 2028.

The deal is a vote of confidence for fusion, which has thus far not been commercialized.

Silicon Valley insider Sam Altman has invested $375 million into Helion, the largest investment he personally has ever made. His other big bet is artificial intelligence company OpenAI, in which Mirosoft is a large investor.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/10/microso ... -2028.html


They're pretty confident about this but I'm sure there are clauses in the agreement that allows each party to withdraw without penalties.
This is fucking huge if they're able to get it done. So big that our ability to solve global warming will go from next to impossible to very possible.
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A Chinese-made fusion reactor is creating breakdowns – Thai scientists are delighted

Published: 5:00pm, 11 May, 2023

Scientists in Thailand have begun generating hydrogen plasma with the help of a device known as a tokamak, recently donated by China, in a bid to position the region as a hub for research on clean fusion energy.

The team said they were confident the device – known as Thailand Tokamak-1 (TT-1) – will reach its full capacity this month, opening the door for research, and the possibility of further raising the temperature inside the machine.

A tokamak – a doughnut-shaped device built to harness the energy of fusion – produces an extremely powerful magnetic field to contain and control hydrogen gas that is 10 times hotter than the core of the sun.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science ... -delighted


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Small fusion experiment hits temperatures hotter than the sun's core
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-small-fus ... r-sun.html
by US Department of Energy

To produce commercial energy, future fusion power plants will need to achieve temperatures of 100 million degrees C. To do so requires careful control of the plasma. In a study published in the journal Nuclear Fusion, researchers refined operating conditions to achieve the necessary temperatures in a compact spherical tokamak device called ST40.

This device is unique; it is much smaller and has a more spherical plasma than other fusion devices. To achieve these results, the researchers used an approach similar to past "supershots" that produced more than 10 million watts of fusion power in the TFTR tokamak in the 1990s.
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It's starting to look like the 2030's will be the decade commercial fusion may actually take off, much earlier than anticipated.


Zap Energy lands $5M federal grant and ‘vote of confidence’ in pursuit of fusion power

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The Seattle area’s Zap Energy will receive $5 million from a newly launched federal program supporting the commercial development of fusion power.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program announced Wednesday that it was divvying up $46 million among eight commercial fusion ventures in the U.S.

Zap is developing sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion technology. The company’s device drives electric currents through a filament of superheated material called plasma. The current creates powerful magnetic fields around the plasma, compressing the material and producing conditions that are sufficient for creating fusion reactions that generate energy.

Zap set a goal of reaching breakeven this year, though Shumlak admitted on Wednesday that the time frame “is going to be challenging.”

But achieving commercial energy production by the end of the decade is tenable, he said. “We’re making really strong progress and proving out some of the scaling.”

TransAlta, the company that operates Washington’s last operating coal plant, is ceasing operations in 2025. Zap is working with the company to determine if it could locate its fusion plant at the southwest Washington site.

Some of the facility’s equipment and workforce could be adapted for fusion. “We’re just replacing the coal burner with another heating source,” Shumlak said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 4b1&ei=114
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Baby Fusion Reactor Less Than A Meter Wide Tops 100 Million°C
by Rachael Funnel
June 2, 2023

Introduction:
(IFL Science)Temperatures seven times hotter than the center of the Sun have been achieved in a nuclear reactor that’s less than a meter (3 feet) wide. Ions inside the spherical Tokamak ST40 soared to over 100 million degrees Celsius, breaking the record for this kind of reactor.

One hundred million degrees Celsius (around 180 million degrees Fahrenheit) had only previously been achieved in much larger reactors requiring a lot more power. It’s a momentous achievement as it demonstrates the right conditions for fusion can be created in more compact reactors like ST40, requiring less energy to run.

“While national laboratories have reported plasma temperatures above 100 [million] degrees in conventional tokamaks at least 15 times larger, Tokamak Energy’s milestone was achieved in five years in a compact spherical tokamak," Stuart White at Tokamak Energy told IFLScience. "The optimal technical approach: Spherical tokamaks maximise fusion power with higher efficiency, [and] compared to conventional tokamaks, spherical tokamaks reduce [capital expenditures] and [operational expenditures].”

Generally speaking, it’s more challenging to achieve fusion in a smaller reactor compared to a bigger one. To understand why, let’s first do a quick recap on nuclear fusion.

Fusion occurs when two atoms combine, releasing enormous amounts of energy. This is because inside each atom is a nucleus that’s orbited by electrons and contains protons and neutrons. When you slam two atoms together with enough force, their nuclei combine, releasing vast amounts of energy.

Read more of the IFL Science article here: https://www.iflscience.com/baby-fusion ... onc-69216


Extract:
(Tokamak Energy) Dr Fulvio Militello, Director of Tokamak Science and MAST-U (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak – Upgrade) at UKAEA, said: “Fusion energy could be transformative for energy security and is important in the long-term fight against climate change. The ground-breaking research being done in the UK and with our partners across the globe, aims to make fusion energy a reality. We congratulate Tokamak Energy on reaching this significant milestone.”

Stanley Kaye, Director of Research at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, said: “Fusion energy research has had several breakthroughs in the last few years; ignition in inertial confinement and sustained fusion energy production in magnetic confinement devices, indicating the scientific viability of fusion as an energy source. The attainment of fusion relevant temperatures in the ST40 spherical tokamak is yet another important step in the development of fusion energy, and especially so for compact tokamak reactor designs. Tokamak Energy and their international collaborators are to be congratulated for this achievement.”
Source: https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/2023/0 ... n-plasma/
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New technique may help achieve mass production fusion energy
July 10, 2023
Fusion, which replicates the same reaction that powers the sun, has long been viewed as an ideal energy source due to its potential to be safe, clean, cheap, and reliable. Since the early 1960s, scientists have pursued the possibility of using high-powered lasers to compress thermonuclear material long enough and at high enough temperatures to trigger ignition—the point at which the resultant output of inertial fusion energy is greater than the energy delivered to the target.

Scientists achieved ignition in December 2022 at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but many hurdles remain in making fusion energy technically and commercially viable for mass production and consumption.
https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/dy ... gy-563262/
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