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.
Researchers at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated a method called dynamic shell formation, which may help achieve the goal of creating a fusion power plant.
The researchers, including Igor Igumenshchev, a senior scientist at LLE, and Valeri Goncharov, a distinguished scientist and theory division director at LLE and an assistant professor (research) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, discuss their findings in a paper published in Physical Review Letters.
"This experiment has demonstrated feasibility of an innovative target concept suitable for affordable, mass production for inertial fusion energy," Igumenshchev says.
US scientists repeat fusion ignition breakthrough for 2nd time
U.S. scientists at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced Sunday that they achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for a second time — this time with a higher energy yield.
Scientists at the California-based lab repeated the fusion ignition breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on July 30 that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.
Helicity Fusion is developing fusion propulsion for space ships. They have built and are testing their first fusion gun and are testing it in the lab. They plan to have four fusion guns and a compressor by the end of the year. They will NOT reach fusion conditions for a few years. They plan to fly components in space by 2026.
The goal is to have multiple guns reach fusion conditions and have a fusion enabled system flying in space by 2032. They distribute and scale with the number of fusion sources (aka fusion guns).
Nuclear Fusion And The Future Of Clean Energy by Prateek Tripathi
September 30, 2023
Extract:
(Eurasia Review) For a fusion reaction to be viable for energy production, it has to be carried out in a controlled and sustainable manner, so that the energy released can be used to say, rotate a turbine which would subsequently generate electricity.
The efficiency of a fusion reaction is given by a quantity called the Gain defined as: Output Energy/Input Energy
The objective is to achieve a gain greater than 1. However, this has been notoriously difficult to implement practically. This is primarily because to achieve fusion, the two constituent nuclei must first combine, which requires overcoming their mutual electrostatic repulsion stemming from the fact that they are both positively charged. This has given rise to different approaches to achieving fusion.
…
In the case of the Sun, the atoms get stripped of their electrons and converted into positively charged ions due to extremely high temperatures, resulting in a dense soup of ions and electrons called a plasma. In these conditions, it is possible for the ions to acquire a high enough velocity (kinetic energy) to overcome their electrostatic repulsion and allow fusion to occur. This is essentially the process used in fusion reactors, with the difference being that now the extreme temperatures must be created artificially. There are two primary ways of achieving this.
1. Magnetic confinement …
2. Inertial confinement…
See linked article for brief description of these two methods. The article also goes on to further describe recent breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The emergence of India in the experimental development of fusion energy is also briefly discussed.
weatheriscool wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 4:24 pm
I think fusion will probably save humanity from extiction level global warming...It working along side solar, wind and hydro.
Study after study shows that the massive, exponential increases we're seeing in solar and wind are by far the quickest, cheapest, and best ways to decarbonise electricity. I don't know why you maintain this belief that fusion will come to our rescue. It might provide a nice bonus, but it won't be the main contributor to net zero.
Over 43 startups companies are working on nuclear fusion and they have received over $6 billion in funding. This does not include the international and national Tokomak fusion programs.
The IEEE Spectrum reviewed five of the nuclear fusion companies that are working on Aneutronic fusion.
1. TAE (TriAlpha Energy) is working towards Proton-Boron fusion.
2. Helion Energy is developing Helium 3 fusion. They plan to breed Helium 3 in their reactors.
3. HB11 Energy is developing laser proton boron fusion.
4. Marvel Energy is developing proton boron fusion
5. Princeton Fusion Systems
TAE Technologies, (TriAlpha Energy), has the most funding for its aneutronic fusion program. The company started 1998 and has received US $1.25 billion, according to CEO Michl Binderbauer. TAE’s is reacting hydrogen and boron, a mix also known as proton-B11 (PB11). When fused, hydrogen-boron releases three positively charged helium-4 nuclei, known as alpha particles. TAE design confines plasma—fuel so hot that electrons are stripped away from the atoms, forming an ionized gas—via a technique called a field-reversed configuration (FRC).
Japan’s JT-60SA tokamak nuclear fusion reactor has achieved first plasma which makes it the world’s largest operating nuclear fusion reactor. The JT-60SA uses magnetic fields from superconducting coils to contain a blazingly hot cloud of ionized gas, or plasma, within a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel, in hope of coaxing hydrogen nuclei to fuse and release energy. The four-story-high machine is designed to hold a plasma heated to 200 million degrees Celsius for about 100 seconds, far longer than previous large tokamaks.
It will take another 2 years before JT-60SA produces the long-lasting plasmas needed for meaningful physics experiments, says Hiroshi Shirai, leader of the project for QST.
Japan’s JT-60SA tokamak nuclear fusion reactor has achieved first plasma which makes it the world’s largest operating nuclear fusion reactor. The JT-60SA uses magnetic fields from superconducting coils to contain a blazingly hot cloud of ionized gas, or plasma, within a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel, in hope of coaxing hydrogen nuclei to fuse and release energy. The four-story-high machine is designed to hold a plasma heated to 200 million degrees Celsius for about 100 seconds, far longer than previous large tokamaks.
It will take another 2 years before JT-60SA produces the long-lasting plasmas needed for meaningful physics experiments, says Hiroshi Shirai, leader of the project for QST.
Another milestone has been reached:
The World's Biggest Nuclear Fusion Reactor Just Came Online December 4, 2023
Introduction:
(AFP via Science Alert) The world's biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in operation was inaugurated in Japan on Friday, a technology in its infancy but billed by some as the answer to humanity's future energy needs.
Fusion differs from fission, the technique currently used in nuclear power plants, by fusing two atomic nuclei instead of splitting one.
The goal of the JT-60SA reactor is to investigate the feasibility of fusion as a safe, large-scale and carbon-free source of net energy – with more energy generated than is put into producing it.
The six-storey-high machine, in a hangar in Naka north of Tokyo, comprises a donut-shaped "tokamak" vessel set to contain swirling plasma heated up 200 million degrees Celsius (360 million degrees Fahrenheit).
It is a joint project between the European Union and Japan, and is the forerunner for its big brother in France, the under-construction International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
