Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

User avatar
erowind
Posts: 544
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 5:42 am

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by erowind »

Thanks for the info funkervogt, tokamak reactors are still probably the most viable path and hopefully ITER will yield results over the next 15 years.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Due to these inefficiences, and the large upfront capital costs, I doubt fusion will play a significant role in the world's energy needs, although it may start to be deployed in various places from 2050-2070.

This is much like the debate with fission. Renewables will be cheaper, quicker to construct, and with further advantages such as decentralisation.

Rather than generating electricity here on Earth, a better long-term use might be in remote locations on moons of the Solar System. Or perhaps even large, crewed spacecraft on deep space missions (post-2100), far from sunlight.
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Maybe I am missing something, but it almost seems to be that fusion will have the advantage of being a centralized energy source, whereas solar and electric have the advantage of being decentralized sources. Solar and wind require a lot of land and/or space. If fusion is like fission, it will be able to generate proportionately quite a bit more power where land and/or space are at a premium. It can thus more easily replace large scale fission and carbon-based fuel plants. Replacement is also of high importance in order to take maximum advantage of distribution networks. Something that is more difficult for solar and wind. A lot depends on how much further the development of solar and wind, including battery technology, progresses.

Eventually, it will become more of an economic and political question, as opposed to a technical engineering question. The technological feasibility of fusion will mean little if its perceived relative cost is prohibitive. The potential flexibility of incentive structures through the tax and subsidy system means it is even harder to predict. One of the things that was said to slow the initial development of solar was that it was decentralized, and therefore not favored politically by elites who desired greater monopoly, and thus market, control. These sorts of considerations and the struggles they entail are thus a source of greater complexity for futurists to consider.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Xyls
Posts: 689
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 9:20 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by Xyls »

Interesting:

User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by wjfox »

weatheriscool
Posts: 12954
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Britain ‘only 15 years away’ from world-first nuclear fusion plant
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... ion-plant/
Science minister claims that investors and engineering companies are now ready to accelerate pace of UK’s ambitious energy plan
By Joe Pinkstone, Science Correspondent 6 February 2023 • 8:00pm
George Freeman

Nuclear fusion could be powering British homes in just 15 years, making it the first country in the world to make energy from the process, ministers have said.

Currently, nuclear fusion has only been achieved in labs and requires far more energy to make it happen than it produces.

However, George Freeman, the science minister, believes the 15-year timeline could be enough to solve fusion and make a plant capable of working at a large scale and making more power for the grid that it needs to be operational.

Speaking on Monday at the West Burton power station in Nottinghamshire, Mr Freeman unveiled a new company which will be in charge of the nation’s drive to build the world’s first functioning nuclear fusion power station.

UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd (UKIFS) will sit inside the Government’s UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and be tasked with supercharging the creation of Britain’s, and the world’s, first and only commercially-viable fusion plant.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12954
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Wendelstein-7X fusion reactor reaches milestone
https://www.forschung-und-wissen.de/nac ... n-13377133
February 23, 2023 5:17 pm Robert Klatt
Fusion test reactor Wendelstein-7X
Germany's Wendelstein-7X fusion reactor has reached a milestone in fusion plasma energy turnover. Wendelstein-7X ran at 1.3 gigajoules for eight minutes. This is a new record for discharge duration and heating capacity.

Greifswald (Germany). Various nuclear fusion reactors are currently being tested, including a laser fusion system from the National Ignition Facility (NIF), with whose laser-induced nuclear fusion the burning plasma state was recently achieved for the first time. In addition, laser-induced nuclear fusion resulted in an unexpected excess of energy in the fusion plasma, which according to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution should not exist. Other institutes are also testing fusion reactors in which the plasma is confined by strong magnetic fields. These are divided into tokamak plants, such as the ITER large reactor, and stellarator reactors, such as the Wendelstein 7-X.
The Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor in Greifswald is the world's largest stellarator reactor. A study by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) recently showed that his concept is suitable for the construction of power plants. In the Wendelstein-7X, a ring of 50 superconducting magnetic coils forms a complex magnetic field that keeps the ultra-hot fusion plasma in place. In contrast to tokamak systems, in which plasma can only be fused for a short time, a stellarator reactor can theoretically run continuously. Wendelstein-7X should prove this in reality.
Modification of the Wendelstein-7X fusion reactor

The first experiments with the Wendelstein fusion reactor started in 2015. In 2016 Wendelstein-7X generated its first hydrogen plasma and in 2018 the
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by wjfox »

UKAEA awards £3.1 million of contracts to accelerate the growth of UK’s fusion industry

February 28, 2023

Eighteen organisations have secured contracts with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to demonstrate how their innovative technologies and proposed solutions can help make fusion energy a commercial reality. The organisations will focus on overcoming specific technical and physical challenges.

The contracts – feasibility studies from £50,000 up to £200,000 – are funded by the UKAEA’s ‘Fusion Industry Programme’ and awarded through the UK Government platform ‘Small Business Research Initiative’. The latest contracts are the second part of the Fusion Industry Programme, following the first cycle of the Fusion Industry Programme in 2021.

The projects aim to tackle specific challenges linked to the commercialisation of fusion energy, from novel fusion materials and manufacturing techniques through to innovative heating and cooling systems, all needed for future fusion powerplants.

Tim Bestwick, UKAEA’s Chief Technology Officer, said: “In the past 12 months we have seen significant advances both in the UK and globally that demonstrate the potential for fusion energy to be a safe, low-carbon and sustainable part of the world’s future energy supply. However, there are a number of significant technical challenges to address for fusion energy to realise its potential. The Fusion Industry Programme is helping engage organisations and industrial partners to stimulate innovation and address these important challenges.”

The Fusion Industry Programme is part of the Government’s £484 million support package for UK research, announced last year. The Programme was allocated £42.1 million as part of this package to stimulate innovation and to accelerate the development of the fusion industry.

https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/ukaea-awards-3-1m ... -industry/


Image
weatheriscool
Posts: 12954
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

New discovery points the way to more compact fusion power plants
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-discovery ... power.html
by Max Planck Society
A magnetic cage keeps the more than 100 million degree Celsius hot plasmas in nuclear fusion devices at a distance from the vessel wall so that they do not melt. Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) have found a way to significantly reduce this distance. This could make it possible to build smaller and cheaper fusion reactors for energy production. The work was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The international experimental reactor ITER, which is currently being built in southern France, represents the most advanced way to generate energy in a fusion power plant. The design follows the tokamak principle, i.e., a fusion plasma at more than 100 million degrees is confined in a magnetic field shaped like a donut. This concept prevents the hot plasma from coming into contact with the enclosing wall and damaging it. The ASDEX Upgrade tokamak experiment at IPP in Garching near Munich serves as a blueprint for ITER and later fusion power plants. Important elements for ITER were developed here. And plasma operating conditions and components for later power plants can already be tested today.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12954
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Nuclear Fusion News & Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Tokamak Energy unveils images of fusion power plant slated for 2030s
By Paul McClure
April 11, 2023

https://newatlas.com/energy/commercial- ... sil-fuels/

Tokamak Energy has released the first images of what its commercial fusion power plant, which it says would safely generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes in the 2030s, would look like.

The company, based near Oxford in the UK, plans to build a fusion pilot plant around its upcoming ST-E1 tokamak, which it says will be ready for rollout in the early 2030s to demonstrate the ability to deliver electricity to the grid, opening the potential for 500-megawatt commercial plants to be deployed worldwide.

When a mix of deuterium and tritium, two forms of hydrogen, is heated at temperatures hotter than the sun’s core, they fuse to create helium and release energy that can be harnessed to produce electricity and heat. The plasma created by the heating process is confined using strong magnets arranged in a ring-shaped device called a tokamak.

Fusion is extremely efficient, creating far more energy per kilogram of fuel than the burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, or gas produces. One kilogram (2.2 lb) of fusion fuel releases the same energy as burning about 10,000 tonnes (11,023 ton) of coal. Tokamak Energy says that fusion offers other advantages that other renewable energy sources lack.
Image
Post Reply