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Page added on October 9, 2012
Clean, limitless fusion power could arrive sooner than expected
Good news, denizens of Earth: If the findings from two premier research labs are to be believed, commercial nuclear fusion is feasible — and could arrive sooner than expected.
The first breakthrough comes from Sandia National Laboratories (the same engineers who brought us the fanless heatsink). At SNL, a research team has been working on a new way of creating fusion called magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF). This approach is quite similar to the National Ignition Facility at the LLNL in California, where they fuse deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes) by crushing and heating the fuel with 500 trillion watts of laser power. Instead of lasers, MagLIF uses a massive magnetic pulse (26 million amps), created by Sandia’s Z Machine (a huge X-ray generator), to crush a small cylinder containing the hydrogen fuel. Through various optimizations, the researchers discovered a MagLIF setup that almost breaks even (i.e. it almost produces more thermal energy than the electrical energy required to begin the fusion reaction).
Probably more significant is news from the Joint European Torus (JET), a magnetic confinement fusion facility in the UK. JET is very similar to the ITER nuclear fusion reactor, an international project which is being built in the south of France. Whereas NIF and Sandia create an instantaneous fusion reaction using heat and pressure, ITER and JET confine the fusing plasma for a much longer duration using strong magnetic fields, and are thus more inclined towards the steady production of electricity. JET’s breakthrough was the installation of a new beryllium-lined wall and tungsten floor inside the tokamak — the doughnut-shaped inner vessel that confines 11-million-degrees-Celsius plasma (pictured above).
Carbon is the conventional tokamak lining (and the lining that had been chosen for the first iteration of ITER) but now it seems the beryllium-tungsten combo significantly improves the quality of the plasma. Hopefully this information will allow ITER to skip the carbon tokamak and jump straight to beryllium-tungsten, shaving years and millions of dollars off the project.
Moving forward, JET will actually try full-blown fusion with the optimum mix of deuterium and tritium (16 megawatts, for less than a second). At this point, JET is practically an ITER testbed, so its results from the next year or two will have a large impact on the construction of ITER’s tokamak, which should be completed by 2019.
Before today, magnetic confinement fusion was generally considered to be more mature and efficient than inertial confinement fusion — but Sandia’s new approach might change that. ITER is one of the world’s largest ongoing engineering projects (it’s expected to cost around $20 billion), and yet critics are quick to point out that we still don’t know if it will actually work. ITER isn’t expected to fuse D-T fuel until 2027 (producing 500 megawatts for up to 1,000 seconds) — and an awful lot can happen in 15 years. Still, the main thing is that we’re actually working on fusion power — when we’re talking about limitless, clean power, it’s probably worth investing a few billion dollars, even if it doesn’t work out.
Fusion reactors are some of the most beautiful constructions you’ll ever see, so be sure to check out our galleries of the National Ignition Facility and the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.
16 Comments on "Clean, limitless fusion power could arrive sooner than expected"
DMyers on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 12:59 am
I don’t quite understand what they believe they can do with this. Will it plug right into the grid, in its current state?
I’m not sure the 15 year window on this, [wow, at least we’re actually working on it!], fusion power is really much better than just standing back and saying: “I bet within fifteen years or so, they’ll come up with somethin’.”
What strikes me most is the large energy input required. This invention must be analyzed in a net energy context.
In addition to that, it utilizes exotic elements. This immediately raises the question of sustainability.
I say, take a good look at EROEI and sustainability with these fusion gizmos. If those don’t look so good, then put your billions into home peddle electric generators.
SOS on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 1:06 am
It produced heat that is used in the production of electricity. Its a fancy, but really cheap to operate, boiler.
BillT on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 2:08 am
More dreams of the techies…lol. Interesting that the last article put the timeline at 30 years and now they are saying 15? And I guess, 6 months from now they will claim to have an operating plant?
‘Extreme Tech’ AH! Techie porn! Well, enjoy your wet dreams of cheap plentiful energy while you can. And pass the joint…
Don35 on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 3:09 am
“and an awful lot can happen in 15 years.” Yeah, that made me laugh!
SilentRunning on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 3:30 am
Impressive. If we spend $20 billion we *might* get 500 MW for 1000 seconds by 2027.
On the other hand, if we take the $20 billion, we could make something like 20 BILLION watts of solar panels (currently about $1 per watt.) these panels would work for HOURS every day (10X than ITER in a single day of operation), and continue to do so for years, and we could start making it happen – literally – tomorrow, because we already have the 100% proven technology.
Hmmmm. what to choose? The highly speculative tech that might possibly start produce 5×10^11 joules of energy in 15 years, or the proven tech that would produce 4×10^18 (a whopping 7+ orders of magnitude more) – and assembly work could begin literally tomorrow.
SilentRunning on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 3:40 am
Also, I’d be willing to bet that the above mentioned 500 MW is “thermal” output, so the delivered electrical output that ITER *might* possibly produce would be something like 1/3rd of that – more like 170MW. Meanwhile, the solar panels produce their output in terms of electrical power already.
sandu635 on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 6:28 am
ITER will not produce electicity , it’s just a test , a proof of concept. It’s more like putting a man on the moon.
NP on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 9:22 am
Once upon a time, not so many years ago … nuclear fission was nothing but a dream.
But then a bunch of really smart guys gathered just outside of Los Alamos, spent a hideous amount of money and now we are able to use that technology to create power.
As long as we spend more money on buying ringtones for our mobile phones then we do on fusion research nobody really got the right to complain.
Perhaps we should use the money we waste on wars in the middle east to do both fusion research and put up solar panels?
Fusion has the possibility to provide the world with more or less limitless clean energy and even if we don’t succeed all the way at first attempt it is still worth pursuing, right?
kervennic on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 11:27 am
@NP
Well, if there were no war in the middle east to prevent escalation of anger to strategic oil producing region, oil price would probably be double by now, economy would be down and researcher fired.
If there were not selling stupid phones, and ringtones, the whole semi con industry would collapse and with it cheap computation that is used heavily in science.
But all this does not mean that it will lead anywhere.Breaking a few nucleus is one thing, putting the sun in a box is another. Thie is useless spending of money, research effort an material
If there is fusion one day, it will be with a more clever way, due to a profound understanding of the nature of matter and what underlies its emergence from “vacuum”. This is fundamental physics, much cheaper, and it takes much more time and tricks. So not for us given the ridiculously low level of understanding. Fission came because there was a precise understanding at that time of the physics involved.
Arthur on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 11:42 am
Handsomly paid scientists and technicians keep the hope alive and thus attempt to secure their own jobs. After all, 2027 is far away
Newfie on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 2:17 pm
“A lot can happen in 15 years”.
Yup. In 15 years the interior of continental USA will become a barren desert.
“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is.” – James Hansen, NASA.
DC on Tue, 9th Oct 2012 8:04 pm
Solar and Wind are proven technologies that work, and they work now. The O+G industries love fusion, its always 25-50 years away from being a viable energy source…..
BillT on Wed, 10th Oct 2012 12:13 am
A hand full of over paid techies pushing their brand of porn to the masses hoping to keep the tax dollars flowing into their pockets. And fools believe that there will still be an economy and enough oil energy in 15-20 years to build the hundreds, maybe thousands of these things all over the world. Dream on…and pass the joint.
Bob Owens on Wed, 10th Oct 2012 12:19 am
This dream is just that: a dream. Take the money spent on these things and you can buy everyone in the world a batch solar water heater that has no moving parts and will produce hot water for 30 years without any maintenance. Fusion power we can afford! Why are we so in love with these complex machines? Come on, wake up!
Kenz300 on Wed, 10th Oct 2012 1:18 pm
It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy sources. Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future.
Investment in renewable energy is expanding around he world. Over 100 countries have renewable energy targets in place in 2012.
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=2688&ArticleID=9163&l=en
Tango tor on Sun, 21st Oct 2012 5:06 pm
This project is not bigger than for example the ichthys gas field development off Australia.
So 20 busd is not a big amount of money. This field goes first gas in 2016.
The ekofisk oil field in norway has operated for 40 years and will for 40 years more.
So 2020 for first fusion is just around the corner.
Quite frankly it would seem a pretty low risk project to me; the analysis done to prove they will get massively more energy output than input must have been done eith a resulting probability of success more than 99,9999% else they would not do it. (I have not seen any focus on this topic).
This will be the most important development for man ever and it is just a few years away.
It will fix global warming, give everyone as much freshwater as they can ever use anywhere, and that is just 2 obvious benefits.