Fusion research at Iter: unlocking the power of the sun

[Graeme]

Nuclear fusion finance plan rejected by EU Parliament

A plan to rescue European financing of the Iter nuclear fusion reactor project has been rejected at the final hurdle.

Member states had wanted to reallocate 1.4bn euros from the existing Brussels budget to cover a shortfall in building costs in 2012-13.

But the European Parliament has refused to approve the plan.

Member states will now have to table a new proposal for early next year but access to the EU's 2010 budget is now closed.

Iter's director-general Osamu Motojima is due in Brussels tomorrow for critical talks with officials from the European Commission.

BBC

[Keith_McClary]

MIT Fusion Researchers Answer Your Questions (Slashdot Q&A)

1. What have we learned?

Fusion is one of those technologies that is always '50 years away,’ even 50 years ago, maybe even 50 years from now. So, looking at what's actually happened recently: What do we actually know now that we didn't know 10-15 years ago that gives support to the notion that we're making progress? Or, what are the 'big' things we know now? Similarly, what are the things we still don't know that we could reasonably expect to find answers for in the next 10-15 years?
...
3. Ubiquitous Fusion Power

When will fusion power my house (or vehicle)?
...
5. What Problems are Holding Back Successful Reactions?

Can you explain to a non-scientist what the biggest stumbling blocks are for an effective fusion reaction? Is it truly a matter of throwing money down an energy hole, or are there verifiable, measurable benchmarks that lead us from one step to the next? I.e. we’ve achieved X, now we need Y; when we get Y, we get Z and then achieve fusion. Is it the technology holding us back, the politics, or the science?
...
11. What level of investment would get fusion going?

Do you think a program the size of the Apollo program could kickstart fusion to general availability? Or would a smaller program suffice?

14. What could you do with unlimited resources?

Given $1 trillion, the pick of the best brains in the world to work willingly on the project, a large enough location away from any and all governmental regulation and every facility you could ever need - when would fusion be commercially viable?

Answers and 234 reader comments.

[Graeme]

PPPL scientists propose a solution to a critical barrier to producing fusion

Physicists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have discovered a possible solution to a mystery that has long baffled researchers working to harness fusion. If confirmed by experiment, the finding could help scientists eliminate a major impediment to the development of fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy for producing electric power.

An in-depth analysis by PPPL scientists zeroed in on tiny, bubble-like islands that appear in the hot, charged gases — or plasmas — during experiments. These minute islands collect impurities that cool the plasma. And these islands, the scientists report in the April 20 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, are at the root of a longstanding problem known as the "density limit" that can prevent fusion reactors from operating at maximum efficiency.

Fusion occurs when plasmas become hot and dense enough for the atomic nuclei contained within the hot gas to combine and release energy. But when the plasmas in experimental reactors called tokamaks reach the mysterious density limit, they can spiral apart into a flash of light.

"The big mystery is why adding more heating power to the plasma doesn't get you to higher density," said David Gates, a principal research physicist at PPPL and co-author of the proposed solution with Luis Delgado-Aparicio, a postdoctoral fellow at PPPL and a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Plasma Science Fusion Center. "This is critical because density is the key parameter in reaching fusion and people have been puzzling about this for more than 30 years."


Conquering the limit could provide essential improvements for future tokamaks that will need to produce self-sustaining fusion reactions, or "burning plasmas," to generate electric power. Such machines include proposed successors to ITER, a $20 billion experimental reactor that is being built in Cadarache, France, by the European Union, the United States and five other countries.

princeton