How efficient are the nuclear fusion reactors of today?

How efficient are the nuclear fusion reactors of today?

Quora Answer by Robert Steinhaus, former Tiny Guy in LLNL Field Test Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1974-2008) There is a practical fusion technology in existence today and that fusion technology could currently form the basis of actual fusion power plants that make practical amounts of commercial electricity from fusion energy. Fusion is not … Read more

3 Questions: Robert Granetz on fusion research

3 Questions: Robert Granetz on fusion research

MIT October 10, 2017 MIT research scientist is exploring how machine learning can predict and prevent disruptions in reactors. MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center principal research scientist Robert Granetz. Photo: Deirdre Carson/MIT Energy Initiative Robert Granetz has been a research scientist in MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center for more than 40 years. He … Read more

Haefner elected fellow of Optical Society

Haefner elected fellow of Optical Society

LLNL Oct. 26, 2017 Constantin Haefner, program director for Advanced Photon Technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been elected a fellow of The Optical Society of America. Photo by Jason Laurea/LLNL Constantin Haefner, program director for Advanced Photon Technology (APT) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been elected a fellow of The Optical Society … Read more

Watch Our New Documentary About the Future of Fusion Energy

Watch Our New Documentary About the Future of Fusion Energy

Motherboard Oct 27 2017 We visited two of the leading fusion energy research facilities to see how public and private ventures are bringing the stars down to Earth. Every second for the last four-and-a-half billion years, trillions of hydrogen atoms have been converted into helium in the Sun’s core and released an immense amount of … Read more

Sub-microsecond temporal evolution of edge density during edge localized modes in KSTAR tokamak plasmas inferred from ion cyclotron emission

Sub-microsecond temporal evolution of edge density during edge localized modes in KSTAR tokamak plasmas inferred from ion cyclotron emission

By B. Chapman, R.O. Dendy, K.G. McClements, S.C. Chapman1 ,G.S. Yun, S.G. Thatipamula and M.H. Kim Abstract During edge localised mode (ELM) crashes in KSTAR deuterium plasmas, bursts of spectrally structured ion cyclotron emission (ICE) are detected. Usually the ICE spectrum chirps downwards during an ELM crash, on sub-microsecond timescales. For KSTAR ICE where the separation of spectral peak frequencies is close … Read more

The Uncertain Future of Fusion Energy

The Uncertain Future of Fusion Energy

Energy Collective October 23, 2017 A giant reactor under construction seeks to achieve net energy gain, but some canny start-ups may get there first. Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as the clean energy source of the future, but has so far failed to live up to this promise. Though it was only three years … Read more

FUSION ENERGY: HOW SCIENTISTS ARE CREATING PLASMA HOTTER THAN THE SUN IN QUEST FOR LIMITLESS CLEAN ENERGY

FUSION ENERGY: HOW SCIENTISTS ARE CREATING PLASMA HOTTER THAN THE SUN IN QUEST FOR LIMITLESS CLEAN ENERGY

Newsweek BY HANNAH OSBORNE ON 10/23/17 Scientists believe that fusion energy—which generates electricity in the same way that the sun creates energy—has the potential to provide the world with an almost limitless, clean source of power. But while it is known that fusing two lighter atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus releases energy, it … Read more

World’s Biggest Science Project Feels the Heat From Renewables

World’s Biggest Science Project Feels the Heat From Renewables

Washington Post Anna Hirtenstein | Oct 20, 2017 (Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest scientific experiment is on course to become the most expensive source of surplus power. Components of the 20 billion-euro ($24 billion) project are already starting to pile up at a construction site in the south of France, where about 800 scientists plan … Read more

Multiscale simulations help predict unruly plasma behavior

Multiscale simulations help predict unruly plasma behavior

Phys.org September 21, 2017 by Kathy Kincade Visualization of temperature fluctuations from a high-resolution simulation of a plasma discharge in the DIII-D tokamak. The DIII-D plasma was designed to match many of the plasma parameters targeted in ITER operation. Credit: Chris Holland Decades of fusion research have brought many advances in our understanding of the … Read more