World’s Biggest Science Experiment Seeks More Time and Money

World’s Biggest Science Experiment Seeks More Time and Money

Bloomberg Jonathan Tirone | June 15, 2016 Another $5.2 billion sought for project to prove fusion works If successful, fusion reactors might enter service after 2050 The world’s biggest science experiment may get more time and money for completion when nuclear officials convene on Wednesday in France. Supervisors of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or … Read more

U.K.-E.U. split could harm fusion research

U.K.-E.U. split could harm fusion research

Science Magazine By Daniel Clery | Jun. 14, 2016 If the United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union on 23 June, the exit will break up cross-border collaborations and cut off E.U. funding for U.K. scientists. For fusion research, the possibility of a Brexit is particularly worry
ing. Europe’s largest fusion facility, the Joint European … Read more

Analyzing a Component of the ITER Tokamak with Simulation

Analyzing a Component of the ITER Tokamak with Simulation

comsol Brianne Costa | April 12, 2016 We can solve many of the world’s energy sustainability problems by harnessing the power of the sun through fusion energy. Tokamaks are devices that test the practicality of employing fusion energy on Earth. ITER, which will be the largest tokamak on Earth when complete, has required years of … Read more

First plasma in upgraded extreme materials-facility Magnum-PSI

First plasma in upgraded extreme materials-facility Magnum-PSI

Differ 8 June 2016 DIFFER’s facility Magnum-PSI produced its first plasma on Wednesday 8 June 2016, a major milestone in the relocation of this unique experiment for fusion wall materials. Magnum-PSI will be fully operational again at the end of 2016, and is the only laboratory setup in the world capable of investigating candidate materials … Read more

10 Facts You Should Know About Fusion Energy

10 Facts You Should Know About Fusion Energy

PPPL By Larry Bernard, January 25, 2016 It’s natural. In fact, it’s abundant throughout the universe. Stars – and there are billions and billions of them – produce energy by fusion of light atoms. It’s safe. There are no dangerous byproducts. It produces some radioactive waste, but that requires only decades to decay, not thousands … Read more

AFTER ITER

AFTER ITER

ITER The next step after ITER will be a demonstration power plant—or DEMO—that will explore continuous or near-continuous (steady-state) operation. Decades of fusion research and generations of fusion devices have contributed to the design of ITER. And ITER, in its turn, will contribute to the design of the next-generation machine—DEMO—that will bring fusion research to … Read more

A tokamak must breathe

A tokamak must breathe

ITER 06 JUN, 2016 When plasmas ten times hotter than the core of the Sun begin pulsating inside the ITER vacuum vessel, the combined mass of the Tokamak and cryostat (25,000 tons) will need a bit of breathing space. Not much—but enough to accommodate the wobbling, expansions and occasional displacements caused by the tremendous forces … Read more

NSTX upgraded to the world’s most powerful Spherical tokamak

NSTX upgraded to the world’s most powerful Spherical tokamak

FuseNet The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) was built at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and started operation in 1999. The goal of the device is to study the physics of spherically shaped fusion plasmas, which are claimed to have several advantages over the traditional doughnut-shaped plasmas. Consequently, there is considerable interest in these … Read more

Compact tokamaks: the approach to bring fusion energy within reach

Compact tokamaks: the approach to bring fusion energy within reach

WNN by David Kingham | 31 May 2016 Fusion reactor development could proceed much more rapidly by scaling down the size of reactors being developed, potentially helping the first compact fusion pilot plants to be ready to produce electricity for the first time within the next decade, writes David Kingham. Nuclear fusion is the creative … Read more