A small, modular, efficient fusion plant

MIT News David L. Chandler | MIT News Office | August 10, 2015 New design could finally help to bring the long-sought power source closer to reality. A cutaway view of the proposed ARC reactor. Thanks to powerful new magnet technology, the much smaller, less-expensive ARC reactor would deliver the same power output as a … Read more

Los Alamos among new DOE projects to create new technology pathways for low-cost fusion energy development

LANL July 20, 2015 Three of the projects involve Los Alamos National Laboratory science staff and partners. Los Alamos National Laboratory sits on top of a once-remote mesa in northern New Mexico with the Jemez mountains as a backdrop to research and innovation covering multi-disciplines from bioscience, sustainable energy sources, to plasma physics and new … Read more

China spends big on nuclear fusion as French plan falls behind

newscientist.com 23 July 2015 China’s will be bigger and better (Image: David Parker/SPL) The world’s largest nuclear fusion machine, currently being built in France, is unlikely to produce more energy than it consumes until the early 2030s, warned the UK’s head of fusion research this week. That is five years later than planned – by … Read more

Engineers Defend Nuclear Fusion Spend

imeche.org Ben Sampson July 24, 2015 Lords committee tells nuclear fusion scientists predicting commercial viability of fusion of being in ‘cloud cuckoo land’ Scientists and engineers from the nuclear fusion research community have rallied against an attack from a member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee that accused them of being in … Read more

Bottling the Sun

Project Syndicate JUL 16, 2015 Steven Charles Cowley is CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, Head of the EURATOM / CCFE Fusion Association, and President-Elect of Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. LONDON – This December, world leaders will gather in Paris for the United Nations … Read more

LPP Fusion has resumed dense plasma fusion test firing now using the new tungsten electrode

Next Big Future The Tungsten electrode has been attached and tests shots are being made with the LPP Fusion dense plasma fusion experiments. The connection of the Tungsten electrode show extremely low electrical resistance, no more at any point than 18 micro-ohms, and good mechanical strength. This ensures that the cathode can safely take up … Read more

How China hopes to solve nuclear waste issue with hybrid fusion-fission reactor at top secret facility

South China Morning Post Stephen Chen 17 July, 2015 China’s proposed hybrid nuclear fusion-fission reactor could potentially burn nuclear waste. Photo: AFP China will build a new hybrid reactor that can burn nuclear waste via a combined fusion-fission method by 2030. This could give a potentially dramatic boost to China’s attempt to switch to more … Read more

Initial testing of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field – it’s spot on!

IPP July 16, 2015 Closed flux surfaces verified / requirements for stellerator operation confirmed Testing of the magnetic field in the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device was completed sooner than planned. The measurements, which were much anticipated at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, show: The superconducting magnetic coils, whose technical tests were … Read more

Nuclear Fusion is Ideal. But How Real?

Spark Ken Silverstein The science first must be conquered, then the costs. Can nuclear fusion become a reality within a decade, at least for small-scale projects? That’s the aim of Lockheed Martin, which says that its truck-sized reactor has the potential to develop safe and abundant power that could solve the issue of climate change. … Read more