Nuclear Fusion: Europe’s Blind Spot

Nuclear Fusion: Europe’s Blind Spot

European Energy Review 16 November 2015 By Dr David Kingham A hot plasma in the START spherical tokamak built at Culham Laboratory in the 1990s. START set a world record for the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure which still stands today. Europe has a great history in fusion research. It was the Englishman … Read more

Nuclear materials race is on!

Nuclear materials race is on!

Eureka Magazine Justin Cunningham 14 July 2015 The challenge to produce clean and sustainable power for future generations is an intimidating one. While fusion power offers the tantalising possibility, it is tomorrow’s technology that is at least 30 years away… and it seems always will be. In all reality, however, it will be far more … Read more

How Far Can Crowd-funded Nuclear Fusion Go?

How Far Can Crowd-funded Nuclear Fusion Go?

IEEE By Mark Anderson 15 Jul 2014 Image: Focus Fusion Society A mockup of the Focus Fusion device, which, according to its developers, will achieve the fusion reaction illustrated in the diagram [below left]. How it will do so remains a closely guarded secret. The inventors of a new, proprietary approach to purportedly low-cost nuclear … Read more

ITER fusion project to take at least 6 years longer than planned

ITER fusion project to take at least 6 years longer than planned

Sciance Mag By Daniel Clery 19 November 2015 The multibillion-dollar ITER fusion project will take another 6 years to build beyond the—now widely discredited—official schedule, a meeting of the governing council was told this week. ITER management has also asked the seven international partners backing the project for additional funding to finish the job. It … Read more

Clean boron fusion using extreme laser pulses

Clean boron fusion using extreme laser pulses

SPIE Heinrich Hora 14 July 2015 A laser-driven technique to ignite hydrogen-boron fuel offers the possibility of nuclear fusion for clean, sustainable energy generation. For more than 70 years, scientists have sought to harness energy from nuclear fusion as the ultimate sustainable power source. Initially, they considered fusion of heavy and very heavy hydrogen isotopes … Read more

American Physicist Wins IAEA Nuclear Fusion Prize for Model that Will Help Design Containment Wall

American Physicist Wins IAEA Nuclear Fusion Prize for Model that Will Help Design Containment Wall

Wednesday 18 November 2015 Richard Kamendje, IAEA Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences Sophia Jane Le Masurier, IAEA Division of Conference and Document Services Robert J. Goldston, winner of the 2015 IAEA Nuclear Fusion Journal Prize Robert J. Goldston, professor of astrophysics at Princeton University and a former director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, … Read more

Major Step Towards Fusion Power Acheived

Major Step Towards Fusion Power Acheived

Published on Nov 15, 2015 Graham Templeton of Extreme Tech reports that the first major fusion collaboration between Chinese and US research teams has released a surprising finding on the future of magnetic confinement fusion: by lowering the distance between the plasma and the wall of the chamber that contains it, they can actually make … Read more

Risky fusion power study pays off by bringing plasma close to reactor walls

Risky fusion power study pays off by bringing plasma close to reactor walls

extremetech.com By Graham Templeton on November 12, 2015 The first major fusion collaboration between Chinese and US research teams has released a surprising finding on the future of magnetic confinement fusion: by lowering the distance between the plasma and the wall of the chamber that contains it, they can actually make the system more stable. … Read more

Mirror currents in the wall make the most beautiful plasma of all

Mirror currents in the wall make the most beautiful plasma of all

phys.org Nov. 11, 2015 Groundbreaking US-China experiments continued in September between DIII-D, led by GA’s Dr. Andrea Garofalo (at center), and China’s ASIPP at the EAST fusion program, whose scientists connect via videoconferencing (pictured at left screen). At right is Huiqian Wang, an ASIPP post-doctoral scientist being trained at DIII-D. Credit: Lisa Petrillo/General Atomic The … Read more

Super H-mode plasma could greatly increase tokomak fusion power

Super H-mode plasma could greatly increase tokomak fusion power

Next Big Future November 11, 2015 Meet “Super H mode,” a newly discovered state of tokamak plasma that could sharply boost the performance of future fusion reactors. This new state raises the pressure at the edge of the plasma beyond what previously had been thought possible, creating the potential to increase the power production of … Read more