New fusion reactor about to be switched on.
Discussion
Located at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, north-east Germany, it has taken 19 years to get to this stage apparently. Construction was completed last year, but it's so complex, they've been testing the various systems until now.
Previous donut-shaped "tokamak" designs haven't been able to control the plasma for much more than 6 minutes. They hope this "stellarator" design can do at least 30 minutes.
They're just waiting on the German authorities to give them the OK.
http://www.sciencealert.com/first-of-its-kind-germ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
Previous donut-shaped "tokamak" designs haven't been able to control the plasma for much more than 6 minutes. They hope this "stellarator" design can do at least 30 minutes.
They're just waiting on the German authorities to give them the OK.
http://www.sciencealert.com/first-of-its-kind-germ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
glasgowrob said:
Awaits a tear opening in the space time fabric and all sorts of Satan spawn Or alternative dimension daily mail readers, not sure which would be worse
Luckily the worst it could probably do is destroy itself and anyone too close might get burns grading from singing to melting their face off.I wonder what use it could be even if it lasted 30 minutes, unless you can sink all the energy into something within that time frame and you end up with more coming out than you put in to heal the plasma up...
I wish them luck however.
All this facinates me, potentially clean unlimited energy if it can all be sorted.
Although all these fusion reactors are currently experimental and will not produce power. Currently power generations objective is to produce heat to make steam to turn turbine generators, i dont think that this will be any different. With this producing a million C so I guess that could produce a whole load of steam to last a while, maybe coupled with some form of heat storage system it could cope with it cycling off and on.
Alternatively a comercial power station could have several reactors with them all running in turn. Ie if they have a 2 hour reset time then 5 could be used to ensure almost continual plasma generation
What's more likely though, is the purpose of these experimental reactors is to improve the technologies, this one will run for half hour, they will be able to see how the plasma decays and develop the technology/processes/designs to make the next reactors last for longer and longer till maybe they can run currently.
Although all these fusion reactors are currently experimental and will not produce power. Currently power generations objective is to produce heat to make steam to turn turbine generators, i dont think that this will be any different. With this producing a million C so I guess that could produce a whole load of steam to last a while, maybe coupled with some form of heat storage system it could cope with it cycling off and on.
Alternatively a comercial power station could have several reactors with them all running in turn. Ie if they have a 2 hour reset time then 5 could be used to ensure almost continual plasma generation
What's more likely though, is the purpose of these experimental reactors is to improve the technologies, this one will run for half hour, they will be able to see how the plasma decays and develop the technology/processes/designs to make the next reactors last for longer and longer till maybe they can run currently.
Unless the fusion boys get their act together the window may be closing, as fashionable solar becomes affordable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-3494152...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-3494152...
Fusion reactors are not the worrying entity that fission reactors are, in as much that if things get 'out of control' there is no melt-down. Instead the reaction processes steadily and quickly come to a halt.
If a fusion reactor can be made commercially viable it should put to rest all these crazy environmentalists and their fear mongering of running out of oil.
Such technology should provide energy for 1000's of years - at any predicted population increase of demand.
If a fusion reactor can be made commercially viable it should put to rest all these crazy environmentalists and their fear mongering of running out of oil.
Such technology should provide energy for 1000's of years - at any predicted population increase of demand.
Swanny87 said:
glasgowrob said:
Awaits a tear opening in the space time fabric and all sorts of Satan spawn Or alternative dimension daily mail readers, not sure which would be worse
Seriously though if this technology can be made to work and work well it will render all other methods of large scale power generation obsolete. Save pumped storage for dealing with peaks in demand.
RizzoTheRat said:
Anyone know why it can only run for 30 minutes? Is it something cyclable like using coolant faster than they can produce it, or are there parts that erode/burn and it has to be stripped and repaired?
It hasn't run at all... yet. Hopefully it can run for even longer!I think the difficulty is in the containment of the plasma, they can only manage it for so long until it becomes unstable.
I'm not a nuclear physicist but I was reading something about plasma currents and how they flow within Tokomaks being an issue causing either instability or the reaction to decay maybe, supposedly the design of this new one is supposed to get around that and the reason they've not really done them before is because it requires a lot of CAD and computing power to either design and/or run them.
This is highly condensed from what I could find and read in 15 minutes so may be not 100% accurate though
I'm going to have to read some more on it.
ALT F4 said:
If a fusion reactor can be made commercially viable it should put to rest all these crazy environmentalists and their fear mongering of running out of oil.
Such technology should provide energy for 1000's of years - at any predicted population increase of demand.
That's terrible! Think of all the doom mongers, co2 scrubber sellers, wind, solar and tide genny manufacturers and Lord knows what else who will lose their funding/subsidies. They'll all be out of a job!Such technology should provide energy for 1000's of years - at any predicted population increase of demand.
Unless they can think up another way to scare the politicos.
I still reckon that when the wind turbine subsidies end the wind turbine owners will vanish into the mist leaving the taxpayer to clean up the mess as usual.
But I digress.
k themselves. What a day that'll be.BigMacDaddy said:
AER said:
Buzz84 said:
All this facinates me, potentially clean unlimited energy if it can all be sorted.
If your wish becomes true, global warming becomes a serious issue. We will have to fit extra radiators to the earth...Buzz84 said:
All this facinates me, potentially clean unlimited energy if it can all be sorted.
Although all these fusion reactors are currently experimental and will not produce power. Currently power generations objective is to produce heat to make steam to turn turbine generators, i dont think that this will be any different. With this producing a million C so I guess that could produce a whole load of steam to last a while, maybe coupled with some form of heat storage system it could cope with it cycling off and on.
Alternatively a comercial power station could have several reactors with them all running in turn. Ie if they have a 2 hour reset time then 5 could be used to ensure almost continual plasma generation
What's more likely though, is the purpose of these experimental reactors is to improve the technologies, this one will run for half hour, they will be able to see how the plasma decays and develop the technology/processes/designs to make the next reactors last for longer and longer till maybe they can run currently.
There are research Fusion designs that are theoretically capable of generating power directly from the reaction.Although all these fusion reactors are currently experimental and will not produce power. Currently power generations objective is to produce heat to make steam to turn turbine generators, i dont think that this will be any different. With this producing a million C so I guess that could produce a whole load of steam to last a while, maybe coupled with some form of heat storage system it could cope with it cycling off and on.
Alternatively a comercial power station could have several reactors with them all running in turn. Ie if they have a 2 hour reset time then 5 could be used to ensure almost continual plasma generation
What's more likely though, is the purpose of these experimental reactors is to improve the technologies, this one will run for half hour, they will be able to see how the plasma decays and develop the technology/processes/designs to make the next reactors last for longer and longer till maybe they can run currently.
This I personally believe is the approach we should put more investment into, neutron heating is very inefficient and requires a large gain on the reaction to make it viable.
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