The Strange History of Fusion
and the Science of Wishful Thinking
by Charles Seife
Posted on 09/11/2018 6:19:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A long-time puzzle in the effort to capture the power of fusion on Earth is how to lessen or eliminate a common instability that occurs in the plasma called edge localized modes (ELMs). Just as the sun releases enormous bursts of energy in the form of solar flares, so flare-like bursts of ELMs can slam into the walls of doughnut-shaped tokamaks that house fusion reactions, potentially damaging the walls of the reactor.
To control these bursts, scientists disturb the plasma with small magnetic ripples called resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) that distort the smooth, doughnut shape of the plasma—releasing excess pressure that lessens or prevents ELMs from occurring. The hard part is producing just the right amount of this 3-D distortion to eliminate the ELMs without triggering other instabilities and releasing too much energy that, in the worst case, can lead to a major disruption that terminates the plasma.
...
Physicist Jong-Kyu Park of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), working with a team of collaborators from the United States and the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) in Korea, have successfully predicted the entire set of beneficial 3-D distortions for controlling ELMs without creating more problems. Researchers validated these predictions on the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) facility, one of the world's most advanced superconducting tokamaks, located in Daejeon, South Korea.
Researchers reduced the complexity of the calculations when they realized that the number of ways the plasma can distort is actually far fewer than the range of possible 3-D fields that can be applied to the plasma. By working backwards, from distortions to 3-D fields, the authors calculated the most effective fields for eliminating ELMs. The KSTAR experiments confirmed the predictions with remarkable accuracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Har! Hey -- be careful. Don't give 'em any ideas... !
“Then the next question is: Is optimal good enough?”
The next question from the deviants who would rule is will be “ Don’t assume my gender but, when will it be small enough to fit in a vibrator?”
They predicted it, and then confirmed the predictions using an actual fusion reactor.
Yeah, magnetic induction is one of the methods people have been trying to use for direct energy conversion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion
Dr. Park was involved with analysis of data from Bussard’s final Polywell fusion test device several years ago. Perhaps it bore fruit in a fashion.
If uranium is made from thorium it certainly will go boom, if rapidly assembled in sufficient quantity.
Americium?
I saw the name "Park", and I was wondering if it was the same Dr. Park that worked on the polywell project. It is my understanding that "Park" is a common name in Korea, like "Smith" is here.
I keep up with the polywell news because it looks like one of the most comprehensible designs out there.
I did not know they actually did that in 1955.
Lol.
My friend/boss just had his leg amputated due to cancer. This was after radiation and the knee joint was removed 15 months ago.
Detection is the key and the doctors are getting better at that. But a cure? Who knows when it will exist.
But the treatment seems to be the same as 50 years ago — radiation, chemo, or cut out the cancerous part.
Suspect that the plasma is in a semi-predictable flow but not close to 60Hz. Whatever plasma flows at. Still, that flow can induce a current that can be utilized and regulated via some kind of inverter.
This solution might be more suited for space travel than power production. You have to figure out how to plug it into our power grid. Our power grid is designed around alternating current and transformers that are tuned to 60Hz.
How do you get clean 120VAC 60Hz power at the load from a plasma based fusion reactor. Suspect that the noise produced is pretty high too. Would be interesting to see a spectral distribution of the plasma.
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