Posted on 09/09/2021 11:04:18 AM PDT by Red Badger
MIT breaks magnetic field strength records, paving the way for practical, commercial, carbon-free power.
Project achieves major advance toward fusion energy
SOURCE — MIT
It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On Sept. 5, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project’s leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS).
That advance paves the way, they say, for the long-sought creation of practical, inexpensive, carbon-free power plants that could make a major contribution to limiting the effects of global climate change.
“Fusion in a lot of ways is the ultimate clean energy source,” says Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research and E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics. “The amount of power that is available is really game-changing.” The fuel used to create fusion energy comes from water, and “the Earth is full of water — it’s a nearly unlimited resource. We just have to figure out how to utilize it.”
Developing the new magnet is seen as the greatest technological hurdle to making that happen; its successful operation now opens the door to demonstrating fusion in a lab on Earth, which has been pursued for decades with limited progress. With the magnet technology now successfully demonstrated, the MIT-CFS collaboration is on track to build the world’s first fusion device that can create and confine a plasma that produces more energy than it consumes. That demonstration device, called SPARC, is targeted for completion in 2025.
“The challenges of making fusion happen are both technical and scientific,” says Dennis Whyte, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, which is working with CFS to develop SPARC. But once the technology is proven, he says, “it’s an inexhaustible, carbon-free source of energy that you can deploy anywhere and at any time. It’s really a fundamentally new energy source.”
Whyte, who is the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, says this week’s demonstration represents a major milestone, addressing the biggest questions remaining about the feasibility of the SPARC design. “It’s really a watershed moment, I believe, in fusion science and technology,” he says.
Continue reading…
https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusion-energy-0908
“Range means little to anyone.”
Now that’s just a retarded statement. Nice try at a comeback, but few really care about 0-60 being under 2 seconds. Maybe to kids who have never experienced such things, but adults needs cars not toys.
Powering smug "clean energy" transport with fossil-based energy. If you mandate electric cars without a clean way to fuel them, all you are doing is making arrogant Liberals ignore "the science" and feel good about themselves.
When I think about the size of cars when I was a lad... the only “action” you’re going to get in THAT car will be “self-serve.”
Non Sequitur
Five lashes for misuse of double quotes.
Silly post.
“0-60 means little to anyone.”
Now that is a retarded statement!
“0-60 means little to anyone.”
Then why is it spec’d for almost every car produced ...
“Then why is it spec’d for almost every car produced”
In the 1970’s. Not today. Spec’d by third-parties, but not advertised by the manufacturers outside of a few sports cars.
Only a young kid thinks they’re going to go speeding around in traffic.
“Spec’d by third-parties,”
Sites like Car and Driver spec it for every test car.
Multiple sites are dedicate ONLY to 0-60 times. A lot of interest!
” not advertised by the manufacturers outside of a few sports cars.”
https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/2-series/coupe/overview.html
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