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NUCLEAR FUSION BREAKTHROUGH
https://citizenfreepress.com ^ | Posted by Kane on September 9, 2021 1:59 pm

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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: fusion; superconductivity
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To: AndyJackson

“The amount of natural tritium is therefore negligible and to get tritium you have to breed it. “

False. The amount of tritium in the oceans is estimated to be about 26.8 ± 14 kg.

Tritium is also produced by our existing fission power plants.


61 posted on 09/09/2021 2:28:59 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator
Tritium is also produced by our existing fission power plants

Exactly. You have to breed it. And the point of fusion power is to avoid unclear fission power, but you need fission to breed the fuel for fusion.

And no one recovers tritium from seawater because it is so dilute that the cost of recovery outweighs the benefit. And furthermore the inventory of tritium in the environment is mostly the result of nuclear testing and greatly outweighs the tritium that exists "naturally" as the result of cosmic ray generated neutrons activating deuterium in seawater.

62 posted on 09/09/2021 2:40:35 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: TexasGator

Sure does, if emissions from manufacture and electricity generation are not counted.


63 posted on 09/09/2021 2:53:42 PM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: AndyJackson

“The amount of natural tritium is therefore negligible and to get tritium you have to breed it. Turns out based on very simple math that even with 100% recovery and conversion efficiency, tritium breeding from fusion is a losing proposition [you get back fewer tritium atoms than you start with]”

Tritium is ‘bred’ using neutrons and Lithium.


64 posted on 09/09/2021 3:24:36 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: AndyJackson

“tritium breeding from fusion is a losing proposition [you get back fewer tritium atoms than you start with]. So, this MIT geology professor lied.”

No. Be-Li blankets can make reactor self-sustaining.


65 posted on 09/09/2021 4:32:13 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator
Be-Li blankets can make reactor self-sustaining

No. The math doesn't work out, actually. It gets you close to 1 Tritium bred per fusion created, but it assumes 100% of neutrons go to breeding and it assumes no losses due to hydrogen diffusion into metals, pump losses, etc.

66 posted on 09/09/2021 5:18:19 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

“No. The math doesn’t work out, actually.”


“The results show that even with 6Li 50%, the condition of tritium self-sufficiency is met. Considering the high cost of Li enrichment, the desired results can be achieved at a lower percentage.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573321001066


67 posted on 09/09/2021 5:32:21 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: AndyJackson

“No. The math doesn’t work out, actually. It gets you close to 1 Tritium bred per fusion created, but it assumes 100% of neutrons go to breeding and it assumes no losses due to hydrogen diffusion into metals, pump losses, etc.”

Studies show 1.14 TBR for blanket alone.


68 posted on 09/09/2021 6:14:05 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator

Thank you for the article. I have read it, and here is the problem. A TBR of 1.14 for the blanket is a problem because that is an ideal breeding ratio before you account for loses in the process of actually extracting the tritium from the blanket and using it some time in the future. Remember tritium is a form of hydrogen which diffuses wonderfully through most materials. Losing >>10% in pumps, vacuum walls etc. is expected. While it is unclear, it seems that the author has also imposed an unphysical boundary condition on his presumed neutron reflectors at each boundary.

But fundamentally, the problem is that a theoretical ideal breeding ratio of 1.14 is woefully insufficient when real world practicalities of losses in processing, transfer and Tritium decay are accounted for.


69 posted on 09/09/2021 7:01:12 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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Comment #70 Removed by Moderator

Comment #71 Removed by Moderator

To: AndyJackson

” TBR of 1.14 for the blanket is a problem because that is an ideal breeding ratio before you account for loses in the process of actually extracting the tritium from the blanket and using it some time in the future.”

You claimed less than 1.0

Due to supply. problems, tritium will be extracted and used in very short times.

” Losing >>10% in pumps,”

I would expect that the tritium would be extracted BEFORE reaching the pumps.


72 posted on 09/09/2021 7:12:33 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator

I said overall the TBR is less than one when practical considerations are accounted for. Another point - the calculation ignores fusion neutron interactions with and absorbtion by structural eleements. His materials list assumes pure material. In fact practical structural materials have lots of impurities and there will be neutron losses there before breeding can occur. Same with first wall.


73 posted on 09/09/2021 7:16:09 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: GSWarrior

Only the vaccinated will be allowed to enjoy the benefits of nuclear fusion.


74 posted on 09/09/2021 7:16:16 PM PDT by GSWarrior
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To: ping jockey

“That is true. I will race you from my home in Md Tn to Panama City Beach Fla. this week on sunday afternoon. I got 1000 bucks that say I will be finish my fourth beer on the beach when you cross the Bay County Line. Let me know when you want to give me your money.”

The Tesla S can make it to the county line non-stop. Save your money.


75 posted on 09/09/2021 7:20:01 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator
Studies show 1.14 TBR for blanket alone.

Which is the point. There isn't another source of breeding so to get that 1.14 all fusion neutrons have to reach the blanket and all tritium that is breed has to be extracted.

Oh, there is another huge loss - which is that the plasma loses tritium to the first wall, to vacuum pumps etc. Only a fraction of the tritium in the plasma ever fuses to produce the neutron for which breeding happens in the first place. And recovery of that lost tritium is certainly less than 100%.

76 posted on 09/09/2021 7:20:11 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

“I said overall the TBR is less than one when practical considerations are accounted for. “

Let me correct you: I said overall the TBR is less than one when practical considerations are NOT accounted for.

—————————————YOUR POST———————————

” It gets you close to 1 Tritium bred per fusion created, but it assumes 100% of neutrons go to breeding and it assumes no losses due to hydrogen diffusion into metals, pump losses, etc.”


77 posted on 09/09/2021 7:24:27 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: AndyJackson

“Remember tritium is a form of hydrogen which diffuses wonderfully through most materials.”

How is Canada storing their tritium?

How does the tritium stay in H-bombs?


78 posted on 09/09/2021 7:49:16 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator

Don’t know about bombs, but normally tritim is stored in special stainless steels that have low diffucion rates for tritium. But these storage systems have no other functional requirements except to store tritium, don’t have to operate at very high temperatures in high neutron flux and x-ray environments, etc. And even so, there is diffusion into the walls of the container. It is just so slow that it doesn’t come through the other side.


79 posted on 09/09/2021 7:53:15 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: ping jockey
"I will race you from my home in Md Tn to Panama City Beach Fla. this week on sunday afternoon. I got 1000 bucks that say I will be finish my fourth beer on the beach when you cross the Bay County Line."

You really want to race me?


80 posted on 09/09/2021 7:54:11 PM PDT by TexasGator (UF)
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