Posted on 02/09/2022 7:46:36 AM PST by Red Badger
Inside JET's torus, with superimposed plasma. (UKAEA)
Late last century, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, churned out 22 megajoules of energy in what was, at the time, a record in fusion power.
Now, experimental upgrades have brought the facility into line with the technology anticipated for a major international project, resulting in the production of nearly three times that amount of power.
The advances are a major step forward for tokamak-based fusion, bringing us ever closer to a balance point where we can harvest a near endless stream of energy without the cost of polluting emissions or large amounts of radioactive waste.
"What we have learned in the past months will make it easier for us to plan experiments with fusion plasmas that generate much more energy than is needed to heat them," says Sibylle Günter, the Scientific Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.
Tokamaks might be the horse to back for reaching this milestone in energy production. Consisting of a relatively simple torus surrounded by a bank of seriously powerful magnets, they facilitate fusion by channeling bursts of hydrogen heated to dissolve into a plasma.
What might sound relatively straight forward though is anything but. Keeping that churning stream of plasma stable long enough to squeeze out enough energy-carrying neutrons requires a lot of fine-tuning in technology.
As part of Europe's 'road map to fusion', projects like JET play a key role in breaking down this litany of obstacles. Though the big game is still yet to come.
An international collaboration called ITER is building the largest tokamak the world has ever seen in southern France – one that could eventually generate a whopping 500 megawatts of power from a mere 50 megawatts of initial heating.
Most research on fusion currently uses common forms of hydrogen with either a single proton in its nucleus (called protium), or a slightly rarer form with a proton and a neutron (called deuterium).
This is good enough to iron out the wrinkles until we've got fusion all worked out. But to really get a bang from our fusion reactor, we'll want an even scarcer resource carrying one more neutron – a form of hydrogen called tritium.
ITER aims to experiment with combinations of tritium and deuterium by 2035, and hopefully achieve self-sustaining plasma reactions that will release more energy than they consume.
It's a lofty goal that will depend on a little guidance from smaller projects like JET.
JET stands out as a tokamak capable of using both of these materials, allowing researchers to get a good start on understanding their unique nuclear characteristics.
In 1997, the project hit a record in energy output in the form of released neutrons, providing the equivalent of 4.4 megawatts of power over an average of 5 seconds.
Since then they've been tinkering with designs, including the replacement of the carbon lining, with a mixture of tungsten and beryllium. While the new material is more resilient and won't act like a hydrogen sponge in ways that carbon can, it does affect the plasma's movement.
Finally, after a great deal of modeling, experiments have confirmed predictions of new limits on energy production from this powerful duo of hydrogen isotopes, breaking the old record with an output of 59 megajoules.
It's still short of anything that can perpetuate ongoing fusion, let alone release more energy than it requires. For that, we'll need something much larger, but it's a significant achievement nonetheless.
"In the latest experiments, we wanted to prove that we could create significantly more energy even under ITER-like conditions," says physicist Athina Kappatou from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.
Once energy production is in the black, a surplus of neutrons released from the tokamak's churning loop of plasma can be directed onto a thin layer of lithium, which through nuclear fission will break down to provide a more ready source of tritium.
In theory it all sounds so simple. But if we've learned anything from studying fusion, harnessing the Sun's own blueprints for energy generation is anything but a smooth ride.
Thankfully facilities around the world are gradually finding ways around the numerous problems, raising temperatures and working out how to sustain longer reaction times.
Together, we just might yet get the clean, virtually unlimited power source we so desperately need.
No...............What's a few extra neutrons here and there?..........
Great Scott!
Joules are units of energy; watts are units of power (energy per unit time).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
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OK Thanks,
That will take a while to absorb. Just when I think I have a handle on Physics, this happens.
Is matter converted to energy as in fission?
No...............What’s a few extra neutrons here and there?..........
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That’s my point. They have to go somewhere...
It's understandable that this represents significant progress in mega-scale engineering, but imagine the tantrum the Luddites and Ignorati will have when Thermonuclear power becomes feasible. No reason to stop, much less pay them the attention they crave (personally, I'd like to see them tied to their precious and useless windmills). But it should be quite a show.
From the article,
“Late last century, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, UK, churned out 22 megajoules of energy in what was, at the time, a record in fusion power.”
“Now, experimental upgrades have brought the facility into line with the technology anticipated for a major international project, resulting in the production of nearly three times that amount of power.”
A joule is a very small amount of energy it equals 1 watt of energy for one second. A million joules is a megajoule, which is the equivalent of .278 kilowatt hours.
So for this story problem we are talking about 60 megajoules of energy produced, So if we multiply 60 by .278 it comes to 16.67 kilowatt hours of energy... or about $2 worth of power or less in most parts of this country. But converting this heat energy to electricity would result in much of it being lost. So I am sorry; it is not going to take your Tesla very far.
IKR?
and they’re doing their part to reduce the load by not installing parts that use more electricity... 8^)
In electrical terms, a joule equals one watt-second. This is the energy released in one second by a current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm. It is a very tiny amount of energy. 1 megajoule is the equivalent of .278 kilowatt hours.
It seems fairly obvious that the use of terms unfamiliar to the public is meant to make this achievement seem more impressive than it really is.
Writer mentions the sun’s “blueprints”....when the gases in the sun started “fusing”, wouldn’t that have blown up the whole system, blueprints and all? Or if insufficient to blow it all up....would the mass run away ,compression wise, and become a black hole? Any astrophysicists out there?
Very good, IMHO.
A watt is one joule per second.
Who needs redundancy when the computer is trying to keep the car on the road?
How do you put money on it?
How I Made Money from Cold Fusion
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2435697/posts?q=1&;page=21
By Jove you have got it.
Cold Fusion is 25 ORDERS of MAGNITUDE better bang for the buck than Controlled Hot Fusion (CHF).
https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/5917-cold-fusion-is-25-orders-of-magnitude-better-bang-for-the-buck-than-controlled-h/?postID=107287&highlight=25%2Borders%2Bof%2Bmagnitude#post107287
Also on Vortex-L
https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex- href=”mailto:l@eskimo.com”>l@eskimo.com/msg90393.html
I’m not a physicist; I don’t even play one on TV. $:-)
We should have commercial fusion reactors up and running within 30 years.
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