After decades of huge investment but little progress, some fusion researchers are changing their approach/David Bailo
The article was published with the approval of Scientific American Israel and the Ort Israel network
Proponents of nuclear fusion may be accused of being overly optimistic, but they cannot be accused of thinking small. Nuclear fusion (or fusion) is a process in which two chemical elements fuse, or "melt" each other, and form a third, different element. In the process, some of the initial mass of the elements is converted into the energy emitted. This is the process that provides energy to our sun and every other planet in the universe. And like the stars, the projects where they try to produce energy from nuclear fusion are also grandiose. For example, the international experimental thermonuclear reactor
ITER) that a consortium of seven countries is building in France. This $21 billion reactor is a type known as a Tokamak in which superconducting magnets will contain plasma that will be dense and hot enough to create fusion. When the work on this melting pot is finished, it will weigh 23,000 tons, three times more than the Eiffel Tower. The American National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is ITER's main competitor, is no less complicated: it sends 192 laser beams at a small metal sphere until it reaches a temperature of 50 million degrees Celsius and a pressure of 150 billion atmospheres.
However, despite all the power of these experimental facilities, a nuclear power plant that would be based on the operating principles of ITER or NIF and that would actually succeed in producing energy is decades away from us. That's why a new generation of scientists is trying a different approach: going small. The American Advanced Energy Research Agency (ARPA-E) invested almost 2015 million dollars in 30 in a program to accelerate research in low-cost plasma heating and stabilization. The program called ALPHA includes nine small and relatively cheap projects with the aim of creating fusion. For example, one of the nine projects belongs to a company from the city of Tustin in California that specializes in magnetically accelerated fusion technologies. Their technology "pinches" the plasma with an electric current until the plasma becomes dense enough to create fusion. This approach to creating fusion has a rich history: Scientists at the US National Research Laboratory in Los Alamos used the pinch technique in 1958 to create the first stable fusion reaction in the laboratory.
Companies that are not connected to the ALPHA program are also developing alternative approaches to create fusion. General Fusion, located in British Columbia, Canada, has built a device that sends shock waves through liquid metal to create fusion. A company called Tri Alpha Energy is building a fusion reactor based on the collision of material beams. The reactor is only 23 meters long and it blasts beams of charged particles together. And finally, the munitions giant Lockheed Martin has announced that it is working on a magnetic fusion reactor the size of a shipping container. According to the company, the reactor will be ready for commercial marketing in about a decade.
Prototype photo of General Fusion's reactor compression system. Credit: General Fusion
A prototype of a compression system for a General Fusion reactor. The final device will use 200 pistons to compress plasma inside the ball at its center. (Courtesy of General Fusion)
A review of the research achievements in nuclear fusion so far can lead to skepticism about the expected degree of success of all these projects. But if even one of these new approaches succeeds in producing clean energy and without radioactive waste, problems such as energy poverty and climate change will be solved in one fell swoop.
Editors' note: In December 2015, another experimental facility, not mentioned in the article, called Wendelstein 7-X, based on a unique magnetic geometry called Stellarator, was activated for the first time at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Research in Germany.
9 תגובות
Cold fusion engine, to compress the energies of the 3 forces:
Fire - the strong mental force
Water - the weak nuclear force
Air - the electromagnetic force
Air - the electromagnetic force
All these energies are abundant in the dark matter that surrounds us
Each of these energies in dark matter are found in many oscillators.
The compression of the energies in a cold fusion engine, and its release will give us a lot of energy for free
that we can drive the vehicles of the future and more...
This is the future fuel that is free and surrounds us
For more information #superconsciousness
Zeev Abiraz
You may not know, but cold fusion is already a fait accompli - inventor Andrea Rossi has already scientifically proven, under independent supervision, 3 times already (!!) that the process exists and produces a thousand times more energy relative to the one invested in it:
http://www.emetaheret.org.il/tag/%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%90%D7%94-%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99/
If it does succeed, the cost of building such a reactor will remain in the billions and the technology is expected to be insane. What's more, there is still no idea about the safety of these miners. At the same time there are safer nuclear solutions than the light water reactors that exist today. This solution is a Molten Salt Thorium Reactor - a molten salt reactor for thorium fission.
Everything is politics
Oil has only one "small" drawback. It makes our planet uninhabitable. We need government intervention. A taxation system encourages alternative energy. And don't think that a magic solution is about to arrive
Even if they succeed in one of the methods there is still nothing to celebrate.
The fact that the raw material (on the right) is abundant does not mean that the cost is zero. All methods will probably use a very small part of the energy. Apart from that, the erosion and construction cost of even the most optimistic projects is not clear. In short, not to stop investing in green energy and energy saving. Probably at least until the end of the century the most economically profitable will be to pump oil from the ground. It contains a lot of energy for both volume and weight, easy to transport (liquid which is ideal for coal which is solid or on the right which is gas), cheap to produce (just need to be pumped). And there is years of experience in oil energy conversion technology (internal combustion engines and jets). In fact, the price of oil today is mainly the result of demand and the creation of a lack of purpose. If they really succeed in developing something alternative (green/nuclear/fusion) the oil producers will be able to simply lower the price (temporarily or permanently). The pump price is so low that there is still a lot to go down.
To assemble
In my opinion, the meaning of the term "easy fusion" is to find the easiest and cheapest method,
To perform a fusion that will also be controllable.
Apparently, the idea is to help finance private companies, research different methods to achieve the process, and not concentrate on a single, large and expensive study of one process, which in any case does not progress into a practical energy production facility.
I didn't understand what light fusion is? As far as I know there is nuclear fusion like the one that happens in stars and nuclear reactors and a theory that talks about cold fusion at room temperature (not what is described here)
And Israel is out of the game, too bad! And not only in nuclear fusion, also in nuclear research and energy production, the facilities are outdated. South Korea, and even Iran have small (experimental) reactors for nuclear fusion, from the Russian technology - which is also tested in the French Ither project.