Progress in controlling fusion heat bursts

[cronus]

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Pro ... 31501.html

Progress in controlling fusion heat bursts

Researchers from General Atomics and the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have made a major breakthrough in understanding how potentially damaging heat bursts inside a fusion reactor can be controlled.
Scientists performed the experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a tokamak operated by General Atomics in San Diego.

The findings represent a key step, General Atomics said, in predicting how to control heat bursts in future fusion facilities including ITER, an international experiment under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion energy. This work is supported by the DoE Office of Science.

The studies build upon previous work pioneered on DIII-D showing that these intense heat bursts - called ELMs for short - could be suppressed with tiny magnetic fields. These tiny fields cause the edge of the plasma to smoothly release heat, thereby avoiding the damaging heat bursts. But until now, scientists did not understand how these fields worked.

"Many mysteries surrounded how the plasma distorts to suppress these heat bursts," said Carlos Paz-Soldan, a General Atomics scientist and lead author of the first of the two papers that report the seminal findings back-to-back in the same issue of Physical Review Letters last week.

(continued)

[JimC]

Fusion used to be 10 years away - always...

Now it's only 5 years away! Always...

[cronus]

They've found a way to seal the sides of the nuclear fusion flask. Keeping a lid on is next.

[rainbow]

You do it on an island in the Pacific.

[Svartalf]

we tried, it didn't work... but now pretty girls in Bikini are never to be frowned on

[mistermack]

If we'd spent the Iraq war money on fusion, we would have got it sorted by now.

But it's still pretty inevitable that they will get it running at some point.
Well, get it running economically I mean. They have got it running already in short bursts.

We should have been born a hundred years later. The world will be pretty amazing by then, I reckon.

Ah well, , , , , next time.

[pErvinalia]

If they could weaponise it, it would be built yesterday...

[mistermack]

If they could weaponise it, it would be built yesterday...

Yeh. It's sod's law that fusion weapons were easy to make, and fusion power plants very hard.

Thank you, baby Jesus.

I do reckon this latest thing is a big step forwards though.
From what I've gleaned, the obstacles are instability of the burn, and materials that can withstand the neutrons, for collecting the heat.

It always seemed that the instability would be overcome, with modern computing power growing all the time. This could be it for a stability breakthrough.

[pErvinalia]

I ignore updates about fusion, on principle. Someone just text me when it's finally working, and then I'll start paying attention...

[rainbow]

If we'd spent the Iraq war money on fusion, we would have got it sorted by now.

Yes, but where's the profit in cheap unlimited energy?

You really didn't think this one through, did you?

[mistermack]

If we'd spent the Iraq war money on fusion, we would have got it sorted by now.

Yes, but where's the profit in cheap unlimited energy?

You really didn't think this one through, did you?

Tell that to the Saudis.

Just because you make it cheap, it doesn't mean you have to sell it cheap. Unless anyone can do it, of course.

[Svartalf]

even if you sell cheap, you can undercut other providers and still make a rofit, plus you can invest in things that make a profit off using all that cheap power...

[mistermack]

In any case, if the world was SERIOUS about cutting carbon emissions, they would be happy to pay MORE for fusion energy, not less.

But of course. . .

[Tero]

I ignore updates about fusion, on principle. Someone just text me when it's finally working, and then I'll start paying attention...

would you like it in a Honda or a Toyota? We could get in a Subaru next week but the others will be 5 years.

[rainbow]

In any case, if the world was SERIOUS about cutting carbon emissions, they would be happy to pay MORE for fusion energy, not less.

But of course. . .

Your innocence is so touching.