Nuclear Fusion UK

[Ymx]

Do we have a thread for this already? Clean energy or something ?

Anyway, sounds like a pretty cool milestone.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/09/uk/n ... index.html

A giant donut-shaped machine just proved a near-limitless clean power source is possible


By Danya Gainor and Angela Dewan, CNN

Updated 1500 GMT (2300 HKT) February 9, 2022
The core of the JET tokamak machine in the English village of Culham, near Oxford.
The core of the JET tokamak machine in the English village of Culham, near Oxford.

(CNN)There's no silver bullet to the climate crisis, but nuclear fusion may be the closest thing to it. In the quest for a near-limitless, zero-carbon source of reliable power, scientists have generated fusion energy before, but they have struggled for decades to sustain it for very long.

On Wednesday, however, scientists working in the United Kingdom announced that they more than doubled the previous record for generating and sustaining nuclear fusion, which is the same process that allows the sun and stars to shine so brightly.
Nuclear fusion is, as its name suggests, the fusing of two or more atoms into one larger one, a process that unleashes a tremendous amount of energy as heat.

Nuclear power used today is created by a different process, called fission, which relies on splitting, rather than fusing, atoms. But that process creates waste that can remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. It's also potentially hazardous in the event of an accident, such as Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.

Fusion, on the other hand, is much safer, can produce little waste and requires only small amounts of abundant, naturally-sourced fuel, including elements extracted from seawater. This makes it an attractive option as the world transitions away from the fossil fuels driving climate change.

Nuclear fusion: The end of our energy problem? (2018)
Nuclear fusion: The end of our energy problem? (2018) 03:30

In a giant donut-shaped machine known as a tokamak, scientists working in the English village of Culham, near Oxford, were able to generate a record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy over five seconds on December 21 last year. Five seconds is the limit the machine can sustain the power before its magnets overheat.

A magnetic field is required to contain the high temperatures needed to carry out the fusion process, which can be as high as 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

"Our experiment showed for the first time that it's possible to have a sustained fusion process using exactly the same fuel mix planned for future fusion power plants," Tony Donné, CEO of EUROfusion, said at a press conference.

EUROfusion, a consortium that includes 4,800 experts, students and staff from across Europe, carried out the project in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The European Commission also contributed funding.

Mmmm donuts.

[Biffer]

I have seen inside the JET torus with my own eyes.

[Ymx]

150 million degrees. WTAF?

I’m guessing kit might start vapourising pretty quickly at those temps.

How does it work, design wise trying to manage that heat ?

[Raggs]

150 million degrees. WTAF?

I’m guessing kit might start vapourising pretty quickly at those temps.

How does it work, design wise trying to manage that heat ?

In the very layman terms that I understand it (so probably wrong), by keeping it the hell away from anything that can melt. It's what the magnets are for, they keep the super hot shit in the middle of the tubing, away from the actual structure of it. There's only a tiny bit of it, so it's not actually that bad once it disperses a bit (I think!).

[Ymx]

Oh ok, would make sense.

[Guy Smiley]

From what I’ve read, the magnets suspend a ‘cloud’ of superheated plasma that contains the fusion reaction.

I also think I’ve read that a Chinese lab has managed a longer reaction, out around the 17 seconds mark.

Seventeen Seconds. One of the best albums from The Cure. Coincidence? I think not.

[fishfoodie]

What diameter is the ball of plasma ?

The thing about nuclear physics; is that E = mc^2, & c is bloody big ~ 3*10^8 so you don't need m to be very big, before the E bit gets impressive.

[Guy Smiley]

It’s pretty small. I’d have to Google fu that up but from memory it’s almost a countable number of atoms involved in the reaction.

[Kawazaki]

Did anything come of that material that featured on Tomorrow's World ages ago - back in the 80s I think - that was brilliant at absorbing and dissipating extreme heat? Think it was a hairdresser who knocked up the recipe in his garage. The paranoid old bastard was convinced he'd get ripped off and he ended up dying before he made any money out of it.

They need that stuff to conduct nuclear fusion inside and protect the magnets.

[fishfoodie]

It’s pretty small. I’d have to Google fu that up but from memory it’s almost a countable number of atoms involved in the reaction.

Good God, I thought you were exaggerating, but LibreOffice says that the magic number of D-T reactions is ~140/sec

[Marylandolorian]

From what I’ve read, the magnets suspend a ‘cloud’ of superheated plasma that contains the fusion reaction.

I also think I’ve read that a Chinese lab has managed a longer reaction, out around the 17 seconds mark.

Seventeen Seconds. One of the best albums from The Cure. Coincidence? I think not.

What can go wrong?

[Guy Smiley]

From what I’ve read, the magnets suspend a ‘cloud’ of superheated plasma that contains the fusion reaction.

I also think I’ve read that a Chinese lab has managed a longer reaction, out around the 17 seconds mark.

Seventeen Seconds. One of the best albums from The Cure. Coincidence? I think not.

FFS, what can go wrong?

Oh I dunno... casual racism maybe?

[Marylandolorian]

Please explain.

[Guy Smiley]

Highlight some text in the whole paragraph that specifically refers to China and suggest there's a risk of things going wrong?

That looks like casual racism. Perhaps you'd like to take your turn explaining now?

[Ymx]

UK seems to have a habit of claiming dubious firsts lately.

There was that “first detected Omicron” by Sajid Javid, when SA. Uk Parliament

The alleged record of this, when Chinese have said they have for longer. CNN (mind you)

The first country to remove all Covid restrictions (when Denmark did it a couple of weeks back). Daily fail.

….

Anywho, this is all going a bit PR

[Ymx]

Nerd physics question.

With all this sub nuclear batshit(*) crazy testing, this and smashing particles together in Switzerland, are there any risks of creating dangerous chain reactions? Ripping a freakin’ hole in space time?

Obviously for fusion we have the Sun and probably know the limits of what can happen, can only affect certain elements??

But for the particle accelerators are there known natural equivalents to know what might happen?




(*) see what I did there.

[mat the expat]

Nerd physics question.

With all this sub nuclear batshit(*) crazy testing, this and smashing particles together in Switzerland, are there any risks of creating dangerous chain reactions? Ripping a freakin’ hole in space time?

Obviously for fusion we have the Sun and probably know the limits of what can happen, can only affect certain elements??

But for the particle accelerators are there known natural equivalents to know what might happen?




(*) see what I did there.

Halflife probably

[Ymx]

Which question was that an answer too?

Also isn’t half life more a fission thing?

I’ve seen spider man so I’m speaking from true knowledge here.

[Guy Smiley]

Well, I guess if fusion experiments get out of hand and someone ends up with another sun growing in their backyard, the good folk at CERN could always whip up a black hole to devour it.

[Calculon]

UK seems to have a habit of claiming dubious firsts lately.

There was that “first detected Omicron” by Sajid Javid, when SA. Uk Parliament

The alleged record of this, when Chinese have said they have for longer. CNN (mind you)

The first country to remove all Covid restrictions (when Denmark did it a couple of weeks back). Daily fail.

….

Anywho, this is all going a bit PR

I'm in the UK at the moment and watching some of the god awful TV here, 3 times presentents have trumpeted this as a first by British scientist.

[Uncle fester]

Highlight some text in the whole paragraph that specifically refers to China and suggest there's a risk of things going wrong?

That looks like casual racism. Perhaps you'd like to take your turn explaining now?

Nice work finding Dozy's sleeper account May.

[Kawazaki]

Highlight some text in the whole paragraph that specifically refers to China and suggest there's a risk of things going wrong?

That looks like casual racism. Perhaps you'd like to take your turn explaining now?

I read it as a Wuhan covid lab joke.

Have we all gone full woke in here now?

[Guy Smiley]

Ummmm…

https://www.livescience.com/chinas-1-tr ... an-the-sun

China's "artificial sun" has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported.

[Calculon]

Nah, clear bit if casual racism, but because it's directed at the Chinese it's OK.

[Biffer]

Ummmm…

https://www.livescience.com/chinas-1-tr ... an-the-sun

China's "artificial sun" has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported.

The two groups are working on different things. The Chinese group are working on maintaining high temperatures for long periods, but haven’t yet got those temperatures high enough, at those lengths of time, to maintain fusion. They’ve maintained temperatures of 70million centigrade for up to about 15 minutes. The JET reactor runs at over 150 million degrees centigrade, which is the temperature needed to create a fusion reaction.

So one group is working on the tech to maintain high temperatures for long times, one is working on the fusion reaction. Both are doing tremendous work, and the outputs from both will be needed (alongside all sorts of other things being worked on across Europe, North America, China, Russia and India) to channel into the ITER reactor to produce a sustained, energy producing fusion reaction.

[Crash669]

Nerd physics question.

With all this sub nuclear batshit(*) crazy testing, this and smashing particles together in Switzerland, are there any risks of creating dangerous chain reactions? Ripping a freakin’ hole in space time?

Obviously for fusion we have the Sun and probably know the limits of what can happen, can only affect certain elements??

But for the particle accelerators are there known natural equivalents to know what might happen?




(*) see what I did there.

Halflife probably

I've got my crowbar, let's go.

[Guy Smiley]

Thanks Biffer

[Biffer]

Well, I guess if fusion experiments get out of hand and someone ends up with another sun growing in their backyard, the good folk at CERN could always whip up a black hole to devour it.

If the fusion reactor has a problem, it’ll just stop. The balance needed to maintain the nuclear reaction, the magnetic fields, the flow etc means that the slightest thing going wrong would stop the reaction. The nature of fusion is such that there isn’t a way that a runaway nuclear reaction could happen in these reactors.

[Biffer]

Nerd physics question.

With all this sub nuclear batshit(*) crazy testing, this and smashing particles together in Switzerland, are there any risks of creating dangerous chain reactions? Ripping a freakin’ hole in space time?

Obviously for fusion we have the Sun and probably know the limits of what can happen, can only affect certain elements??

But for the particle accelerators are there known natural equivalents to know what might happen?




(*) see what I did there.

Nah, no chance of anything happening from the particle accelerators. Although they’re incredibly high energy, that energy is at a really small scale, so no danger of anything like you describe happening. The BS about mini black holes that some loonies were crowing about before LHC was turned on was just nuts. All of these particles occur naturally, so they collide naturally as well - it’s just that at our scale (planetary,local) they’re incredibly difficult to predict and / or watch. So we build colliders so we can watch them. If these kinds of collisions ripped space time apart, then space time would have been ripped to shreds over the 14 billion years the universe has been producing them.

[Grandpa]

Ummmm…

https://www.livescience.com/chinas-1-tr ... an-the-sun

China's "artificial sun" has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported.

The two groups are working on different things. The Chinese group are working on maintaining high temperatures for long periods, but haven’t yet got those temperatures high enough, at those lengths of time, to maintain fusion. They’ve maintained temperatures of 70million centigrade for up to about 15 minutes. The JET reactor runs at over 150 million degrees centigrade, which is the temperature needed to create a fusion reaction.

So one group is working on the tech to maintain high temperatures for long times, one is working on the fusion reaction. Both are doing tremendous work, and the outputs from both will be needed (alongside all sorts of other things being worked on across Europe, North America, China, Russia and India) to channel into the ITER reactor to produce a sustained, energy producing fusion reaction.

Thanks. I was wondering about this as well.

[TB63]

Worked there in the early 90s, in those days, sustaining a "pulse" as it was known, was cheered if they managed 0.5 of a second.
They introduced a twist in the magnetic field to impart more energy into the plasma, think elastic band, until they overdid it one day and it whipped quite a bit and hit the top of the containment chamber.
It lifted 2,500 tons 2mm...

[S/Lt_Phillips]

Question (for Biffer, probably, as he seems to be the only one who actually knows much on this):

The plasma has to be kept contained in a really strong magnetic field because it's so hot if it touches anything it'll melt it. So, how do they get the heat out to generate electricity (presumably via raising steam to drive turbines)? You can't exactly run a heat exchanger through the plasma bit, because, well, it'll melt.

Do enough photons leak out of the magnetic field to warm up the inner walls of the reactor? If so, how do you control that? Can you manipulate the magnetic field to make it more 'leaky' for the photons?

Or is there something fundamental that I've not spotted?

[tabascoboy]

My basic understanding, probably wrong, is that it is neutrons that heat the reactor and having no charge are not affected by magnetic containment

[petej]

Question (for Biffer, probably, as he seems to be the only one who actually knows much on this):

The plasma has to be kept contained in a really strong magnetic field because it's so hot if it touches anything it'll melt it. So, how do they get the heat out to generate electricity (presumably via raising steam to drive turbines)? You can't exactly run a heat exchanger through the plasma bit, because, well, it'll melt.

Do enough photons leak out of the magnetic field to warm up the inner walls of the reactor? If so, how do you control that? Can you manipulate the magnetic field to make it more 'leaky' for the photons?

Or is there something fundamental that I've not spotted?

I assume you've got to direct the EM radiation waves/photons out to something like water and that as they have no charge can escape the magnetic field holding the plasma. Would be interested in biffer's thoughts on the practical/engineering aspects of a fusion power plant.

[Biffer]

My basic understanding, probably wrong, is that it is neutrons that heat the reactor and having no charge are not affected by magnetic containment

That's basically right as far as I understand it. What they're doing is to mush (technical term) two hydrogen atoms together to make helium. But instead of using normal hydrogen which has one proton in it, they use deuterium and tritium, which are forms of hydrogen which have, respectively, one proton and one neutron, and one proton and two neutrons. Helium usually has two protons and two neutrons, so when you add deuterium and tritium, you have a neutron left over. Neutrons are stable and chargeless so pass through the magnetic field, and they'll be moving pretty fast, as they take the excess energy from the reaction (which comes from the changes in binding energies of the atomic nuclei, but that's starting to get complicated). They're then absorbed by the water, and the kinetic energy they had (their speed) is turned into heat. So the water heats up and you use that to generate your electricity through a normal turbine.

[petej]

My basic understanding, probably wrong, is that it is neutrons that heat the reactor and having no charge are not affected by magnetic containment

That's basically right as far as I understand it. What they're doing is to mush (technical term) two hydrogen atoms together to make helium. But instead of using normal hydrogen which has one proton in it, they use deuterium and tritium, which are forms of hydrogen which have, respectively, one proton and one neutron, and one proton and two neutrons. Helium usually has two protons and two neutrons, so when you add deuterium and tritium, you have a neutron left over. Neutrons are stable and chargeless so pass through the magnetic field, and they'll be moving pretty fast, as they take the excess energy from the reaction (which comes from the changes in binding energies of the atomic nuclei, but that's starting to get complicated). They're then absorbed by the water, and the kinetic energy they had (their speed) is turned into heat. So the water heats up and you use that to generate your electricity through a normal turbine.

Would you generate more deuterium in the water or heavier oxygen isotopes like O18?

[S/Lt_Phillips]

My basic understanding, probably wrong, is that it is neutrons that heat the reactor and having no charge are not affected by magnetic containment

That's basically right as far as I understand it. What they're doing is to mush (technical term) two hydrogen atoms together to make helium. But instead of using normal hydrogen which has one proton in it, they use deuterium and tritium, which are forms of hydrogen which have, respectively, one proton and one neutron, and one proton and two neutrons. Helium usually has two protons and two neutrons, so when you add deuterium and tritium, you have a neutron left over. Neutrons are stable and chargeless so pass through the magnetic field, and they'll be moving pretty fast, as they take the excess energy from the reaction (which comes from the changes in binding energies of the atomic nuclei, but that's starting to get complicated). They're then absorbed by the water, and the kinetic energy they had (their speed) is turned into heat. So the water heats up and you use that to generate your electricity through a normal turbine.

Ta

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Worth adding that extracting any useable power from fusion is outside the scope of ITER. It's there to demonstrate a sustainable fusion reaction.

[S/Lt_Phillips]

Worth adding that extracting any useable power from fusion is outside the scope of ITER. It's there to demonstrate a sustainable fusion reaction.

Yes, good point. Although the engineering side of that shouldn't be hard - it's the same process as used in current fission reactors.

[tabascoboy]

Certainly good that there are multiple labs and techniques being tested around the world, at least not all the eggs are in one basket and gives more chance of a "Eureka!" moment