ENER Researchers create a new fusion recipe that boosts energy output

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Science

Researchers create a new fusion recipe that boosts energy output

Engadget Mallory Locklear, Engadget 38 minutes ago

Science
Researchers create a new fusion recipe that boosts energy output
Engadget Mallory Locklear,Engadget 38 minutes ago

Nuclear fusion is an attractive way to create energy. It generates hardly any waste, doesn't pollute the planet and takes advantage of elements that we have plenty of. But fusion takes a lot of work and the energy payout isn't yet at the level that makes it suitable for producing power. But researchers at MIT have developed a new fusion recipe that boosts energy production by ten-fold.

Previously, the group was using a method that required two types of ions -- deuterium and hydrogen -- with deuterium making up around 95 percent of the mixture. With the ions contained in a fusion reactor called a tokamak, radio waves tuned to target only the less abundant hydrogen ions were used to heat them up. With all of the energy of the waves focused on just the hydrogen ions, the ions were able to reach very high energy levels, causing them to slam into the deuterium ions and generate heat and power through the resulting fusion reaction.

However, the researchers decided to try out a three ion solution, adding helium-3 ions at very small amounts into the mix. And when the waves were trained on to the few helium-3 ions, the ions were able to achieve energy levels that have only been generated in full, activated fusion reactors, not small experimental reactors like the one being used at MIT.

The results were so promising that researchers at Europe's largest nuclear fusion device, the UK's Joint European Torus, decided to try the method out themselves. They replicated the results successfully and the two groups were able to focus on and measure two different properties of the particles undergoing the reaction, meaning the two were able to get a fuller picture of how the experiment was working than either could have separately. "The fact that we had a basic theory realized on two different devices on two continents came together to produce a strong paper," John Wright, a researcher with the project, said in a statement.

The results paint an encouraging outlook for the future of nuclear fusion as a power generator and the method could also help researchers looking to better understand solar flares, which result from a similar process. The research was recently published in Nature Physics.

Nature , MIT
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Nuclear fusion made more stable thanks to a rather simple solution

by Colm Gorey
21 AUG 2017

Bringing us yet another step closer to harnessed nuclear fusion energy, a team of researchers has found a simple way to make it more stable.

There are numerous challenges to harnessing a nuclear fusion reaction with the potential to have a near-limitless, clean and cheap power source, and one of them is creating stable plasma.

One of the most common instabilities found during the latest research is called a global Alfven eigenmode (GAE), a wave-like disturbance that can cause fusion reactions to fizzle out, which, unsurprisingly, is not good.

However, in a paper published to Physical Review Letters, a team from Princeton University has found a remarkably simple way to suppress GAE in its own experimental reactor known as the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U).

Like a snake trying to eat its tail
The GAE instability is sometimes compared to a snake trying to eat its own tail, in that the same neutral beam particles instrumental to the process that heat the plasma are ionised inside the gas.

Once triggered by these fast ions, the GAEs can rise up and drive them out, cooling the plasma and halting fusion reactions.

However, to help stop this, the Princeton researchers simply installed a second beam injector.

Once switched on, the beam flows through the plasma at a higher pitch-angle, in a direction roughly parallel to the magnetic field that confines the hot gas, resulting in the GAEs being suppressed in a matter of milliseconds.

Fast ions from the beam combined with those from the original beam to increase the density of the ions and alter their distribution in the plasma.

‘A welcome discovery’
All of this is good news for nuclear fusion development, as NSTX-U’s head of research, Jonathan Menard, explained.

“Normally, when you inject energetic particles, you drive up instabilities,” he said.

“The fact that the second neutral beam was able to turn them off by varying the fast-ion distribution with a small amount of particles provides our research with flexibility and is a welcome discovery.”

Earlier this year, a team from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden managed to achieve another major breakthrough in stability within nuclear fusion, specifically with preventing reactors from blowing up under the intense pressure during a reaction.

RELATED: ENGINEERING, PHYSICS, RESEARCH, NUCLEAR ENERGY, ENERGY


Colm Gorey is a journalist with Siliconrepublic.com
editorial@siliconrepublic.com
 
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