Chinese claim fusion breakthrough
habshi
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Chinese scientists on Thursday claimed a breakthrough in conducting
the first test of an experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor that
could provide the country with clean and endless source of energy.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion device
nicknamed "artificial sun" was tested at the Institute of Plasma
Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Hefei, capital
of eastern Anhui Province.
During the experiment, deuterium and tritium atoms were forced
together at a temperature of 100 million Celsius.
"At that temperature, the super heated plasma, which is neither a gas,
a liquid nor a solid, should begin to give off its own energy,"
scientists explained.
The first tests lasted nearly three seconds, and generated an
electrical current of 200 kilo amperes, general manager of EAST, Wan
Yuanxi said.
The device is planned to eventually create a plasma lasting 1,000
consecutive seconds, the longest a fusion reactor has ever run,
state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Director of the Institute of Plasma Physics, Li Jiangang said the
results of the test met the expectations of scientists and signified a
great breakthrough in the research of thermonuclear fusion. "That
means we lead all our competitors by at least a decade," said Li.
"The breakthrough will make it possible for mankind to harness a safe,
clean and endless source of energy."
The data of the test will be submitted to the International Atomic
Energy Agency General Conference in Austria.
hanson
if necessary. (Un)fortunately for your credulity, it says in there that:
::: "The **Experimental device was tested**...
::: The device is planned to ***eventually** create a plasma...
::: The **data of the test** will be submitted ... "
ahahaha... this sounds like one of those environmentalist cons who
constantly promote their green shit with some "Potentials"... ahahaha...
But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.... right!?... ahahaha...
ahahaha... ahahahanson
>
>
"habshi" <hi@anony> wrote in message
news:451cc388...@news.clara.net...
zzbu...@netscape.net
But unfortunately for the Chinese and Ruskie Fusion cranks,
we knew that before the idiots even started nuclear research,
since lighning does the same thing.
Bruce Scott TOK
http://english.cas.ac.cn/eng2003/news/detailnewsb.asp?InfoNo=26224
The press release is a bit cryptic, but besides a lot of statements
saying what they are going to to, it looks like it was basically "first
plasma" in a new experiment. Here is their homepage:
http://www.ipp.ac.cn/ENGLISH/research/EASTintroduction.htm
The main paramaters are 3.5 T for the toroidal field, 0.5 MA for the
plasma current (low by our standards), major and minor radii 1.7 and 0.4
meters (about the same size as ours, quite smaller than JET), less than
10 MW of total heating. Nothing special there.
The big new thing is that it is a superconducting-coil machine in this
class, and with a noncircular cross section (for technical reasons
that's very desirable). The elongation is common: 1.6 to 2. If the
operation works out (as it should do) then they'll demonstrate the
ability to hold 1000 second pulses, which is very important because this
is needed for ITER.
Our record on ASDEX Upgrade is about 10 sec, JET's is about 1 min, and
Tore Supra (the biggest superconducting device until recently) did 6
min. JT-60 went to superconducting magnets for its upgrade in 2001, and
it has maintained high performance plasmas for a good fraction of a
minute. The plan (a 2001 presentation) was for 100 sec. They're
limited by their heating systems, not the magnets.
A very good background article is here:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/1/6
--
ciao,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
Y.Porat
Jet ITER JT etc
you are waisting your invaluable time
it is even not in the right direction (even not wrong as someone said )
Y.Porat
-------------------------
CWatters
Thanks for the summary on the state of the art.
habshi
sustained controlled nuclear fusion first .
excerpt
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/1/6
Almost all the fusion devices that are either planned or under
construction rely on superconducting-coil technology, including
Europe's Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), China's HT7-U (now renamed EAST),
Japan's JT60-SC, South Korea's KSTAR and India's SST-1. When it comes
online in 2015, ITER will be the first large superconducting facility
that has the capacity to use deuterium-tritium plasmas under
reactor-like conditions. The challenge between now and then is to
learn how to control fusion plasmas for longer periods with a view to
full, steady-state operation.
The idea behind controlled fusion is to use magnetic fields to
confine a high-temperature plasma of deuterium and tritium. One way to
do this is to use a tokamak - a doughnut-shaped vessel in which a
strong, helical magnetic field guides the charged particles around it
(see Further reading). The nuclei in the plasma undergo fusion
reactions that convert some of their rest mass into energy - in the
same way that energy is produced by the Sun. In order to overcome the
mutual Coulomb repulsion experienced by the two nuclei, the plasma
temperature, T, must be extremely high - typically about 10 keV, which
corresponds to almost 108K. However, the density of the plasma, n, can
be relatively low at about 1020 m-3. The resulting pressure in the
plasma is therefore only about one atmosphere.
Fusion for the future
Although a fusion reactor will use the deuterium-tritium reaction, for
operational convenience most current experiments are based on plasmas
that contain only deuterium. However, we do have experience of working
with deuterium-tritium fuel mixtures from the Tokamak Fusion Test
Reactor (TFTR) experiment at Princeton in the US and the Joint
European Torus (JET) at Culham in the UK. In the mid-1990s the TFTR
produced a peak fusion power of 10.7 MW, while JET - which is the
world's largest tokamak - reached 16 MW.
The next big step in fusion research will be the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is designed to
produce up to 500 MW of fusion power. The ITER collaboration - which
consists of researchers from Canada, China, Europe, Japan, South
Korea, Russia and the US - is currently negotiating where ITER will be
built. Although ITER will not be used to generate electricity, it will
allow us to explore the plasma conditions in a fusion reactor. A
commercial fusion reactor would be only slightly larger than ITER and
would produce a power of about 4 GW.
When a deuterium and a tritium nucleus undergo fusion they produce an
alpha particle, a neutron and 17 MeV of energy. The aim is to use the
energy of alpha particles to maintain the plasma at a steady
temperature, thus allowing the reactions to be self-sustaining and
leaving the neutrons - which carry 80% of the fusion energy - to boil
water and drive steam turbines. For this "ignition" condition to be
met, however, the triple product of the plasma density, plasma
temperature and the energy confinement time - nTtE- must be greater
than 3 x 1021 keV m-3s. The energy confinement time, tE, is the
characteristic time that it takes for the plasma to cool once the
heating is switched off; a typical value for a fusion reactor is a few
seconds.
Figure 1
This triple product, which is used to describe the performance of a
reactor, has increased by almost four orders of magnitude since the
first generation of tokamaks in the late 1960s
ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com
> India with its prowess in software may well get to the goal of
> sustained controlled nuclear fusion first .
There may well be someone somewhere in India that can write decent
code but I've yet to see it.
By the way trolling moron, software isn't the problem with sustained fusion.
<snip post that rational people would have made a link>
Oh, and you are still an idiot.
--
Jim Pennino
Remove .spam.sux to reply.
Bruce Scott TOK
>Our record on ASDEX Upgrade is about 10 sec, JET's is about 1 min, and
>Tore Supra (the biggest superconducting device until recently) did 6
>min. JT-60 went to superconducting magnets for its upgrade in 2001, and
>it has maintained high performance plasmas for a good fraction of a
>minute. The plan (a 2001 presentation) was for 100 sec. They're
>limited by their heating systems, not the magnets.
They wanted to use superconducting magnets but this step was not taken
in the upgrade to JT-60U. The upgrade was in the "divertor" (the extra
chamber below the tokamak which separates the impurity/boundary region
from the region of closed magnetic surfaces). There is discussion of
going to superconducting magnets in the next upgrade.
The JT-60U target was 100 seconds; so far their record is in the
neighborhood of 30. The way JET got 60 sec was to use more than one
heating system (I think up to three have been used), and cycle them as
each has a limit of 15 or 20 sec.
Even in the absence of superconducting magnets, JT-60U has been able to
demonstrate complete non-inductive current drive (i.e., the current is
made by EM waves, not a discharge). This is also a need for ITER.
Tore-Supra's magnet system is not entirely superconducting (only the
main toroidal field coils). This new generation of Asian machines
(EAST, and the upcoming KSTAR and SST) are the first to use entirely
superconducting magnet systems.
Jan Panteltje
Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
<200609301637....@ipp.mpg.de>:
What do you think of electrostatic confinement fusion?
In the Tokamak one needs to make 100 million degrees Kelvin, to create fusion.
Amateurs have demonstrated fusion with electrostatic confinement on the table top.
They are many orders of magnitude below break-even, but also many orders of
magnitude below the money spend on magnetic confinement of hot plasma.
In the electrostatic confinement case it is the kinetic energy of statically
accelerated ions that causes the fusing.
Paul Studier
They will never break even. There is no way around the fact that the
ions are attracted to the electrodes and will collide with them. Making
the machine bigger does not help.
--
Paul Studier <STUDIER2atpleasenospamtoPAULSTUDIERdotCOM>
When you work, you create.
When you win, you just take from the loser.
For an explanation, see http://paulstudier.com/win
Bruce Scott TOK
>On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Sep 2006 18:37:54 +0200 (MEST)) it happened Bruce
>Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
><200609301637....@ipp.mpg.de>:
>
>What do you think of electrostatic confinement fusion?
>
>In the Tokamak one needs to make 100 million degrees Kelvin, to create fusion.
>
>Amateurs have demonstrated fusion with electrostatic confinement on the
>table top.
Amateurs? Or scientists in universities, maybe former scientists at the
time (I'm familiar with the MIGMA studies and the non-neutral plasma
work at UCSD).
>They are many orders of magnitude below break-even, but also many orders of
>magnitude below the money spend on magnetic confinement of hot plasma.
>
>In the electrostatic confinement case it is the kinetic energy of statically
>accelerated ions that causes the fusing.
The problems, in short, are scalability. There are physical limits
associated with charge density effects (compared to other things) if you
try to raise the density to new regimes.
It's not just a question of money. Plenty of people have looked at
these things.
Jan Panteltje
TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
>Jan P asked:
>
>>On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Sep 2006 18:37:54 +0200 (MEST)) it happened Bruce
>>Scott TOK <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
>><200609301637....@ipp.mpg.de>:
>>
>>What do you think of electrostatic confinement fusion?
>>
>>In the Tokamak one needs to make 100 million degrees Kelvin, to create fusion.
>>
>>Amateurs have demonstrated fusion with electrostatic confinement on the
>>table top.
>
>Amateurs?
Yes many amateurs too,
http://www.fusor.net/board/index.php?site=fusor
>Or scientists in universities, maybe former scientists at the
>time (I'm familiar with the MIGMA studies and the non-neutral plasma
>work at UCSD).
Yes.
>>They are many orders of magnitude below break-even, but also many orders of
>>magnitude below the money spend on magnetic confinement of hot plasma.
>>
>>In the electrostatic confinement case it is the kinetic energy of statically
>>accelerated ions that causes the fusing.
>
>The problems, in short, are scalability. There are physical limits
>associated with charge density effects (compared to other things) if you
>try to raise the density to new regimes.
OK, I understood from the other poster that the heat generated by collisions
with the grid is a problem too.
I have been thinking, you know, how to 'fix' a simpler problem.
Maybe by using a modulated ion beam, and modulated grid, so the grid is at
0V when the ion is near, but that does not solve for kinetic impacts, just
nullifies the current to it. Sort of pulse operation.
The whole idea is if you can do it at a small scale, and could generate
anything like 1kW upwards, you could have one in every house and car.
Making the electric grid redundant, petrol too.
But OK, you guys (I am the physics amateur) know more, that is why I asked.
I am not an electronics amateur, the HV stuff I can make....
But the idea of a big neutron flux and lots of lead bricks in my house has
stopped me so far ;-)
Anyways it would be nice to have these small power sources (everybody is
looking for).
>It's not just a question of money. Plenty of people have looked at
>these things.
Sometimes things are classified too...
Y.Porat
tritium i s not cheap and radioactive
we have the shortcut to go to-the original process that uses the
simplest
IE just protons and it is possible !!!
needs much more sophistication but much more economic
on the long run
--------------------
Bruce Scott TOK
>OK, I understood from the other poster that the heat generated by collisions
>with the grid is a problem too.
>
>I have been thinking, you know, how to 'fix' a simpler problem.
[...]
I'll address this later when I have more time...
>>It's not just a question of money. Plenty of people have looked at
>>these things.
>
>Sometimes things are classified too...
Not in MFE (declassified in 1958). Not even in ICF anymore
(declassified during the 1990s).
I assure you if anyone got anything out of those studies, if it were as
easy as you might think, it would be done. Even if the tokamak fusion
community is ingrown (and it is), there are plenty of small-level
efforts which aren't dependent on that, and if well-posed calculations
really showed these things were possible, there would be movement. Of
course it has to be a growing cascade... you'll never get a big project
going one day to the next without precursors.
Actually, if it were that easy it would be probably be done in a
corporation, not by public funding. As P&F showed, you can always find
someone willing to gamble at the low levels. Now, if it has to be
billions (or 100s of M), then it has to be done at the public level
since no company will gamble to that extreme.
The whole point: these problems are not easy and one will not solve them
with a few evenings' thinking.
Y.Porat
not a few evenings and not a few thousands of years
you refuse to admit a big failure
Y.Porat
-----------------------
>
> --
> ciao,
> Bruce
>
>