Scientists are one step closer to understanding nuclear fusion power
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One rival, for example, is a demonstration nuclear-fusion power plant.
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But it will provide valuable data if we are ever to build a nuclear fusion power plant.
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Nuclear fusion power plants could end our dependency on fossil fuels and provide a virtually limitless, highly efficient source of clean energy.
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Since 2011, Bezos has been investing in General Fusion, a Canadian company attempting to build the world's first nuclear fusion power plant.
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There certainly seems to be a rush on right now to catch those rays—direct from the nuclear fusion power source that is our Sun.
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Laws enacted in the 22006s and 22010s classify lithium as a "strategic" material on the ground that it can be used in future nuclear-fusion power plants.
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These low carbon, sometimes futuristic technologies include nuclear fusion power plants (something that's in development but perhaps decades away), cheaper traditional nuclear power, and capturing carbon and storing it in the ground.
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In the last two decades, however, private money has also been pouring into developing fusion reactors, and a handful of companies are leveraging publicly funded fusion research in a race to develop the first nuclear fusion power plant.
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The Boston-based team, which has built a bedroom-sized experimental tokamak reactor, plans to develop a larger-scale system of superconducting magnets within three years and build a fusion reactor within eight before finally, within 15 years, completing a nuclear-fusion power plant generating electricity.
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This dream of a sustainable "star in a jar" was brought one step closer to reality this month by physicists at the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, who demonstrated how the design for a new type of "jar" could lead to the first commercially viable nuclear fusion power plant.
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Symmetrical compression of nuclear charge, its fission detonation and high-temperature nuclear fusion ignition, and the ensuing rapidly boosting fission-fusion reactions, which are key technologies for enhancing the nuclear fusion power of the second-system of the H-bomb, were confirmed to have been realized on a high level.
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As PPPL physicists demonstrated in their recent paper in Nuclear Fusion,the spherical tokamak design is a leading candidate for the creation of a fusion nuclear science facility (FNSF), which would bridge the gap between ITER, which will be the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment when it comes online in a few years, and a commercially viable nuclear fusion power plant.
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Professor Wendell Horton (born February 1942) is a Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin and a student of plasma physics. Horton's core area of research is plasma transport and its application to the development of nuclear fusion power. Horton is a fellow of the American Physical Society.
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Nuclear fusion power is a developing technology still under research. It relies on fusing rather than fissioning (splitting) atomic nuclei, using very different processes compared to current nuclear power plants. Nuclear fusion reactions have the potential to be safer and generate less radioactive waste than fission.Introduction to Fusion Energy, J. Reece Roth, 1986.
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It is hypothesized that one of Neptune's satellites could be used for colonization. Triton's surface shows signs of extensive geological activity that implies a subsurface ocean, perhaps composed of ammonia/water. If technology advanced to the point that tapping such geothermal energy was possible, it could make colonizing a cryogenic world like Triton feasible, supplemented by nuclear fusion power.
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A follow on commercial nuclear fusion power station, DEMO, has been proposed. – Projected fusion power timeline There is also suggestions for a power plant based upon a different fusion approach, that of an Inertial fusion power plant. Fusion powered electricity generation was initially believed to be readily achievable, as fission power had been. However, the extreme requirements for continuous reactions and plasma containment led to projections being extended by several decades.
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According to most anti-nuclear groups, nuclear fusion power "remains a distant dream". The World Nuclear Association have said that fusion "presents so far insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges". Construction of the ITER facility began in 2007, but the project has run into many delays and budget overruns. Several milestones of the project has already been finished, but the finishing date for First Plasma has been discussed and postponed many times with various conclusions.
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Construction of the ITER facility began in 2007, but the project has run into many delays and budget overruns. The facility is now not expected to begin operations until the year 2027–11 years after initially anticipated. A follow on commercial nuclear fusion power station, DEMO, has been proposed. – Projected fusion power timeline There are also suggestions for a power plant based upon a different fusion approach, that of an inertial fusion power plant.
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Made redundant in 1961, he joined General Atomic and worked on the Orion space propulsion system, which proposed using a controlled sequence of nuclear explosions to propel the spacecraft. He also worked on atomic-powered gas turbines.Colin F. McDonald, John C. Bass & Hans H. Amtmann; Primary System Design Studies for Advanced Direct Cycle Nuclear Gas Turbine Plant, AMSE, 1977. He moved to a small company working on nuclear fusion power in 1980, until the company closed in 1984.
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In conceptualized (hypothetical) nuclear fusion power plants, lithium will be used to produce tritium in magnetically confined reactors using deuterium and tritium as the fuel. Naturally occurring tritium is extremely rare, and must be synthetically produced by surrounding the reacting plasma with a 'blanket' containing lithium where neutrons from the deuterium-tritium reaction in the plasma will fission the lithium to produce more tritium: :6Li + n → 4He + 3H. Lithium is also used as a source for alpha particles, or helium nuclei.
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Contributing to this trend is the fact that PhD programmes in Iran now require students to have publications in the Web of Science. Iran has submitted a formal request to participate in a project which is building an International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France by 2018. This megaproject is developing nuclear fusion technology to lay the groundwork for tomorrow's nuclear fusion power plants. The project involves the European Union, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and USA.
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Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (born on February 2, 1935; in Russian: Евгений Павлович Велихов) is a physicist and scientific leader in the Russian Federation. His scientific interests include plasma physics, lasers, controlled nuclear fusion, power engineering and magnetohydrodynamics (high- power pulsed MHD generators). He is the author of over 1500 scientific publications and a number of inventions and discoveries. He currently holds the post of president of the Kurchatov Institute (named after Igor Kurchatov) and first Secretary (head) of the Public Chamber of Russia.
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The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of nuclear fusion power. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). On its formation in 1954, the authority was responsible for the United Kingdom's entire nuclear programme, both civil and defence, as well as the policing of nuclear sites. It made pioneering developments in nuclear (fission) power, overseeing the development of nuclear technology and performing much scientific research.
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The stability of structural materials in all nuclear reactors is a critical issue. Materials that can survive the high temperatures and neutron bombardment experienced in a fusion reactor are considered key to the success of developing nuclear fusion power systems. The principal issues are the conditions generated by the plasma, the problem of neutron degradation of wall surfaces, and so the issue of plasma-wall surface conditions. In addition, reducing Hydrogen permeability is seen as crucial to Hydrogen recycling and control a Tritium inventory.
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Hydrogen is not an energy resource, except in the hypothetical context of commercial nuclear fusion power plants using deuterium or tritium, a technology presently far from development. The Sun's energy comes from nuclear fusion of hydrogen, but this process is difficult to achieve controllably on Earth. Elemental hydrogen from solar, biological, or electrical sources requires more energy to make than is obtained by burning it, so in these cases hydrogen functions as an energy carrier, like a battery. Hydrogen may be obtained from fossil sources (such as methane), but these sources are unsustainable.
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Zubrin, in his 1996 book (revised 2011) The Case for Mars, acknowledges any Martian colony will be partially Earth-dependent for centuries. However, Zubrin suggests Mars may be profitable for two reasons. First, it may contain concentrated supplies of metals equal to or of greater value than silver, which have not been subjected to millennia of human scavenging; it is suggested such ores may be sold on Earth for profit. Secondly, the concentration of deuterium—an extremely expensive but essential fuel for the as-yet non-existent nuclear fusion power industry—is five times greater on Mars.
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Hybrid nuclear power is a proposed means of generating power by use of a combination of nuclear fusion and fission processes. The concept dates to the 1950s, and was briefly advocated by Hans Bethe during the 1970s, but largely remained unexplored until a revival of interest in 2009, due to delays in the realization of pure fusion. When a sustained nuclear fusion power plant is built, it has the potential to be capable of extracting all the fission energy that remains in spent fission fuel, reducing the volume of nuclear waste by orders of magnitude, and more importantly, eliminating all actinides present in the spent fuel, substances which cause security concerns.
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In 1977, Executive Director Morris Levitt asserted that nuclear fusion power plants could be built by 1990 if the U.S. spent $50 to $100 billion on research. The same year he announced that there would be no United States in the 21st century if President Jimmy Carter's ban on building breeder reactors was maintained. The director of the fusion power program at Argonne National Laboratory, Charles Baker, said in 1983 that the FEF was "overstating" the prospect of practical fusion power in the near future. "The judgment of the vast majority of the people actually working in fusion believe it will take substantially longer" than the few years predicted by the FEF, according to Baker.
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Several wildly unsuccessful investments by Guccione—including the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino (which lost $160 million) and a (never-built) nuclear fusion power plant—added to his publishing empire's financial woes.Rolling Stone, "The Twilight of Bob Guccione"; accessed October 20, 2010. Guccione's efforts to regain sales and notoriety, which included attempts to get Monica Lewinsky to pose for the magazine (which was parodied in a sketch on Saturday Night Live in 1998Saturday Night Live website ) and offering the Unabomber a free forum for his views, failed to increase readership. With the rise of online access to (often free) pornography in the late 1990s, Penthouse's circulation numbers began to suffer even more.
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The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was established in 1954 as a UK government research organization responsible for the development of nuclear fusion power. The National Non-Destructive Testing Centre (NNDTC) was created at UKAEA's Harwell research establishment in 1967. The center's formation created a central NDT research base in the UK. In 1982 from within the NNDTC the Harwell Offshore Inspection Service (HOIS) was formed as a joint industry project to improve the effectiveness of in-service inspection for the oil and gas industry. The UKAEA's Safety and Risk Directorate was at the forefront of developments such as Quantified Risk Assessment (QRA) that were transferred from the nuclear industry and applied within major hazard industries such as petrochemical, process, and oil and gas.
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As an expert in geological research on underground nuclear tests and extraterrestrial materials, Ouyang was among the first to advocate not only the exploitation of lunar reserves of metals such as iron, but also the mining of lunar helium-3, an ideal fuel for nuclear fusion power plants. Ouyang is now the chief scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), also known as the Chang'e program. He is the most prominent supporter of the Chinese manned lunar exploration program, and also lobbies for the Chinese exploration of Mars. On November 12, 2008, upon China's publication of a comprehensive lunar surface map, Ouyang encouraged all three Asian nations then involved in lunar exploration (China, India and Japan) to increase co- operation in furthering humanity's understanding of the Moon.
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In 1983, as assistant director for the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, Lidsky wrote an influential article about the difficulties of making a working nuclear fusion power plant.. The ensuing reduction in federal funding for fusion research led him to resign from the center, and caused him to be "drummed out" of the nuclear fusion research community.. Because of his concerns with the viability of fusion power, he instead became by 1989 an advocate for safer nuclear fission reactor designs.. In 1999 he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "for outstanding contributions to both nuclear fission and fusion in education, research, system design and analysis, technical publications and federal policy".. He died March 1, 2002 in Newton, Massachusetts, after struggling with cancer for many years...
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The ULS (UMIST Linear System) is a gas target divertor simulator located on the former UMIST campus of the University of Manchester. It enables physicists to study the recombination processes of a detached plasma in a hydrogen target chamber. Research on detached plasma and on its recombination modes is of primary importance in order to design an appropriate divertor region in a future nuclear fusion power plant, where huge amounts of energy will be deposited by the fast-moving particles generated in the main reactor. The major goal of the ULS as for many other linear divertor simulators, is to reproduce the same temperature and density conditions of the SOL (Scrape Off Layer) of a tokamak in a linear environment and therefore to make easier the study of its properties.
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Interior of Alcator C-Mod showing the molybdenum tiles used as first wall material Interior of Tokamak a configuration variable showing the graphite tiles used as first wall material In nuclear fusion power research, the plasma-facing material (or materials) (PFM) is any material used to construct the plasma-facing components (PFC), those components exposed to the plasma within which nuclear fusion occurs, and particularly the material used for the lining the first wall or divertor region of the reactor vessel. Plasma-facing materials for fusion reactor designs must support the overall steps for energy generation, these include: #Generating heat through fusion, #Capturing heat in the first wall, #Transferring heat at a faster rate than capturing heat. #Generating electricity. In addition PFMs have to operate over the lifetime of a fusion reactor vessel by handling the harsh environmental conditions, such as: # Ion bombardment causing physical and chemical sputtering and therefore erosion.
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The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP; ), also known as the Chang'e Project () after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, is an ongoing series of robotic Moon missions by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The program incorporates lunar orbiters, landers, rovers and sample return spacecraft, launched using Long March rockets. Launches and flights are monitored by a Telemetry, Tracking, and Command (TT&C;) system, which uses radio antennas in Beijing and antennas in Kunming, Shanghai, and Ürümqi to form a VLBI antenna. “嫦娥奔月”地面主干工程基本完成 云南天文台巨型射电追踪望远镜年底投入使用 巨型望远镜送“嫦娥”飞月- 望远镜,嫦娥-北方网-科技无限 A proprietary ground application system is responsible for downlink data reception. Ouyang Ziyuan, a geologist and chemical cosmologist, was among the first to advocate the exploitation not only of known lunar reserves of metals such as titanium, but also of helium-3, an ideal fuel for future nuclear fusion power plants.
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