Circa 2017
In a few decades, we might get all our power from nuclear fusion. Researchers have been working to build functional nuclear fusion reactors, which mimic the fusion reactions that occur in the sun to generate power. Once we figure out fusion power, we could use these generators to power our lives for decades.
It’s fast, cheap, safe, and eats up waste. What’s not to like?
A new molten salt reactor design can scale from just 50 Megawatts electric (MWe) to 1,200 MWe, its creators say, while burning up nuclear waste in the process.
☢️ You like nuclear. So do we. Let’s nerd out over nuclear together.
Fusion power is the technology that is thirty years away, and always will be – according to skeptics at least. Despite its difficult transition into a reliable power source, the nuclear reactions that power the sun have a wide variety of uses in other fields. The most obvious is in weapons, where hydrogen bombs are to this day the most powerful weapons we have ever produced. But there’s another use case that is much less destructive and could prove much more interesting – space drives.
The concept fusion drive, called a direct fusion drive (or DFD) is in development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Scientists and Engineers there, led by Dr. Samuel Cohen, are currently working on the second iteration of it, known as the Princeton field reversed configuration-2 (PFRC-2). Eventually the system’s developers hope to launch it into space to test, and eventually become the primary drive system of spacecraft traveling throughout our solar system. There’s already one particularly interesting target in the outer solar system that is similar to Earth in many ways – Titan. Its liquid cycles and potential to harbor life have fascinated scientists since they first started collecting data on it.
I don’t know how long we’ll continue to have to wait.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are collaborating on a new “compact” fusion reactor that could feasibly be built and go online much faster than existing fusion reactor concepts. Does that mean fusion’s Lucy will finally let an industry Charlie Brown kick the football? Maybe.
☢️You love nuclear. So do we. Let’s nerd out over nuclear together.
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A Milestone for Small Modular Reactors (SMR 2020)
In a time where we need to lower our carbon footprint, all nuclear power problems are outweighed by its benefits, such as; low pollution, high output power, stable base load energy, low operating costs, cheap electricity and reliability.
Nevertheless, the construction of new powerplants is on decline, with only one new plant being activated in the past 20 years in the united states.
High construction cost is one of the main reasons that makes it difficult to compete with other energy options.
This is why we don’t see new nuclear facilities being built and those that are, have significant construction delays. The average time it takes to build a power plant is about 7.5 years, and total costs could reach 10s of billions of dollars.
Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear expansion is one example. The project started in 2009 with an estimated final cost of 14 billion dollars. It was supposed to be up and running by 2016. Now it seems that the facility will most likely start working in 2021 with a total estimated final cost of 23 billion dollars.
These power plants are extremely complex to build and have to adhere to numerous safety standards, which adds even more intricacy.
But all of this could be a thing of the past with the introduction of Small Modular Reactors.
Softwares used: blender 2.8 EEVEE apple motion final cut pro X
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Hours before his 13th birthday, Jackson Oswalt (USA) fused together two deuterium atoms using a reactor he had built in the playroom of his family home in Memphis, Tennessee.
This could only mean one thing. Jackson officially became the world’s youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion.
His impressive achievement was verified by Fusor.net, The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, and confirmed by fusion researcher Richard Hull, who maintains a list of amateur scientists who have achieved fusion at home.
(IMAGE 1) The superconducting coil consists of two pairs of helical coils and two sets of circular vertical magnetic field coils. In order to prevent the coil from moving or deforming due to the strong electromagnetic force acting on the superconducting coils, it is firmly supported by a supporting structure made of stainless steel with a high strength of 20 cm thick. These superconducting coils and supporting structures are cooled to cryogenic temperatures simultaneously.
Harworth Group plc has announced the completion of the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA’s) new nuclear fusion technology research facility at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. When it opens later this year, the 2500-square-metre facility will develop and test joining technologies for fusion materials and components, including novel metals and ceramics.
Property developer Harworth said completion of the GBP22 million (USD28 million) Fusion Technology facility triggers UKAEA’s 20-year lease with Harworth at a rent in line with other manufacturers at the Advanced Manufacturing Park. UKAEA will now prepare the building prior to taking formal occupation of it later this year.
The new facility is being funded as part of the government’s Nuclear Sector Deal delivered through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. An additional GBP2 million of investment came from Sheffield City Region’s Local Growth Fund.
At the end of 2015, Germany switched on a new type of massive nuclear fusion reactor for the first time, and it was successfully able to contain a scorching hot blob of helium plasma.
But since then, there’s been a big question — is the device working the way it’s supposed to? That’s pretty crucial when you’re talking about a machine that could potentially maintain controlled nuclear fusion reactions one day, and thankfully, the answer is yes.
A team of researchers from the US and Germany have now confirmed that the Wendelstein 7-X (W 7-X) stellerator is producing the super-strong, twisty, 3D magnetic fields that its design predicted, with “unprecedented accuracy”. The researchers found an error rate less than one in 100,000.
