Nuclear Fusion

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Construction Contract for ITER Fusion Reactor Signed, HQ Inaugurated



The brand-new headquarter building of the ITER fusion research program was officially inaugurated today, located right beside the gigantic fusion reactor that is currently being constructed at the site. For the occasion, the European Union's Commissioner for Energy Günther Oettinger and the French research minister Geneviève Fioraso came to the ITER site in Cadarache, France. Just two days earlier, the main contract for the construction of the main Tokamak building and facilities, worth around half-billion Euros ($680 mio), was signed.



Commissioner Oettinger re-emphasized the EU's commitment to finance and support the vital projects: "At this time when the urgency to transform our energy system has been overshadowed by the financial crisis it is important that we keep steadfast in funding projects like ITER. This project is at the forefront of energy technology research in the world, giving a long term view towards the decarbonisation of our energy supply. ITER, one of the world's biggest scientific collaborations, has a key role to play in establishing fusion as a sustainable energy source. Moreover, it benefits the economy of the countries, especially through the high tech SMEs sector. With ITER being located on EU territory we play a key role in global energy technology research now and in the future."

ITER-designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power-will be the world's largest experimental fusion facility. Fusion is the process which powers the sun and the stars: when light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released. Fusion research is aimed at developing a safe, abundant and environmentally responsible energy source. The EU is responsible for the lion's share of the project, covering 45% of the budget, with the other 6 partners, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA, each covering 9%.

F4E (Fusion for Energy, Europe's fusion energy research institution) celebrated a landmark achievement on January 15, with the signature of one of its largest contracts in the area of the civil engineering works for the construction of the Tokamak complex, the building that will host the ITER Tokamak machine.



The size of the ITER platform is 42 hectares and Europe is the party responsible for the delivery of the 39 buildings that the ITER platform will host. Currently, the personnel directly involved in construction counts 200 people and by mid-2014 it is expected to reach 3,000 people.

The Tokamak building will rely on 493 plinths equipped with anti-seismic bearings, already in place, able to sustain the overall weight of the machine, with almost three times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Among the weighty parts are 100 heavy nuclear and confinement doors, for example.

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/ar...eadquarter.htm

[ramanujann]

Some general info:

Provide energy from fusion

Human-engineered fusion has been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenge is to scale up the process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way.

If you have a laptop computer, its battery probably contains the metallic element lithium. In theory, the lithium in that battery could supply your household electricity needs for 15 years.

Not in the form of a battery, of course. Rather, lithium could someday be the critical element for producing power from nuclear fusion, the energy source for the sun and hydrogen bombs. Power plants based on lithium and using forms of hydrogen as fuel could in principle provide a major sustainable source of clean energy in the future.


What is fusion?

Fusion is the energy source for the sun. To be sure, producing power from fusion here on Earth is much more challenging than in the sun. There, enormous heat and gravitational pressure compress the nuclei of certain atoms into heavier nuclei, releasing energy. The single proton nuclei of two hydrogen isotopes, for example, are fused together to create the heavier nucleus of helium and a neutron. In that conversion, a tiny amount of mass is lost, transformed into energy as quantified by Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2.

Earthbound reactors cannot achieve the high pressures of the sun’s interior (such pressures have been achieved on Earth only in thermonuclear weapons, which use the radiation from a fission explosion to compress the fuel). But temperatures much higher than the sun’s can be created to compensate for the lesser pressure, especially if heavier forms of hydrogen, known as deuterium (with one proton and one neutron) and tritium (one proton plus two neutrons) are fused.

Deuterium is a relatively uncommon form of hydrogen, but water -- each molecule comprising two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen -- is abundant enough to make deuterium supplies essentially unlimited. Oceans could meet the world’s current energy needs for literally billions of years.

Tritium, on the other hand, is radioactive and is extremely scarce in nature. That’s where lithium comes in. Simple nuclear reactions can convert lithium into the tritium needed to fuse with deuterium. Lithium is more abundant than lead or tin in the Earth’s crust, and even more lithium is available from seawater. A 1,000 megawatt fusion-powered generating station would require only a few metric tons of lithium per year. As the oceans contain trillions of metric tons of lithium, supply would not be a problem for millions of years.


Can you control a fusion reaction?

Human-engineered fusion has already been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenges facing the engineering community are to find ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way.

A major demonstration of fusion’s potential will soon be built in southern France. Called ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), the test facility is a joint research project of the United States, the European Union, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India. Designed to reach a power level of 500 megawatts, ITER will be the first fusion experiment to produce long pulse of energy release on a significant scale.

While other approaches to fusion are being studied, the most advanced involves using magnetic forces to hold the fusion ingredients together. ITER will use this magnetic confinement method in a device known as a tokamak, where the fuels are injected into and confined in a vacuum chamber and heated to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees. Under those conditions the fusion fuels become a gas-like form of electrically charge matter known as a plasma. (Its electric charge is what allows confinement by magnetic forces.) ITER will test the ability of magnetic confinement to hold the plasma in place at high-enough temperatures and density for a long-enough time for the fusion reaction to take place.

Construction of ITER is scheduled to start by 2009, with plasma to be first produced in 2016, and generation of 500 megawatts of thermal energy by 2025. (It will not convert this heat to electricity, however.) Among ITER’s prime purposes will be identifying strategies for addressing various technical and safety issues that engineers will have to overcome to make fusion viable as a large-scale energy provider.


What are the barriers to making fusion reactors work?

For one thing, materials will be needed that can withstand the assaults from products of the fusion reaction. Deuterium-fusion reactions produce helium, which can provide some of the energy to keep the plasma heated. But the main source of energy to be extracted from the reaction comes from neutrons, which are also produced in the fusion reaction. The fast-flying neutrons will pummel through the reactor chamber wall into a blanket of material surrounding the reactor, depositing their energy as heat that can then be used to produce power. (In advanced reactor designs, the neutrons would also be used to initiate reactions converting lithium to tritium.)

Not only will the neutrons deposit energy in the blanket material, but their impact will convert atoms in the wall and blanket into radioactive forms. Materials will be needed that can extract heat effectively while surviving the neutron-induced structural weakening for extended periods of time.

Methods also will be needed for confining the radioactivity induced by neutrons as well as preventing releases of the radioactive tritium fuel. In addition, interaction of the plasma with reactor materials will produce radioactive dust that needs to be removed.

Building full-scale fusion-generating facilities will require engineering advances to meet all of these challenges, including better superconducting magnets and advanced vacuum systems. The European Union and Japan are designing the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, where possible materials for fusion plant purposes will be developed and tested. Robotic methods for maintenance and repair will also have to be developed.

While these engineering challenges are considerable, fusion provides many advantages beyond the prospect of its almost limitless supply of fuel.


Will fusion energy be safe?

From a safety standpoint, it poses no risk of a runaway nuclear reaction — it is so difficult to get the fusion reaction going in the first place that it can be quickly stopped by eliminating the injection of fuel. And after engineers learn how to control the first generation of fusion plasmas, from deuterium and tritium fuels, advanced second- or third-generation fuels could reduce radioactivity by orders of magnitude.

Ultimately, of course, fusion’s success as an energy provider will depend on whether the challenges to building generating plants and operating them safely and reliably can be met in a way that makes the cost of fusion electricity economically competitive. The good news is that the first round of challenges are clearly defined, and motivations for meeting them are strong, as fusion fuels offer the irresistible combination of abundant supply with minimum environmental consequences.

http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9079.aspx

[Hanyuu222]

K-DEMO, NIF; let's hope all these projects are successful and result in the mass production of nuclear fusion plants all over the world by the 40s or 50s. Hopefully even earlier. Seems like everyone I know knows nothing about nuclear fusion and automatically think it's evil because of the world "nuclear." American population needs to be educated moar.

[Spartan_X]

Question - Hypothetically, What's the worst that could happen with a fusion plant? Can they, in theory at least, say, explode? If a accident happens, could it have any similar effects to what happened in, say, Chernobyl ?

[ramanujann]

No, Chernobyl #2 is impossible in principle because, contrary to the nuclear fission, nuclear fusion can be stopped almost immediately by stopping the injection of fuel (moreover ,only a small amount of fuel is present in the plasma at any one time) or by cooling the plasma. Therefore there is no danger of explosion or runaway reaction.

The main concern is that the radioactive tritium, which is used as fuel, could leak to environment and cause some problems. However, the techniques for the safe storage and handling of tritium are well developed. Also there are hopes for deuterium-deuterium fusion in future, without the usage of radioactive tritium.

Another problem is that the energetic neutrons produced by fusion can activate materials of the reactor and make them radioactive. However, they can be safely stored and, because of their very short lifetime, they will decay away in few years. But not all of them are waste, the interaction of neutrons with lithium contained in the wall of the Tokamak produce tritium that can be used as fuel for further fusion reactions.

For more info http://www.iter.org/faq (ITER safety)

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Roadmap and challenges to a magnetic fusion power plant



Scientists around the world have crossed a threshold into a promising and challenging new era in the quest for fusion energy.

So says physicist George “Hutch” Neilson, director of advanced projects at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, in remarks prepared for the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The new phase has begun with the construction of ITER, a fusion facility of unprecedented size and power that the European Union, the United States and five other countries are building in France. Plans call for ITER to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for some 300 second during the 2020s. With construction of ITER under way, many national fusion programs “are embarking on their own projects to demonstrate the production of electricity from fusion energy,” Neilson said.

These nations are considering “DEMO” programs that would mark the final step before the construction of commercial fusion facilities by midcentury. Such programs have brought worldwide researchers together to discuss common challenges in annual workshops that the International Atomic Energy Agency began sponsoring last year. “The scientific and technical issues for fusion are well known,” said Neilson, “but the search for solutions is extremely challenging.”

The key issues:
Development of computer codes to guide the design of DEMO plants.
Development of material for the interior of the plants.
Methods for extracting fusion power.

Methods for handling the exhaust from fusion reactions.
Requirements for devices to develop DEMO components.Individual countries are exploring their own paths to a DEMO, based on their perceived need for such energy. All such plans remain tentative and subject to government approval.

A look at the possible roadmaps that countries are considering:

• China—The world’s most populous nation is pushing ahead with plans for a device called China’s Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) that would develop the technology for a demonstration fusion power plant. Construction of the CFETR could start around 2020 and be followed by operation of a DEMO in the 2030s.
  
• Europe and Japan—These programs are jointly building a powerful tokamak called JT-60SA in Naka, Japan, as a complement to ITER. Plans call for construction to be completed in 2019. The Japanese and Europeans will then pursue similar but independent timelines. Both could start engineering design work on a DEMO around 2030, following the achievement of ITER milestones, and placing the DEMO in operation in the 2030s.
  
• India—The country could begin building a device called SST-2 to develop components for a DEMO around 2027. India could start construction of a DEMO in 2037.
  
• Korea—The program plans to build a machine that it calls K-DEMO that would develop components in the first phase, called K-DEMO-1, and utilize the components in the second phase, or K-DEMO 2. Construction could commence in the mid-to-late 2020s, with operations starting in the mid-2030s.
  
• Russia—The country plans to develop a fusion neutron source (FNS), a facility that would produce neutrons, the chief form of energy created by fusion reactions, in preparation for a DEMO. The FNS project is part of a Russian commercial development strategy that runs to 2050.
  
• United States—A next-step Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) is under consideration. It would be used to investigate materials properties under fusion conditions, and develop components for a DEMO. Construction of the FNSF could start in the 2020s.

http://scienceblog.com/60267/roadmap...JGMku53STwT.99

[desertpunk]

Dry-run experiments verify key aspect of Sandia nuclear fusion concept

image hosted on flickr

Verifying nuclear fusion concept by SandiaLabs, on Flickr

Scientific “break-even” or better is near-term goal

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Magnetically imploded tubes called liners, intended to help produce controlled nuclear fusion at scientific “break-even” energies or better within the next few years, have functioned successfully in preliminary tests, according to a Sandia research paper accepted for publication by Physical Review Letters (PRL).

To exceed scientific break-even is the most hotly sought-after goal of fusion research, in which the energy released by a fusion reaction is greater than the energy put into it — an achievement that would have extraordinary energy and defense implications.

That the liners survived their electromagnetic drubbing is a key step in stimulating further Sandia testing of a concept called MagLIF (Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion), which will use magnetic fields and laser pre-heating in the quest for energetic fusion.

In the dry-run experiments just completed, cylindrical beryllium liners remained reasonably intact as they were imploded by huge magnetic field of Sandia’s Z machine, the world’s most powerful pulsed-power accelerator. Had they overly distorted, they would have proved themselves incapable of shoveling together nuclear fuel — deuterium and possibly tritium — to the point of fusing them. Sandia researchers expect to add deuterium fuel in experiments scheduled for 2013.

“The experimental results — the degree to which the imploding liner maintained its cylindrical integrity throughout its implosion — were consistent with results from earlier Sandia computer simulations,” said lead researcher Ryan McBride.“These predicted MagLIF will exceed scientific break-even.”

A simulation published in a 2010 Physics of Plasmas article by Sandia researcher Steve Slutz showed that a tube enclosing preheated deuterium and tritium, crushed by the large magnetic fields of the 25-million-ampere Z machine, would yield slightly more energy than is inserted into it.

A later simulation, published last January in PRL by Slutz and Sandia researcher Roger Vesey, showed that a more powerful accelerator generating 60 million amperes or more could reach “high-gain” fusion conditions, where the fusion energy released greatly exceeds (by more than 1,000 times) the energy supplied to the fuel.

These goals — both the near-term goal of scientific break-even on today’s Z machine and the long-term goal of high-gain fusion on a future, more powerful machine — require the metallic liners to maintain sufficient cylindrical integrity while they implode.

[...]

image hosted on flickr

The Sandia Z-Machine by SandiaLabs, on Flickr

[UmarPK]

Pakistan experimenting and researching Nuclear Fusion.

GLAST Tokamak project





GLAST[2] (GLAss Spherical Tokamak)[2], is a small spherical magnetic confinement tokamak fusion reactor installed at the National Center for Physics by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) in 2008, with close coordination and collaboration with China.[3] It is a Magnetic confinement fusion spherical tokamak with an insulating vacuum vessel. The reactor is primary use to conduct scientific studies and experiments on nuclear fusion power by consuming plasmas to identify the mechanism responsible for current penetration during start-up phase of the tokamak discharge.[4] The reactor was developed by the PAEC with the help of Chinese assistance, and offers research on control plasmas.[5]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLAST_%28tokamak%29

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...AKvaUXaB2zy4vg




Best wishes to the Pakistani Atomic scientist hope their research yields high results.

[wjfox]

Design approval has been given for a crucial reactor component of the ITER nuclear fusion project,
currently under construction in France, and expected to begin generating power in 2022.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...y-8590480.html

[Guajiro1]

I'm proud to say that my country was the first in the world in attempting to develop nuclear fusion

[Zool]

Originally Posted by Guajiro1

I'm proud to say that my country was the first in the world in attempting to develop nuclear fusion

Britain, USA, Germany & Russia all had fusion projects first. Argentina's 'attempt' was based on the works of an Austrian-born scientist and recent immigrant to Argentina named Ronald Richter (NAZI Scientist). Upon reaching Argentina in 1947 Richter discovered that a German Tokamak had been smuggled to Argentina and Peron desperately needed an expert able to bring the device back to life. Peron gave him millions believing his work to be genuine but Richter lied to the world about achieving fusion then got caught out when international scientists found the geiger counters had all been rigged. It didn't take the international scientific community very long to dismiss the claim as a total fraud. Richter was eventually jailed for having "misled" President Perón.

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

Originally Posted by wjfox

Design approval has been given for a crucial reactor component of the ITER nuclear fusion project,
currently under construction in France, and expected to begin generating power in 2022.

This is just a scaled up version of the reactor running near Oxford.

[bitreaktor]

Originally Posted by DeFiBkIlLeR

This is just a scaled up version of the reactor running near Oxford.

you are funny guy

this






is

just scaled up version of this

running in my garden

[Antonio227]

Originally Posted by Zool

Britain, USA, Germany & Russia all had fusion projects first. Argentina's 'attempt' was based on the works of an Austrian-born scientist and recent immigrant to Argentina named Ronald Richter (NAZI Scientist). Upon reaching Argentina in 1947 Richter discovered that a German Tokamak had been smuggled to Argentina and Peron desperately needed an expert able to bring the device back to life. Peron gave him millions believing his work to be genuine but Richter lied to the world about achieving fusion then got caught out when international scientists found the geiger counters had all been rigged. It didn't take the international scientific community very long to dismiss the claim as a total fraud. Richter was eventually jailed for having "misled" President Perón.

[Ulpia-Serdica]

While studying the viability of building a full-scale fusion reactor, experts at JET - the Joint European Torus - developed a remote handling technology which enabled scientists to enter the fusion simulator and maintain the inside of the device from a distant control room. The technology was developed further under a EURATOM licence by engineers at Oxford Technologies Ltd. (OTL) who are applying this expertise in other fields such as high energy physics, nuclear decommissioning and medical applications.