A question about fusion

The lowest temperature fusion happens at about 40 million Kelvin or Celsius using Tritium. My question is this; how could we in practical terms contain this kind of energy even if we did manage to get controlled thermonuclear fusion power; if we used a pool of water like traditional nuclear sites to contain the energy then would the water not evaporate immediately at these extreme temperatures? Or do we have to use something other than steam electric generator to generate electricity? Traditional nuclear power reactor temperature barely peaks 1,000 Kelvin as I understand with very-high-temperature reactors (VHTR), so with fusion we are talking about 40,000 times the reactors heat from what we use today.

-MM

originally posted by: MerkabaMeditation
The lowest temperature fusion happens at about 40 million Kelvin or Celsius using Tritium. My question is this; how could we in practical terms contain this kind of energy even if we did manage to get controlled thermonuclear fusion power; if we used a pool of water like traditional nuclear sites to contain the energy then would the water not evaporate immediately at these extreme temperatures? Or do we have to use something other than steam electric generator to generate electricity? Traditional nuclear power reactor temperature barely peaks 1,000 Kelvin as I understand with very-high-temperature reactors (VHTR), so with fusion we are talking about 40,000 times the reactors heat from what we use today.

-MM

To get fusion, the atomic nucleii will detach first - they become ions, and really energetic ones at that. Enough to cause any solids they come into contact with to melt. Even tungsten would melt at 6000C . So the only means of containment is through a magnetic field - taking advantage of the fact that everything has a high electric charge. And as a bonus you can control the shape of the magnetic field as in those Stellerators and Tokamak rings. The only problem being is that you need superstrong metals to generate superstrong magnetic fields that don't twist up and pinch into standing wave patterns. That's where the hold-up is at the moment.

a reply to: stormcell

The only problem being is that you need superstrong metals to generate superstrong magnetic fields that don't twist up and pinch into standing wave patterns. That's where the hold-up is at the moment.

Yah, how to keep a little sun in a box without letting it out and tap the energy it produces at the same time.

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

The solution will involve aneutronic fusion and the best fuel will be helium 3.

There are existing viable reactors and some very interesting potentially viable concepts such as CrossFire.

CrossFire Fusion - BoltFire Fusion Reactor is a concept that uses steady-state magnetic fields to confine radially, and helicoidal moving magnetic forces to accelerate and trap axially plasma of electrically charged ions, in an energy-efficient way to ignite fusion reactions, but allowing the charged byproducts to escape longitudinally to the outputs to be converted directly into electricity, producing safe, clean, dense, and virtually unlimited electric power with no pollution and no radioactive waste. In a low-cost way to enable affordable construction of self-sustaining fusion power plants with easy integration to current power grid to become promptly relevant in global marketplace energy generation.

The future is now!

a reply to: stormcell

First, excellent response.

Next, I have heard the Russians have the Tokamak system in development, but I can not find the metal they plan on using for the Magnetic Field Coils. I assume that as long as they can monitor and control the electricity being fed to the magnetic coils instantly they could fix any abnormalities before they corrupted the magnetic fields integrity.

Any thoughts or do you know what the metal might be?

lastly, to others who might want to know more How Nuclear Fusion Reactors Work does not have a lot of super science jargon and is kinda easy to follow.

a reply to: stormcell

How are the ions converted into electricity?

-MM

Evidently from what I know and have read , unlike fission the key issue is containing the heat for use.Not necessarily the cooling.

OP...your attention please.

L ockheed claims it has fusion reactor

Also ill post a response from on e of th e washington state university scientist working on a similiar project.

Our claim of the possibility of fusion cheaper than coal is backed by scientific papers in top journals.
A cost effective controlled fusion configuration call the spheromak has been efficiently sustained while stably confining high pressure fuel.[1] The new sustainment method [2] may lead to fusion power that is cost competitive with coal.[3]
[1] B.S. Victor et al., Physics of Plasmas, 21, 082504 (2014)
[2] T.R. Jarboe et al., Nuclear Fusion, Nucl. Fusion, 52 (2012) 083017
[3] D. A. Sutherland et al., Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 412–425
Tom Jarboe, University of Washington

The magnetic fields from a micro-mini black hole should be able to create aneutronic fusion plasma from helium-3; by one magnetic field pressing the helium-3 against the other magnetic field with extreme pressure.

The electrified fusion plasma will also create it's own magnetic field by the swirling plasma currents.

Hello,

Over in Germany, the Wendelstien 7-X sellerator created a 80 million degree plasma for 1/4 of a second!

Link: Max Plank Institute News

-TEOTWAWKIAIFF

PS - Off to Freshman forums and the introduction. Just had to get this posted asap!

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

OP, there is ALOT going on in the fusion world. The "How Stuff Works" link is a good place to start. Wikipedia is your friend as is google. I usually type in "nuclear fusion reactor" and select 'News' to see the latest breaking stories.

That is how I ran across this article Science News - fusion overview and funding

Deuterium-Tritium fusion begins at 100 million Celsius! The plasma is thin enough (think of the lightning globe novelty light that follows your fingers as you move it over the surface instead of a pot of boiling water on the stove--water touching the pot) that magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma from touching the surfaces. At CERN and W7-X they are using industrial YBCO (yttrium, barium, copper oxides) for magnets. There are better materials, REBCO, that increase the magnetic field which in turn reduces size and cost of the reactor. MIT made that announcement last year.

The fusion reaction creates a nuclear particle that flies off and hits a barrier of lithium (I think) which creates more tritium. This barrier shakes (heats up) with each particle striking it. This barrier is what is tapped and coupled to a heat exchange unit. The heat is used to turn water to steam which turns a conventional turbine. The created tritium is magnetically trapped and re-cycled. The created helium particles are shunted off out of the reactor because the fusion reaction is very touchy to outside particles (that is why this is all done in a vacuum equal to deep space).

In the future, once all the kinks are worked out, they will step away from "neutronic" reactions and do the more difficult (try 1 billion degrees Celsius and up) "aneutronic" reactions. Even though fusion creates less lethal radiation the neutronic reaction does create radioactivity. The great thing is the half-life is something like 50 years!

Hope this helps answer your question!

-T

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the rundown, is that a steady state reactor or still one shot / reload?

a reply to: MerkabaMeditation

Understand how Tunneling works, exploit it and improve upon it.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the rundown, is that a steady state reactor or still one shot / reload?

The W7-X is steady state.

Most Tokomaks are pulsed. The inertial confinement (lasers) seem to be setting up as pulsed but a faster rate than tokomaks (Lawrence Livermore??? are looking at one pellet a second). There are mixed version that are laser heated at two sides, smashed into each other in a magnetic containment field--so I think that makes them pulsed, right?.

The wildest one is molten lead with D-T fuel inside swirling around in a vortex, more heated D-T is added, fusion starts, the whole super heated glob gets shot over to heat exchanger! Who thought up that??!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Fascinating stuff. Keeping suns in a bottle.

Open door, feed sun, slam door.

Sun growls with hunger, strains against its cage.

The scientists will of course want to make them bigger…

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Open door, feed sun, slam door.
…

ROTFL!

Notice that W7-X has all those little doors and hatches all over it? There are something like 200 ports on the thing to keep it cool, drain out helium, take photos, feed it gas, and pulse it with microwaves!

Sun in a bottle with a mini-Dyson sphere around it (in a manner of speaking)!

China fired off their tokomak the other day for 102 seconds! They only got it to 50 million degrees vs. W7-X's 80 million so they too are making progress. Only link I can find is Daily Mail so would like an alternate to verify.

PS - I just re-read this, "only" 50 million degrees!! Ha, ha, ... that is hotter than the sun's surface and I just tossing it around like it is nothing. This is crazy tech when all is said and done

originally posted by: intrptr
cool, drain out helium, take photos, feed it gas, and pulse it with microwaves!

Sun in a bottle with a mini-Dyson sphere around it (in a manner of speaking)!

You joke a bit but that is how I think fusion will actually work. We'll create a mini-sun at about half the distance to the Moon, with a Dyson sphere around it and shunt the power to the Earth.

We'll be half-way to a type II civilization, with the ability to use all the power of "the sun" (just not our star) to power the Earth.

Where we're making the mistake is trying to build it on Earth (beyond a model), and finding containment a major issue.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

There are something like 200 ports on the thing to keep it cool…

Keeping a sun cool?

Hey! Simmer down in there.

50 million degrees, fusion threshold, isn't it?

originally posted by: Maverick7
Where we're making the mistake is trying to build it on Earth (beyond a model), and finding containment a major issue.

I guess having a reactor in space might make dealing with any cooling issues easier. We could just redirect the waste heat that we don't need for power to the dark-side of the reactor, somehow.

originally posted by: Maverick7
Where we're making the mistake is trying to build it on Earth (beyond a model), and finding containment a major issue.

The Sun does it with gravity. We can't do it that way.