New record for fusion

Using these ideas, the scientists [at PPL] developed a "stability map" that allows a plasma to be monitored in real-time -- with 1/1000 of a second resolution -- to determine whether it is stable and how close it is to being unstable. If you know how fast the plasma is rotating and the collisionality [frequency of particle collision], you can use the stability map to see if the plasma is stable, as shown in the accompanying, for an experiment at the National Spherical Torus Experiment at PPPL

Sciencedaily, Oct. 28, 2016 - Steering a fusion plasma toward stability.

The article has the map up and explains in more detail what is happening with rotation and collisionality (cool new word).

How cool is that? Three articles up in one day, one on how to tune the frequency of neutral beam injectors to optimize heating; two, a method to boot strap current within a tokamak removing the need for a solenoid is demonstrated; and a road map for stable plasma.

Anybody else excited about nuclear fusion?!

Updated on National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U).

The problems started with a blockage in a water-cooling coil inside the reactor and the inspection of that coil led to the discovery of other issues, said Andrew Zwicker, a physicist at the lab and spokesperson for issues regarding the reactor.

"We needed to do a very meticulous check of all of our systems," said Zwicker...

Scientists decided to take apart the massive reactor in order to examine and test its parts. Given the size of the device, it could take a full year, Zwicker said.

NJ.com, Oct. 28, 2016 - Princeton plasma lab's fusion reactor shut down for 1 year after malfunction.

Thanks for the update but I still do not know what happened. Did a magnet fail? That is what the original quip said. Was it a cooling issue or total failure? Nothing has been said and PPPL has not posted an update on their site. This report makes it sound like a cooling issue and not a magnet failure. Did the magnet failure cause the damage? IDK what cause the original failure. Now, it seems they have found more issues and are being prudent in their repair work.

I guess we have to take the good news (previous three posts) along with the bad.

An institute in Hefei, capital of East China’s Anhui province, succeeded in using a tokamak to achieve a high-constraint-model plasma driven by non-inductive electricity for over 60 seconds.

cnanhui.org, news, Nov. 3, 2016 - Anhui-Based Institute Makes Major Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion Experiment.

This is a short blurb on the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Fusion Energy Conference that was just held in Kyoto, Japan. This is China's EAST fusion reactor and it was announced earlier this year that they had a 102 second plasma. That plasma is not the same as this one (high constraint). Looks like China can now do 60 - 100 seconds of two different types of plasma.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories Z Machine have opened a new chapter in their 20-year journey toward higher fusion outputs by introducing tritium, the most neutron-laden isotope of hydrogen, to their targets' fuel.
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This thing about creating energy where none existed before—we don't yet have a bonfire, but we're squirting starter on the grill," said Mike Cuneo, senior manager of Sandia's Pulsed Power Accelerator Science and Technology group.
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"We're going to crawl before we walk and run," said Cuneo. "We will gradually increase that fraction in contained experiments as we go."

Only two other Department of Energy-supported, high-energy-density research sites, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester, had been approved to use tritium
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The Sandia experiments use electromagnetics to smash Z's more massive target and its entire target support area like they were hit by a sledgehammer.
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It will be at least three years before experiments approach the 50/50 mix of tritium and deuterium, depending on funding and Sandia and NNSA priorities for Z.

Phys.org, Nov. 9, 2016 – Tritium introduced in fusion experiments at Sandia.

The Z machine does not have a containment vessel so they are proceeding very cautiously as tritium is very reactive with any material. So over the course of three years (!!!) they will scale up the amount to the 50/50 mix where they think ignition will occur. Cool announcement and I like the "squirting fire starter" comment. Shame it will be three years though.

Seems like 2020 is the magic “it” year of fusion research. LPP (aka deep fusion, fusion power) -2020; ITER (initial plasma) – 2020; Lockheed CFR (Prototype – 2017. Energy from it) – 2020; Wendelstein 7-X (30 minute plasma and power production) – 2020; Tri Alpha (prototype reactor) – 2020; General Fusion (power) – 2020; MIT’s ARC/SPARC (prototype) – 2020; China’s EAST (operational next 15 years) – 2020-ish; Helion Energy (producing fusion) – 2022.

Makes one wonder why we need fusion by 2020, huh?

The ITER Council has approved an updated schedule for the huge fusion experimental facility that is currently being built in Cadarache, France. At a meeting held from 16 to 17 November, the council approved the plan that was proposed by the ITER organization earlier this year with first plasma set for 2025 – a delay of five years – and ITER only moving onto deuterium-tritium fuel in 2035.

Physicsworld.com, Flash Physics (news flashes), Nov. 22, 2016 - ITER council endorses new "baseline" schedule.

Boo! Boo! Boo, Wendy Testaburger!

First plasma had been 2020 and D-T up and running in 2030 so tack another FIVE years onto those dates. Gee, they might never get off the ground now since Wendelstein 7-X will have completed all of its upgrades with the final goal of 30 minute run and production of energy by 2030. This news opens the door for all the smaller fusion devices like LPP and SP/ARC as there is yet more delays with the huge ITER fusion project.

Even China's EAST could get their heating figured out by then. *sigh*

Scientists at the... Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University have proposed a groundbreaking solution to a mystery that has puzzled physicists for decades. At issue is how magnetic reconnection, a universal process that sets off solar flares, northern lights and cosmic gamma-ray bursts, occurs so much faster than theory says should be possible. The answer could aid forecasts of space storms, explain several high-energy astrophysical phenomena, and improve plasma confinement in... tokamaks designed to obtain energy from nuclear fusion.
...
The paper describes how the plasmoid [small magnetic islands] instability begins in a slow linear phase that goes through a period of quiescence before accelerating into an explosive phase that triggers a dramatic increase in the speed of magnetic reconnection. To determine the most important features of this instability, the researchers adapted a variant of the 17th century "principle of least time" originated by the mathematician Pierre de Fermat.

Use of this principle enabled the researchers to derive equations for the duration of the linear phase, and for computing the growth rate and number of plasmoids created. Hence, this least-time approach led to a quantitative formula for the onset time of fast magnetic reconnection and the physics behind it.

Phys.org, Nov. 22, 2016 - Researchers propose an explanation for the mysterious onset of a universal process.

So PPPL now has a road map to plasma stability (first post on this page) and now a new tool on how to explain and predict fast reconnection. Plasma stability seems to be now just a function of keeping controls from varying too far and predicting when cascading plasmoids might be making for a more disruptive event and then just preventing it from happening in the first place. Seems like treating plasma as light instead of a gas makes the maths work and allows physics to explain what is happening. Fermat got them on the right page!

When they get their NSTX-U back online there are going to be announcement after announcement.

How precisely the field structure needed – a setup of closed magnetic surfaces nested in one another – can be generated by the specially shaped superconducting stellarator coils is now clear. Deviations from the calculated target shape are within a hundred-thousandth: A magnetic field line traced for a distance of 100 metres, i.e. the extent of a football pitch, will be spot on target to within a millimetre.

Maxx-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Nov. 30, 2016 - Magnetic field of Wendelstein 7-X exact to a hundred-thousandth.

Nature Communications - Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field to better than 1:100,000 is the actual paper with photos of the field lines and error charts (cool pics)

Well I should hope so! It only took 19 years to build and 2 billion Euros! It was designed, manufactured, and assembled by computer and lasers, so after all that work I would hope that it was within tolerances.

This is a report on how the device measured after the run that ended this year. A fluorescent rod is used to map the magnetic lines as they swirl through the reactor's core. After all that precise work they nailed it! A stellarator has the magnetic fields on the outside. The W7-X is known as a fully optimized Helias configuration. The calculations to create this had to wait until supercomputers were capable of doing them. Each coil is optimized to produce a specific field and these fields have external guide coils (they are the twisty coils around the device).

All that time calculating, then made to order superconductor coils, computer guided assembly, and 19 years of hard work paid off! Congrats to all the teams that worked on W7-X at the IPP!

This demonstrates the fully optimized Helias stellarator design. Well deserved win!!! This is a major step towards that 30 minute run and a realized nuclear fusion reactor.

Many materials tend to harden and crack when exposed to radiation [embrittlement]. However, aluminium oxide nanoceramic coatings toughen, ultimately benefitting from irradiation, says Fabio Di Fonzo, a team leader at the IIT Center for Nano Science and Technology.

"The pinpoint of our work is the demonstration that an amorphous or nanoceramic material can improve during irradiation, and this opens the path toward a different view of nuclear materials, specifically where coatings are concerned," he says.

Phys.org - Nanoceramic material for more safe and economical nuclear reactors

Hey TEOT, I'm putting this here to keep an eye on. This also works in molten salt reactors and probably fusion reactors as well. A coating that actually hardens under neutronic bombardment... crazy!

Update: NIF and inertial confinement fusion (lases)

Rick Olson from Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and his colleagues have opted for a liquid layer because it should require less compression than ice. To test this concept, the team used a special foam that absorbs the liquid fuel into a spherically symmetric layer along the capsule wall. When exposed to NIF’s lasers at reduced power, the imploding capsule reached temperatures sufficient to trigger fusion, as evident from a yield of neutrons comparable to ice-based experiments. Further work will test whether this liquid approach can achieve self-sustaining reactions at higher laser power.

Physic.org, Dec. 7, 2016 - Synopsis: Starting Fluid for Laser Fusion.

The original foam story only mentioned that it worked not how well it seems to work. They had been using a frozen fuel that was being imploded (the lasers hit a structure creating x-rays that then implode the frozen fuel). And this was at reduced power! This article is only an overview on the swapping out of the frozen pellets for foam but it seems this is a major advance for the NIF.

I know this type of fusion is science and they taking it slow and all but it would be nice to show the world what can be done by humans when they put their mind to it and produce a nuclear fusion reaction to generate energy.

Another Fusion Record!

The Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) tokamak-type nuclear fusion reactor has achieved a world record of 70 seconds in high-performance plasma operation, South Korea's National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) has announced.
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In addition, the institute said, KSTAR researchers also succeeded in achieving an alternative advanced plasma operation mode with the internal transport barrier (ITB). This is a steep pressure gradient in the core of the plasmas due to the enhanced core plasma confinement. NFRI said this is the first ITB operation achieved in the superconducting device at the lowest heating power.

Worldnuclearnews.org, Dec. 14, 2016 - Korean fusion reactor achieves record plasma

South Korea with a new record! There are no numbers (temp, pressure, volume) in this announcement which is a shame. They do state that the tokamak is 160 km south of Seoul (wth?!). It would be nice to know the temperature and plasma ingredients because you can see where they actually stand in relation to other devices. Like China’s EAST has the time but issues getting up to temperature.

Anyway, 70 seconds in a tokamak is d@mn good achievement! A steady state tokamak would be a wonderful way to make nuclear fusion energy so congrats KSTAR!

Gomabseubnida

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
Update: NIF and inertial confinement fusion (lases)

Rick Olson from Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and his colleagues have opted for a liquid layer because it should require less compression than ice. To test this concept, the team used a special foam that absorbs the liquid fuel into a spherically symmetric layer along the capsule wall. When exposed to NIF’s lasers at reduced power, the imploding capsule reached temperatures sufficient to trigger fusion, as evident from a yield of neutrons comparable to ice-based experiments. Further work will test whether this liquid approach can achieve self-sustaining reactions at higher laser power.

Physic.org, Dec. 7, 2016 - Synopsis: Starting Fluid for Laser Fusion.

The original foam story only mentioned that it worked not how well it seems to work. They had been using a frozen fuel that was being imploded (the lasers hit a structure creating x-rays that then implode the frozen fuel). And this was at reduced power! This article is only an overview on the swapping out of the frozen pellets for foam but it seems this is a major advance for the NIF.

I know this type of fusion is science and they taking it slow and all but it would be nice to show the world what can be done by humans when they put their mind to it and produce a nuclear fusion reaction to generate energy.

Hey Teot,

That is very interesting, but I am some what confused, as the NIF ceased Hydrogen fusin experiments in 2014?
From what i have read it seams that the facility has been converted to weapons research, and they are shooting Pu now.

In an NIF experiment, scientists aim 16 lasers at the top of the sandwich. As the outermost layer ablates, the plutonium compresses. Meanwhile, 24 other lasers are used to generate X-rays that penetrate the plutonium. The resulting diffraction pattern yields information on the plutonium phase structure.
Debris thrown off from sample pellets during shots can also help with nuclear forensics, notes Albrecht-Schmitt. Debris data from NIF could help scientists analyze material from the field if someone detonated a nuclear device, providing a means to determine where the material came from, how old it was, and what kind of device it was in.
NIF’s first experiments were designed to map out the plutonium phase diagram as a function of pressure, Dunning says. As for what the researchers specifically found, that information is classified. Going forward, researchers are developing experiments to explore plutonium’s Hugoniot curve, which describes the relationship between the material’s states on either side of a shock wave. They are also interested in understanding the strength of plutonium as a function of pressure.
NIF anticipates doing plutonium shots every two to three months in the near future. “We want to understand the previous experiment before we move on,” Dunning says. Shots may become more frequent as the program moves forward.

cen.acs.org...


I was unaware of the Korean effort, 70 seconds is a tremendous achievment.

I imagine waht is going to happen, is that there will eventually be several different techniques that will achieve fusion and be be comercially viable.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Just like there are different engine types, there will be a couple fusion reactor types all on going at the same time.

I wondered the same thing about NIF myself. If you go to the Lawrence Livermore web site it tells you that there are multiple users of the NIF. Their setup is very straight forward. Each time frame for each experiment are called "campaigns." I too thought they were done with because they did not reach ignition in 2012. I too thought they were repurposed for military use. So I was reading about all of this when I saw...

Ignition experiments began as part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s National Ignition Campaign. This campaign, which started in 2006 and ended September 30, 2012, had two principal goals: developing a platform for ignition and high-energy-density applications (including target and diagnostic fabrication) and transitioning NIF to routine operations as the world’s preeminent high-energy-density science user facility.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL.gov): Ignition Experiments.

So their ignition campaign ended in 2012. At which point the facility was opened up to other users including military. They still do experiments there...

NIF performed its 400th experiment of fiscal year (FY) 2016 on Sept. 18, meeting the year’s goal several weeks early. In comparison, the facility completed 356 experiments in FY15 and 191 experiments in FY14. NIF is on track to complete 415 experiments by the end of the fiscal year, more than doubling its FY14 accomplishments.

NIF, the world’s largest and most energetic laser, is funded by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), whose missions include ensuring the safety, security and effectiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile.
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In addition to conducting high-energy-density physics experiments in support of the SSP, NIF conducts additional experimental shots related to national security, energy security, and Discovery Science.

LNLL.gov: Experimental Highlights - 2016.

Energy security is the key there. Developing an inertial confinement source of nuclear fusion would make the US energy secure! Their main focus is defense support but they are still doing shots investigating nuclear fusion (discovery). They did something with x-rays where they could watch the forming plasma to find the dense part and aim their ignition laser at that spot thereby increasing their overall yield. That was back in January so now armed with the liquid foam I hope to hear good news from them in future!

Thanks for the question because I wondered the same thing a few months ago! This was bit of, "Cool! I did not know that" which I am more than happy to share.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: seasonal

*snip*

Heck, the only reason I stopped lurking here was because the W7-X made its first hydrogen plasma and nobody had posted the update! This is cool science and someday we will end most of our conflicts on the surface of the planet because there will be an abundance of energy (my inner hippie talking there).

Sorry but I am stupid in some ways and assume that everybody knows what the h3ll I am talking about!

Don't be so naive. Do you seriously believe that. They thought hte same thing when they started drilling for oil and IC engines were created. And again when we created our first nuclear power plants. It's all the same, endlessly repeated by subsequent generations. I believe it'll be a good future, but not any better than it's ever been. You have to realize people are relative in their gratitude. The more we have, the less we appreciate the smaller things and the higher our expectations are. The end result is we'll always be chasing something better and belittling our ancestors over their inferiority.

The only tyhing I think these technologies will do is open up the borders surrounding us. Right now we don't live on other planets. But we will someday. There're no cities deep in the ocean yet, but there will be. Cities in the sky and deep in the Earth! We'll do it all just because we love to break down walls. We'll go to the ends of the universe and the inner places. We'll bend every rule which bends. We probably won't be human someday because that's a wall. Maybe we'll become exotic energy, like what Arthur C Clarke speculated in his famous book. What happens when we encounter an obstacle we can't break down? That's a question I sometimes ask. I think we'll sooner blow everything up and restart than have to live with a wall we can't tear down.

EDIT: With some stretching of the imagination, we already have built cities in the sky. Therer'e so many radio and satellite signals coursing through our atmosphere if you could hear them all it might feel like a city.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Teot,

IMO, lockheed has achieved a proof of concept fusion reactor, that was tested away from prying eyes on one of the x37b's long missions, 2012ish. Is it just coincidence that the NIF abandoned pure fusion experiments in 2012?

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Teot,

IMO, lockheed has achieved a proof of concept fusion reactor, that was tested away from prying eyes on one of the x37b's long missions, 2012ish.

????

That would be a ridiculous place to test a supposed fusion reactor. I can't even imagine anything fitting in the payload capacity, and one way to get prying eyes on something is to have to make it space-bound. There are far more considerations and ways things can go bad in an unmanned, remote spacecraft.

To keep something away from 'prying eyes', it would be done in an unremarkable corner of a generic industrial office park like so many others.

Is it just coincidence that the NIF abandoned pure fusion experiments in 2012?

Yes. NIF is a nuclear weapons R&D project.

a reply to: jonnywhite

Strauss gave no public hint at the time that he was referring to fusion reactors, because of the classified nature of Project Sherwood, and the press naturally took his prediction regarding cheap electricity to apply to conventional fission reactors. However, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission itself, in testimony to the U.S. Congress only months before, lowered the expectations for fission power, projecting only that the costs of reactors could be brought down to about the same as those for conventional sources. Conversely, Strauss viewed hydrogen fusion as the ultimate power source. He was eager to develop the technology as quickly as possible and urged the Project Sherwood researchers to make rapid progress, even suggesting a million-dollar prize to the individual or team that succeeded first.

Wikipedia: Too cheap to meter.

And I did qualify my statement with "my inner hippie" as in "peace, love, and understanding" fully cognizant that "too cheap to meter" may be too groovy to be true.

Nuclear fusion will be a disruptive technology. How people deal with it will be our measurement as a society. Do we go all Star Trek and stop wars and even money? Do we hoard it to ourselves and needlessly cause suffering? Does all mankind share in the brilliance of all mankind?

I hope we share this with the entire world as a single human race. Nothing naïve about that just a wish that everybody benefits. The other direction seems abhorrent and wrong.

WEST is the new name for Tore Supra, a plasma facility near Cadarache in southern France, which has been upgraded to undertake research towards the Iter fusion project. The reactor celebrated its first plasma on 14 December.

WEST is designed to test prototype components and accelerate their development for ITER, which will be by far the world's most powerful fusion reactor when it starts up, hopefully in 2025. The name WEST stands for 'W' Environment in a Steady-state Tokamak, where W is the chemical symbol for tungsten, the material that will be used for the Iter divertor.

World-nuclear-news.com, Dec. 19, 2016 - First plasma for WEST fusion reactor.

So another tokamak is up and running! This is all in preparation of ITER. More testing of components this time the divertor (European spelling). The diverter removes helium from the plasma which the news item says is, "flung by centrifugal force" into it. The entire plasma is whirling around due to an induced electric current while being heated up. As the fuel fuses it creates a helium particle which needs to be removed or the plasma will cool down. WEST will be testing ITER's diverter and other parts in the reactor core.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Well isnt that interesting? Its a big electromagnetic field centrifuge. I always wondered where the helium was going to go and what was to be done with it.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Both tokamaks and stellarators basically do that--set up currents to propel the plasma around so they can heat the central core (stellarators are already twisted by design which prevents plasma drift; tokamaks have to really work to prevent contact with the reactor wall). All that movement also add heat to the plasma.

My guess is scrub the helium of any particles from the reactor wall then store it for future use. There are so many uses for helium and not enough to go around. So if you are creating it from fusion it just makes sense to use it!

Besides, they need to keep the superconducting magnets cold somehow!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

has there come out more energy than they put in it? Then: