DOE and MIT are Working on a Nuclear Fusion Reactor
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
DOE and MIT Are Working on a Nuclear Fusion Reactor:
The U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is working with the private industry to develop a cutting-edge project to make nuclear fusion commercially viable. The device, called "SPARC" is being developed through a spinoff startup, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, from MIT.
[...] The project hopes to nail down the problem of leakage of "alpha particles" that are generated by nuclear fusion reactions from reactors like that used by the "SPARC" project. The project is a part public, part privately funded project that makes use of DOE grants to support their efforts to develop high-performance fusion grade plasmas using a tokamak-type reactor.
[...] The key to mitigating this problem is to use specially designed superconducting magnets and make the reactor more compact in size, so the team behind the "SPARC" project believes. By reducing the size of the reactor and using better magnets, the reactor should be able to operate at higher fields and stresses than existing reactors.
This should also enable the design and construction of smaller and less-expensive fusion facilities. This, however, assumes that fast alpha particles created in fusion reactions can be contained long enough to keep the plasma hot.
"Our research indicates that they can be," PPPL physicist Gerrit Kramer said. Kramer is a key participant in the project through the DOE Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program.
"We found that the alpha particles are indeed well confined in the SPARC design," explained Kramer, coauthor of a paper in the Journal of Plasma Physics that reports the findings.
Journal Reference:
S. D. Scott, G. J. Kramer, E. A. Tolman, et al. Fast-ion physics in SPARC [open], Journal of Plasma Physics (DOI: 10.1017/S0022377820001087)
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