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Page added on April 29, 2012
Nuclear Fusion – The Latest
While cold fusion remains a pipe dream, fusion as an energy source for the future continues to be funded and improved.
In nuclear fission, current nuclear energy, the nucleus of an atom is split, butin fusion two lightweight atoms join together. The biggest benefit is no explosion.
The ITER project is seeking to turn nuclear fusion into reality and is making use of the Tokamak reactor for this purpose. Reactors of this type and the plasma used in them to carry out fusion have a number of control problems, and to solve them, electronics engineer Goretti Sevillano has come up with some tools in her thesis defended at the University of the Basque Country.
Tokamak is in the pole position to obtain efficient energy from nuclear fusion, says Sevillano. “The materials used in fusion must have certain specific features, and these materials have to be turned into plasma. At the same time, the plasma has to be restricted to a limited space to enable the reaction to be generated and the energy to be used. To achieve this, magnetic confinement is applied in the case of the Tokamaks.”
ITER Tokamak. credit: ITER.org
The magnetic field creates lines that act as a wall to keep the plasma in place but the plasma and the device itself have several problems that have yet to be solved.
“To develop Tokamaks, many of the plasma’s parameters must be controlled, as well as the whole device itself; the currents that are going to be used, the voltage, the intensity, etc. Until all these things are controlled, it will not be possible to use these machines to produce marketable energy,” the researcher points out.
Toward this end, Sevillano has embedded the code named ASTRA, frequently used to simulate the behavior of Tokamak reactors, into Matlab software. Using the code in Matlab will facilitate the development of controllers suited to these devices.
“Control of the parameters is necessary to obtain the maximum energy possible from the plasma, and the amount of this energy that can be extracted is calculated on the basis of the current: the greatest amount of current possible has to be maintained during the longest time possible. That is why these parameters have to be controlled by means of the control, in turn, of the numerous coils and voltages within the structure,” she adds.
Goretti Sevillano, author of the thesis. Credit: Monika del Valle / Argazki Press
This PhD thesis work is only a single branch of what needs to be a complete tree. “The aim of all these tasks is to design a machine capable of generating marketable energy within the ITER project,” she explains.
No rush. Nuclear fusion has been in the works for 50 years and it is always 40 years away.
Sevillano’s thesis is entitled Herramientas para el control del plasma en reactores Tokamak de fusión nuclear: integración Astra-Matlab y control en tiempo real (Tools for plasma control in Tokamak nuclear fusion reactors: Astra-Matlab integration and control in real time). She has also had two papers published on this, in the journals Informatica and Energy.
17 Comments on "Nuclear Fusion – The Latest"
James on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 12:35 am
I am puzzled. The part where they say this device won’t be use to produce, “marketable energy”. Why then do they pursue this pipe dream? Spending money to produce a device that won’t be used to produce marketable energy is kinda ludicrous. I know that research is fundamental to getting a device that will work is important. Also, I wonder if this device uses more energy than it produces. If this process creates energy the same way the Sun does, then how can we be sure we don’t incinerate the Earth? The temperatures on the Sun could essentially burn the planet up if those magnetic fields fail. The time element used to do research tells me that this thing won’t be ready when the reality bites from the energy situation starts to really give us problems.
MrEnergyCzar on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 12:37 am
It’s all about the EROEI… Anyone know what it is at this point?
MrEnergyCzar
DC on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 1:02 am
At the rate things are going, even if we figure out how to ‘do’ fusion, the power wont be marketable no matter. Fusion will cost 10x at least what fission does, and thats allready the most expensive electticity ever. Only a confusing maze of subidies fools people into thinking fission is remotely ‘affordable’. It would take 10x the maze of subsidies to make fusion power to look viable.
Any takers?
BillT on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 1:04 am
This is nothing but a black hole for dollars to be wasted and to make a few people wealthy. IF it is even possible, it will cost too much and be too late to ever be used. 40 years is eternity in today’s world of depleting resources and debt.
sandu635 on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 5:14 am
iter is designed for 10 EROEI
mike on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 6:20 am
fusion is obviously possible. but as the guy above says is it really going to be worth the energy input. Didn’t i read once that they had a building three times the size of a football stadium just to try and ignite one atom for half a second. that was supposed to happen last year and nothing came of it
mike on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 6:21 am
10 – 1 eroei? thats worse than wind and solar. what’s the point?
Arthur on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 10:10 am
They sure take their time. If you cannot get it right in 50 years, you will never get it right. The solution is passive and active solar, wind, heat pumps, restricted car usage, local economies, smashing the idea of globalism and empire, less focus on materialism and consumerism, but instead focus on immaterial personal excellence and vocation.
ken nohe on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 11:56 am
40 years ago, fusion was for the next 50 years. Today only 40 years are left. That is not exactly fast progress considering the investment.
The scale of the project is unbelievable and we cannot yet imagine what a working reactor would look like, even less calculate the costs.
I thinks this is a “star war” type of project. It looks great on paper, it somehow resemble what we imagine the future may be like but in reality, it belongs to the same category as the Jetson’s flying car and Star-treck Enterprise.
R on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 3:20 pm
Let’s put this in perspective. How long was it after Ben Franklin flew his kite did we have surge suppressors for sale down at Wall Mart? Arthur wrote “If you cannot get it right in 50 years, you will never get it right.” BillT wrote “This is nothing but a black hole for dollars to be wasted.” I do believe many of the posts here are from folks who cry too much when they have a small sliver in their finger.
R on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 3:34 pm
Please put this in perspective. I’m not going to ride a donkey to work today.
Windmills on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 4:59 pm
James, it won’t incinerate the Earth. It’s extremely safe. Every type of failure will shut down the reaction. The Earth would suddenly have to develop the gravitational field of a star for it to operate uncontained and without forced inputs. Safety is the least concern here. Realizing the technology is the greatest concern. Progress is proceeding at a snail’s pace. It will most likely never be developed before the world economies fall back to a level at which they can no longer afford to support the research.
Yago on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 9:24 pm
Electrostatic fusion machines are more promising than Tokamaks. Aneutronic fusion reactor continues even more improved and should soon be also funded; it is already around the corner. http://www.crossfirefusion.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html
tubaplayer on Mon, 30th Apr 2012 9:29 pm
@Windmills
Yeah, right – Fukushima
@R
Well maybe you would be better learning to ride a donkey to work.
Of course I do realize that most of you have to commute maybe 20 to 40 miles a day each way to work. How sad. In five or ten years you will not be able to afford to commute to work. Neither will you be able to pay your mortgage if you have one.
Get a grip! What will you do then?
BillT on Tue, 1st May 2012 2:16 am
tubaplayer…they will do as they do today. Blame everyone else for their problems. Not me. I’ll be living a comfortable life on the level of 3rd world survival. And, yes, it will be ‘comfortable’ in the way it was when I was growing up in the 40s and 50s, before all this un-necessary shit pushed by capitalism got us off the track.
What is comfort? Food, shelter, family, friends, and no stress. THAT is ALL that we need to be happy. Barter instead of shrinking dollars taxed and inflated to zero. Farms and gardens instead of big box corporate food laced with chemicals. Our ancestors survived on less than 4 hours of labor per day. How many do YOU work?
Windmills on Tue, 1st May 2012 3:26 pm
Tuba, be careful. Your debating skills could become legendary. However, I humbly point out that there is a *tiny* difference between fission and fusion. My apologies for doing so.
James on Wed, 2nd May 2012 12:47 am
This is a reply to Windmills statement about all the, Built in Safeguards” that will be activated during a failure. Remember Fukushima? They had all kinds of “Fail safe devices”. Remember the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill? They had fail safe devices that failed themselves. My way of thinking is: If a man built it, being a creature of failures, then it will fail.