The operating team in the control room started up the magnetic field, initiated the computer-operated control system, fed approximately one milligram of helium gas into the evacuated plasma vessel, and switched on the microwave heating for a short 1,8 megawatt pulse. The machine’s first plasma, which could be observed by the installed cameras and measuring devices, lasted one tenth of a second and achieved a temperature of around one million degrees.

“We’re starting with a plasma produced from the noble gas helium,” explained project leader Thomas Klinger. “We’re not changing over to the actual investigation object, a hydrogen plasma, until next year. This is because it’s easier to achieve the plasma state with helium.”

“We’re very satisfied,” added Hans-Stephan Bosch, whose division is responsible for the operation of the device. “Everything went according to plan.”

The next task will be to extend the duration of the plasma discharges and to investigate the best method of producing and heating helium plasmas using microwaves. After a break for New Year, confinement studies will continue in January, which will prepare the way for producing the first plasma from hydrogen.

14 Comments on "First plasma for Wendelstein 7-X fusion device"

dave thompson on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 11:10 am 



Insanity

GregT on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 11:21 am 



“Synchronicity II”

Another suburban family morning.
Grandmother screaming at the wall.

We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies
We can’t hear anything at all.
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration,
But we know all her suicides are fake.

Daddy only stares into the distance
There’s only so much more that he can take.
Many miles away something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake.

Another industrial ugly morning
The factory belches filth into the sky.
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today,
He doesn’t think to wonder why.
The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts in a red light street,
But all he ever thinks to do is watch.
And every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.
Many miles away something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch.

Another working day has ended.
Only the rush hour hell to face.
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.
Contestants in a suicidal race.
Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance,
He knows that something somewhere has to break.
He sees the family home now looming in his headlights,
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache.
Many miles away there’s a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake
Many miles away

Smalls on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 11:28 am 



The Wendelstein 7-X just scratching the surface. More to come with more compact fusion reactor advancements than the 7-X. MIT as well as a Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division headed by a MIT PhD all have new concept compact fusion reactor designs. LMT made a claim a year ago but have been waiting for more public relations news since. MIT talking head actually made a wise crack that LMT wasn’t in the ball park but nearly a year later MIT releases a similar paper breakthrough design of an ARC – search “MIT ARC” and you’ll find many links to pick from concerning such. Tesla and other advanced electric car players may not be so far off the mark. IF an efficient ARC comes to market then oil is “yesterday’s” energy source and your children will be driving oversized golf carts for transportation. Interesting times…

GregT on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 12:15 pm 



“IF an efficient ARC comes to market then oil is “yesterday’s” energy source and your children will be driving oversized golf carts for transportation.”

Yet another cheap and abundant energy source will do nothing more than exacerbate the real problem facing the planet Earth. Human population growth. The only thing that our children would be driving, is their own extinction. We either learn to live within the confines of the Earth’s natural ecosystems, or we go the way of the Dodo Bird, and the only possible way for humans to live sustainably on this planet, is with a massive reduction in our population numbers.

There is no human techno fix for the sake of the natural environment, and the natural environment is the one thing that we cannot survive without.

Go Speed Racer on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 1:01 pm 



Fusion is the new welfare racket. Everybody promises to have a working reactor by about 2100, when even their kids have died of old age.

If you actually read about this ‘stellarator’ fusion reactor, it does not intend to produce any energy.

bug on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 2:42 pm 



Bingo Speed, all this fusion crap along with the bs talk of ” We going to Mars and moon soon” is the same welfare. Although, MIC is the leader.

bug on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 2:43 pm 



Greg, very good, thanks

shortonoil on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 2:56 pm 



“The Wendelstein 7-X just scratching the surface.”

From a 1/10 second helium plasma, to a working hydrogen plasma reactor shouldn’t take more than a century. With the entire world’s oil production now in a state of collapse that should gives us plenty of time to make the transition. All that is needed is that space time warp device, and a few boxes of dilithium crystals. They’ll be scratching those up any day now.

roman on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 5:55 pm 



Fusion is a 14 billion year old technology. Why not research how to convert matter to antimater or neutrons into protons, or vice versa, on a massive scale, while they are still in the nucleus.

shortonoil on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 6:52 pm 



“Fusion is a 14 billion year old technology. Why not research how to convert matter to antimater or neutrons into protons,”

Oil is $35/ barrel! When oil producers can no longer make money producing oil, they will stop. Depletion has reduced the value of the oil that most producers in the present global production system produce to the point that they can no longer make money. As we reach the end of the oil age we can hope that we will retain enough of our technology to make a light bulb. Otherwise, those fusion reactors aren’t going to be very useful!

Newfie on Mon, 14th Dec 2015 9:19 pm 



Limitless power from nuclear fusion is only ten years away. And it always will be…

rockman on Tue, 15th Dec 2015 8:05 am 



“Yet another cheap and abundant energy source…” Do they mean like the “too cheap to meter” energy we’re currently getting from our nuclear plants? LOL.

peakyeast on Tue, 15th Dec 2015 8:36 am 



@ITER, NIST, IPP el al: Please wake me when you got net positive energy with EROEI of at least 10 with a looooong lifetime of the whole assembly.

Smalls on Tue, 15th Dec 2015 4:48 pm 



@rockman, “too cheap to meter” energy we’re currently getting from our nuclear plants? LOL.” If it weren’t for the radioactive waste you would be on the mark with fission. Fusion doesn’t have the highly radioactive cost issue of fission or the harder to extract fuel. The naysayers can talk all the smack they want but when MIT turns an about face in less than one year on fusion – MIT even had sarcastic criticism when Lockheed Martin announced the fusion design breakthrough – I’ll put more weight on MIT scientists than people still posting never going to happen comments. If MIT is changing their tune to match LMT’s then you should step back and think twice.

@GregT, as an at face comment I would agree with your statement. Stupid cheap and abundant energy will enable the growing of crops in otherwise unsuitable land with desalinization plants to irrigate deserts. This enables even more population growth with additional food producing land. This would make our planet far from its occupant capacity.