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Page added on November 12, 2015
Discovery of New Plasma Confinement State Holds the key to Generate Fusion Energy
A research on high-temperature and high-density plasma confinement by magnetic fields could help achieve fusion energy.
Scientists have discovered a new confinement state of plasma which can lead to generate fusion energy.
To create magnetic fusion energy, researches on high-temperature and high density plasma confinement using magnetic fields have been carried out all around the world.
When plasma is heated to an extreme level hotter than Sun’s core, it releases excess energy which can be converted into electricity.
Led by Dr. Xianzu Gong of ASIPP and Dr. Andrea Garofalo of General Atomics (GA) in San Diego, a team of U.S. and Chinese researchers tested a ‘high-bootstrap current’ scenario to find the ideal tokamak configuration for producing fusion energy.
Tokamak is the most developed device so far which uses strong magnetic field to keep plasma away from the walls and the device is in the shape of a torus.
The team directly looked at the effects of reducing the plasma-wall in tokamak with high plasma pressure and large electrical current fraction. Moving the plasma ever closer to the vessel’s wall was risky indeed and can result running the plasma.
“This is unlike any other regime,” said Dr. Garofalo. “It’s very risky to move the plasma that close to the wall. The chief operator said ‘You can’t do that anymore, you’re going to damage the machine,’ so it was a struggle to prove our theory was correct.”
But the gamble paid off. Bringing plasma closer to the wall, removed the plasma instabilities, lead to the higher plasma pressure and rapid flow with external means, which was difficult to generate otherwise.
The remarkable experimentation will help provide better foundation for ITER plasmas which is an experimental fusion reactor build in France in collaboration with 35 countries.
20 Comments on "Discovery of New Plasma Confinement State Holds the key to Generate Fusion Energy"
rockman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 6:12 am
Nice update along with the popular use of the word “could”. It will be great when that word is replaced with “is”. LOL.
bug on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 7:04 am
Rock, also in the first sentence, instead of the word “can” , they should have used “may” or “might” or “might not”.
Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 7:23 am
This fusion activity is just a practice in titillation. It is the same thing we do with porn. Porn is wishing you had the real thing but don’t. It is fantasy of having more and better but don’t. This whole fusion idiocy is one colossal waste of money but so is a significant amount of other modern human activities. None of it is going to feed us when shit hits the fan. We need twenty times more people growing food in the developed world. In the third world where subsistence farming is greater there the population need an order of magnitude drop. You now see the issues. We are up the creek without a paddle and can’t turn back.
We as a society have people doing economic activity that is little more than economic porn. We are able to enjoy this corn porn because of a complex system supported by a foundational energy source oil. Continuously growing complexity is impossible per physics. Steady state complexity is not possible with our current human type of complexity. Our current system must grow or it will collapse. We have discussed this fact numerous times on this board. We are slowly losing the battle with entropic decay and systematic disequilibrium. We should have had a break long ago but somehow kept it rolling on.
I have to hand it to us humans we are one tough species to keep the unsustainable going but we have. It has taken some serious delusion and denial but we managed it. Fusion is one of the last of the examples of humans trying to keep it going. Is there anyone here who really thinks this will scale in time and resources to make a difference? If these deluded scientist and technocrats were to perfect this technology it would take twenty years to get it to a level that would make a difference and that is under the best of economic, social, and political scenarios. We have just a few years before our decaying economy and depleting oil resource will not even support the economy and the production of oil we have now let alone build out a new system. This fusion titillation is the last of that big human party we call modern man.
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 7:43 am
Davy, you use the expression “entropic decay”, but I’m not sure if I understand the real mening of it in this context (I have been googling!!). Please explain
dave thompson on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 7:58 am
What fictional movie is the picture from?
Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 8:24 am
Clam, I am using the term “entropic decay” to refer to the decay of human actions and development because of thermodynamic realities. We live within a system that operates with entropy as an underlying force or basis. Our society grows and decays just like we see in nature. This term is really very straight forward and can be applied to both the inanimate and animate. I realize English is not your first language but surely you have something in your native tongue.
en·tro·py
noun
1.
PHYSICS
a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.
2.
lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.
“a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme”
synonyms: deterioration, degeneration, crumbling, decline, degradation, decomposition, breaking down, collapse; More
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 8:34 am
OK thanks davy, I guess I’ll have to chew a little on that
paulo1 on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 8:36 am
Oh boy, then we can shoot for 10 billion….maybe 15 billion people.
Nice story about a possible energy breakthrough. If it could only address __________ all problems will be solved!!
penury on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:05 am
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts what a Merry Christmas we would have.
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:31 am
Penury : If there wasn’t ifs and buts, I duobt there would be any debate on peakoil.
“Ifs and buts” are scary in their own way, but they are also a chance to change the future if we read them right – which we proably won’t.
But then we’ve had a good time discussing them, and we can tell our children that at least we tried to do some thing – which we probably didn’t – when in the future we are looking in the back mirror .
BobInget on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:48 am
If there’s fusion fail we can always fall back on solar and wind.. or, is that too understandable and primitive ?
NASA spent millions developing a pen that writes in zero gravity. For back-up, astronauts use pencils.
BobInget on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:56 am
Just in: Must read:
Putin “accidentally” offers not so subtile threat to KSA.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34797252
Launched by a submarine, it would create “wide areas of radioactive contamination”, the document says.
The “oceanic multi-purpose Status-6 system” is designed to “destroy important economic installations of the enemy in coastal areas and cause guaranteed devastating damage to the country’s territory by creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time”, the document says.
diemos on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 10:01 am
“We need twenty times more people growing food in the developed world.”
No, we need twenty times fewer people eating food in the developed world.
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 10:14 am
Bob, the russians should know. They have Chernobyl.
I don’t think the russians didn’t know this document was recorded. They like to scare the west in all possible ways.
But I don’t see how this could be a threat to KSA, any more than to the rest of the world.
BobInget on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 10:19 am
today’s EIA repore was bullish.
Consumption moved up 300,000 barrels p/d
from last week’s use/
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending November 6, 2015
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged over 15.9 million barrels per day during the week
ending November 6, 2015, 302,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s
average. Refineries operated at 89.5% of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline
production increased last week, averaging 9.7 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel
production decreased slightly last week, averaging about 4.9 million barrels per day.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.4 million barrels per day last week, up by 434,000
barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports
averaged 7.2 million barrels per day, 2.5% above the same four-week period last year.
Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending
components) last week averaged 353,000 barrels per day. Distillate fuel imports averaged
136,000 barrels per day last week.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve) increased by 4.2 million barrels from the previous week. At 487.0 million
barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain near levels not seen for this time of year in at
least the last 80 years. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels
last week, but are well above the upper limit of the average range. Both finished gasoline
inventories and blending components inventories decreased last week. Distillate fuel
inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels last week and are in the middle of the average
range for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories rose 1.6 million barrels last
week and are well above the upper limit of the average range. Total commercial
petroleum inventories increased by 2.6 million barrels last week.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged about 19.8 million
barrels per day, up by 1.2% from the same period last year. Over the last four weeks,
motor gasoline product supplied averaged about 9.3 million barrels per day, up by 3.4%
from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.0 million
barrels per day over the last four weeks, up by 8.3% from the same period last year. Jet
fuel product supplied is up 4.0% compared to the same four-week period last year.
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 10:30 am
Just to balance things a little bit.
Allmost every month the US military industry is announcing new and amazing weapons, that with out any doubt will secure american supremacy in case of war.
Not unlike Hitlers promise to the struggling german people, that they had fantastic new weapons that would change the course of the war.
Plantagenet on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 11:00 am
The fusion reactor is already very successful at generating money for the fusion reactor scientists.
Cheers!
claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 11:20 am
plant, And it’s even giving hope to an increasingly frustrated population. The promise is that in a near future all of our energy problems will be solved.
If they gave up upon fusion-energy, the corporate US/EU/JAP would have a hard time explaining how future energy problems could be solved without oil.
If solar and wind in the mean time should win the race, it would be a huge lose of credibility for the corporate governments. They might even lose presidential elections.
BobInget on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 11:59 am
Claman,
Russia and friends, Iran, Iraq, may not be in a technical state of war but they are up to their necks in a major ‘cold war’ with Saudi Arabia.
That is if one counts daily bombings in Syria
and Yemen as ‘cold’…
The Saudis have a so called collation gathered to bomb Yemen and replace the Saudi puppet president overthrown.
With the help of US munitions, aircraft and in-air refueling capacity the Saudis are systematically murdering tens of thousands of innocents.
In Syria, the Saudis have spent billions to depose that countries dictator, Assad.
Supporting Assad in Syria are nations;
Russia, Iran, Iraq, Algeria and Venezuela
all OPEC members.
The pretext of this not so cold war was supposed to be crippling higher cost
shale, “tar sands” expensive to produce oil.
That is pure bullshit.
Get this fact down. KSA is at war. EOM
Go Speed Racer on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:07 pm
My woodstove generates more energy than their Tokomak. Way more.