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Page added on August 28, 2018
The AI that could help make limitless fusion power
An AI is set to try and work out how a potentially limitless supply of energy can be used on Earth.
It could finally solve the mysteries of fusion power, letting researchers capture and control the process that powers the sun and stars.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University hope to harness a massive new supercomputer to work out how the doughnut-shaped devices, known as tokamaks, can be used.
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In the middle of the rising Tokamak Building a well is preserved for the ITER machine. While ITER won’t generate electricity, scientists hope it will demonstrate that such a fusion reactor can produce more energy than it consumes. Assembly activities will proceed in a bottom-up fashion, beginning with captive components down in the basement levels, then the base of the cryostat, vacuum vessel sectors, magnets and an estimated one million components (ten million individual parts) will be integrated into the world’s largest tokamak.
Researchers have struggled with disruptions that can halt the reactions and damage the devices.
Now an artificial intelligence system that can predict and tame such disruptions has been selected to be one of the first projects to run on the Aurora supercomputer, which is set to become the first U.S. exascale system upon its expected arrival at Argonne in 2021.
The system will be capable of performing a quintillion (1018) calculations per second — 50-to-100 times faster than the most powerful supercomputers today.
‘Our research will utilize capabilities to accelerate progress that can only come from the deep learning form of artificial intelligence,’ said William Tang, a principal research physicist at PPPL.
The groundbreaking project will try and develop a method that can be experimentally validated for predicting and controlling disruptions in burning plasma fusion systems such as ITER — the international tokamak under construction in France to demonstrate the practicality of fusion energy.
ITER is the most complex science project in human history.
The hydrogen plasma will be heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times hotter than the core of the Sun, to enable the fusion reaction.
The process happens in a donut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak,1 which is surrounded by giant magnets that confine and circulate the superheated, ionized plasma, away from the metal walls.
The superconducting magnets must be cooled to minus 269°C, as cold as interstellar space
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INSIDE THE ITER: HOW IT CREATES ENERGY
ITER uses a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped device long enough for fusion to take place.
The device, known as a tokamak, was conceived by Soviet physicists in the 1950s. But it’s proving tough to build, and could be even tougher to operate.
The project’s members – China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States – settled on a design that uses a doughnut-shaped device called a tokamak to trap hydrogen that’s been heated to 150 million degrees Celsius (270 million Fahrenheit) for long enough to allow atoms to fuse together.
Iter nuclear engineers have recruited rocket scientists to help create super-strong materials that can withstand temperatures hotter than the sun.
The Iter team claim a technique for building launcher and satellite components has turned out to be the best way for constructing rings to support the powerful magnetic coils inside the machine.
The Tokamak and its plant systems housed in their concrete home. An estimated one million parts will be assembled in the machine alone. Image format: 72dpi – 4500 px width.
Spanish company CASA Espacio is making the rings using a method they have perfected over two decades of building elements for the Ariane 5, Vega and Soyuz rockets.
‘Forces inside ITER present similar challenges to space,’ explains Jose Guillamon, Head of Commercial and Strategy.
‘We can’t use traditional materials like metal, which expand and contract with temperature and conduct electricity.
‘We have to make a special composite material which is durable and lightweight, non-conductive and never changes shape.’
The magnets themselves are massive. Engineering & Technology reports that the one currently being built is 45 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 3 feet deep.
Iter nuclear engineers have recruited rocket scientists to help create super-strong materials that can withstand temperatures hotter than the sun. With a diameter of 5 m and a solid cross-section of 30×30 cm, Iter’s compression rings will hold the giant magnets in place.
The final design will use 18 of these magnets, each weigh between 113,400kg and 226,800kg (250,000 and 500,000lbs)—which is about the same as a Boeing 747 airplane.
CASA Espacio has been at the forefront of developing a technique for embedding carbon fibres in resin to create a strong, lightweight material to hold these magnets.
The composite is ideal for rocket parts because it retains its shape and offers the robust longevity needed to survive extreme launches and the harsh environment of space for over 15 years.
Scientists have long sought to mimic the process of nuclear fusion that occurs inside the sun, arguing that it could provide an almost limitless source of cheap, safe and clean electricity.
Unlike in existing fission reactors, which split plutonium or uranium atoms, there’s no risk of an uncontrolled chain reaction with fusion and it doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste.
The PPPL/Princeton deep-learning software is called the ‘Fusion Recurrent Neural Network (FRNN),’ and is composed of neural nets that allow a user to train a computer to detect items or events of interest.
The software will be trying to speedily predict when disruptions will break out in large-scale tokamak plasmas, and to do so in time for effective control methods to be deployed.
The overall goal is to achieve the challenging requirements for ITER, which will need predictions to be 95 percent accurate with less than 5 percent false alarms at least 30 milliseconds or longer before disruptions occur.
25 Comments on "The AI that could help make limitless fusion power"
makati1 on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 8:12 pm
Long, worthless fantasy article. Should start with: “Once upon a rime…” or “In the land of fools…”
Another “Please send money” ad for a never ending dream. A waste of resources for a dream that will never end.
MASTERMIND on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:06 pm
Right-wing mobs creating ‘civil war’ in Germany after second night of violence in Chemnitz
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/28/right-wing-mobs-creating-civil-war-germany-second-night-violence/
Duncan Idaho on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:06 pm
Fusion is a constant– always 20 years away, be it 1950 or 2018.
MASTERMIND on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:17 pm
Right-wing mobs creating ‘civil war’ in Germany after second night of violence in Chemnitz
Police reported assaults by extremists against at least three foreigners, while investigations were opened in 10 cases of the protesters performing the illegal Hitler salute.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/28/right-wing-mobs-creating-civil-war-germany-second-night-violence/
DMyers on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:21 pm
I love the word, “Limitless”. I don’t care for limits. Gimme more. I also love the word, “fusion”. It’s so collective and complete.
So, limitless fusion is a winner. Make it happen. I’m awaiting anxiously and have been for a long time.
MASTERMIND on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 9:38 pm
CLogg
Looks like Europe is headed for a civil war..Not America..
LMFAO!
Kansas City SEO Agency on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 10:05 pm
Interesting! Would be great if it will really be able to help with energy research.
dave thompson on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 10:33 pm
Just looking at the pictures of this contraption, the scale and lengths humans are taking to build one, even if this machine turns out to work, how many will be needed to take care of humanities needs? Who pays for them? At what point will we realize that a giant stand alone reactor of this kind is only good in a region that it is built and will never replace liquid FF for transportation.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 11:19 pm
“Looks like Europe is headed for a civil war..Not America..”
There will be violence in both places, to “celebrate the grand finale of multicult”.
But America is too far gone to be restored in its present shape.
In fact, East-Germany is virtually 95%+ German.
The uprising is intended to keep it that way.
But mark my words: it will be the German East that will bring about the downfall of Merkel.
Cloggie on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 11:27 pm
“The project’s members – China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States”
At least they are cooperating.
MASTERMIND on Tue, 28th Aug 2018 11:52 pm
Trump family has no record of military service in five generations, 2 world wars, and over 150 years
https://postimg.cc/image/8sk6gvw8h/
Let that sink in..
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 12:51 am
Fill that Tokomak full of old sofa’s.
Douse with kerosene, and set on fire.
At least that way you’ll get some
energy out of it.
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 12:52 am
But gee Mastered Mind, Trump doesn’t
work for a living, he’s a parasitic
leech on society, who plays golf.
Why would he want to
shoot guns on a battlefield?
Antius on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 6:57 am
Researchers in this field are trapped between a rock and a hard place.
The rock in this case, is the limited field strength achievable with superconducting magnets, which is about 20 Tesla.
The hard place, is the maximum achievable plasma pressure that can be achieved before plasma instabilities escape the magnetic trap and hit the container walls. This is about 1% of field pressure.
Suffice to say, that the plasma pressure achievable in generally too low for fusion in the plasma to generate sufficient power to generate a good net energy return. So, there approach is to try and increase plasma pressure and understand plasma instabilities well enough to be able to anticipate and control them before they collapse the plasma.
Hence the need for a supercomputer that can model and monitor the plasma and predict instabilities ahead of time. The trouble is of course that this builds even more cost and complexity into a system that is already expensive and dauntingly complex.
It would be wrong to assume that no progress has been made in fusion research. But in my opinion, it will be very difficult to use low temperature hydrogen plasmas to generate electricity at any reasonable price. At the magnetic pressures achievable, the power density is just too low.
Antius on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 7:02 am
Sorry, I meant ‘low pressure’, not ‘low temperature’.
As an aside, Tokamaks are not the only approach to achieving nuclear fusion. But they are where the money is right now. The reasons have as much to do with politics and institutional inertia, than with any rational choice of Tokamaks being the right approach.
deadly on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 8:46 am
There will be no fusion, confusion, Germans will begin to kill the foreigners.
It’s just a matter of time.
Sissyfuss on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 9:31 am
If AI evolves into a systematic entity that controls Civilization it will soon realize humanity is on a self destructive journey to extinction. Its superior intellect along with its lack of human empathy will take the logical course of reducing population down to sustainable levels. Mans impotent efforts to reign in its avaricious nature will succumb to
an entity far ahead of it in evolutionary speed and logic. Yes, by all means. Unleash the power of AI before the inertia that carries us towards the cliff becomes unstoppable.
Davy on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 9:39 am
Sis, you prefer AI over Nature? I see nature as fair and
balanced. AI will likely kill itself by degrading its host long before it achieves any meaningful results.
JuanP on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 10:06 am
Mm “Trump family has no record of military service in five generations, 2 world wars, and over 150 years”
I am still waiting for you to join the military and volunteer for comabat duty. Then you will have the right to talk about others not doing it. Not that I think there is anything wrong with not joining the military. I don’t think serving in the military is the smartest choice. If you want to serve your country there are other, less violent and agressive, ways to do it like volunteering in a library, hospital (a VA one?), school, rehab clinic, nursing home, community garden, soup kitchen, and/or homeless shelter; all things I’ve done at one time or another.
Sissyfuss on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 11:34 am
Davy, Nature screwed up by giving us big brains and opposable thumbs. Evolution is hit and miss and AI might be the hit that causes us not to be missed. Nature, like Fox News, is not fair and balanced. It uses lethality to effect its continued efficacy and experimentation. I acknowledge the fact that you have children and that you are making a heroic effort to leave them a sustainable space while the world unravels. I reiterate that I am a nonbreeding tree hugger that understood the math of Malthus and Erlich whose computations become clearer with each new yearly addition of 80 million needy souls.
When Climate Disruption starts eating away at the harvest cycle we will run out of excuses.
Davy on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 12:01 pm
“Davy, Nature screwed up by giving us big brains and opposable thumbs. Evolution is hit and miss and AI might be the hit that causes us not to be missed.”
It is my position that nature intends this not so much as a conscious intension but by her natural expression. Her nature is succession which is a mix of extinction and evolution. Mix in geologic acquiescence and you have a party. When our big brains try to understand this natural succession that is when we get upset with ourselves. I am upset about the human mistreatment to Gaia but I have problems giving humans all the blame or credit for intelligence. We are way too stuck on ourselves about how smart we are.
“Nature, like Fox News, is not fair and balanced. It uses lethality to effect its continued efficacy and experimentation. “
Nature is completely fair and balanced in my opinion. We humans get confused and try to put a human face nature with labels. It is more like nature is as it should be.
“I acknowledge the fact that you have children and that you are making a heroic effort to leave them a sustainable space while the world unravels.”
Actually, I could be more heroic and take the TV and video games away but then I am the asshole.
“I reiterate that I am a nonbreeding tree hugger that understood the math of Malthus and Erlich whose computations become clearer with each new yearly addition of 80 million needy souls.”
I am a tree hugger too. I believe the kids are the future and once deaths outnumber births they will quickly be valuable again when they survive. This could be around the corner. Currently the breeding is the problem I agree.
“When Climate Disruption starts eating away at the harvest cycle we will run out of excuses.”
I agree with you there. The way our food production allowed civilization works the other way too and will take civilization away. My point on climate disruption dangers has been primarily to stress how dangerous instability will be to our food production.
Fact Checker on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 6:56 pm
“scientists hope it will demonstrate that such a fusion reactor can produce more energy than it consumes.” Science and engineering are based on hope ???
boff on Thu, 30th Aug 2018 1:14 am
MASTERMIND
“Right-wing mobs creating ‘civil war’ in Germany after second night of violence in Chemnitz”
Where is you mind now? That riot had nothing to do with right-wing people. It is muslim immigrants and leftists who destroy the country.
Cloggie on Thu, 30th Aug 2018 2:19 am
“Science and engineering are based on hope ???”
On that and on the presence of trazillion giant functioning fusion reactors in the universe. If you want to look at our fusion reactor, please do not forget to put on very strong sunglasses. This reactor works, and how!
pointer on Thu, 30th Aug 2018 6:24 am
Technocornicopianism is irresistable. Why, Californians are just catching on.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/29/california-electricity-fossil-fuels-wind-solar-vote#comments
The politicians voted to solve yesterday’s problem tomorrow.