Even once researchers can reliably get more power out of a fusion reaction than they put in, they’ll still need to overcome engineering challenges to scale up fusion energy.
Category: nuclear energy – Page 16
Energetic particles could help to control plasma flares at the edge of a tokamak
The development of sustainable energy sources that can satisfy the world energy demand is one of the most challenging scientific problems. Nuclear fusion, the energy source of stars, is a clean and virtually unlimited energy source that appears as a promising candidate.
The most promising fusion reactor design is based on the tokamak concept, which uses magnetic fields to confine the plasma. Achieving high confinement is key to the development of nuclear fusion power plants and is the final aim of ITER, the largest tokamak in the world currently under construction in Cadarache (France).
The plasma edge stability in a tokamak plays a fundamental role in plasma confinement. In present-day tokamaks, edge instabilities, magnetohydrodynamic waves known as ELMs (edge localized modes), lead to significant particle and energy losses, like solar flares on the edge of the sun. The particle and energy losses due to ELMs can cause erosion and excessive heat fluxes onto the plasma-facing components, at levels unacceptable in future burning plasma devices.
Researchers Unlock Fusion Mysteries with Novel Plasma Modeling, Propelling Nuclear Fusion Closer to Reality
Chinese researchers say that recent advancements in the burgeoning field of inertial confinement fusion are bringing us one step closer to making accessible nuclear fusion a reality.
The new findings, which incorporate innovative new modeling approaches, could open new avenues for the exploration of the mysteries surrounding high-energy-density physics, and could potentially offer a window toward understanding the physics of the early universe.
Harnessing controlled nuclear fusion as a potential source of clean energy has seen several significant advancements in recent years, and the recent research by a Chinese team, funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences and published in Science Bulletin last month, signals the next wave of insights with what the team calls a “surprising observation” involving supra-thermal ions during observations of fusion burning plasmas at National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
New simulation method models antineutrinos emitted from nuclear reactors during fission
Nuclear fission is the most reliable source of antineutrinos, but they are difficult to characterize. A recent study suggests how their emission can be simulated most effectively.
Antineutrinos are mysterious fundamental anti-particles with no charge and an exceptionally small but non-zero mass. The JUNO project (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory) in China is a large scintillation detector designed to detect them and to characterize their properties, particularly in precise measurements of that tiny mass. Anti-particles are hard to measure and even harder to control, even when they come from a strong and reliable source.
A group of Italian physicists, led by Monica Sisti of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Milan and Antonio Cammi of the Politecnico di Milano and part of the JUNO collaboration of over 700 scientists from 17 countries, has now modeled parameters that determine the ‘antineutrino spectrum’ emitted by a source.
Fusion Mystery Unraveled: How Burning Plasmas Defy Conventional Physics
Advances in inertial confinement fusion and innovative modeling have brought nuclear fusion closer to reality, offering insights into high-energy-density physics and the early universe.
The pursuit of controlled nuclear fusion as a source of clean, abundant energy is moving closer to realization, thanks to advancements in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). This method involves igniting deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel by subjecting it to extreme temperatures and pressures during a precisely engineered implosion process.
In DT fusion, most of the released energy is carried by neutrons, which can be harnessed for electricity generation. Simultaneously, alpha particles remain trapped within the fuel, where they drive further fusion reactions. When the energy deposited by these alpha particles surpasses the energy input from the implosion, the plasma enters a self-sustaining “burning” phase. This significantly boosts energy output and density.
Scientists develop ‘sustainable shield’ tech on quest to harness limitless energy source: ‘[It] could play a vital role in the future’
Researchers in Japan made a groundbreaking discovery that could bring us closer to sustainable energy from nuclear fusion reactors, paving the way for longer-lasting, more efficient clean energy systems.
In a recent study, the team developed protective coatings to enhance the durability of materials used in fusion reactors, addressing a key challenge: material degradation from extreme heat and corrosive liquid metal coolants.
Fusion reactors, which mimic the sun’s energy production process, hold huge potential as a limitless source of clean energy. However, their intense environment makes it difficult to find materials that can endure prolonged exposure to high temperatures and corrosive coolants like lithium-lead alloy.
The Simple 5-Degree Fix Transforming Fusion Energy
Scientists have simulated a groundbreaking solution to boost fusion efficiency by eliminating “slow modes,” unhelpful waves that waste energy during plasma heating.
Using 2D simulations, researchers demonstrated how a slight tilt in the Faraday screen can enhance energy transfer, bringing us closer to sustainable fusion energy.
Heating plasma for fusion: the challenge.
LLNL researchers explore next-gen 3D printing to harness fusion energy
When Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in December 2022, the world’s attention turned to the prospect of how that breakthrough experiment — designed to secure the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile — might also pave the way for virtually limitless, safe and carbon-free fusion energy.
Advanced 3D printing offers one potential solution to bridging the science and technology gaps presented by current efforts to make inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plants a reality.
“Now that we have achieved and repeated fusion ignition,” said Tammy Ma, lead for LLNL’s inertial fusion energy institutional initiative, “the Lab is rapidly applying our decades of know-how into solving the core physics and engineering challenges that come with the monumental task of building the fusion ecosystem necessary for a laser fusion power plant. The mass production of ignition-grade targets is one of these, and cutting-edge 3D printing could help get us there.”
Tech firms increasingly look to nuclear power for data center
As energy-hungry computer data centers and artificial intelligence programs place ever greater demands on the U.S. power grid, tech companies are looking to a technology that just a few years ago appeared ready to be phased out: nuclear energy.
After several decades in which investment in new nuclear facilities in the U.S. had slowed to a crawl, tech giants Microsoft and Google have recently announced investments in the technology, aimed at securing a reliable source of emissions-free power for years into the future.
Earlier this year, online retailer Amazon, which has an expansive cloud computing business, announced it had reached an agreement to purchase a nuclear energy-fueled data center in Pennsylvania and that it had plans to buy more in the future.
Amazon’s plan, by contrast, does not require either new technology or the resurrection of an older nuclear facility.
The data center that the company purchased from Talen Energy is located on the same site as the fully operational Susquehanna nuclear plant in Salem, Pennsylvania, and draws power directly from it.
Amazon characterized the $650 million investment as part of a larger effort to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Seeking Signatures of High-Energy Vortex States
Photons, electrons, and other particles can propagate as wave packets with helical wave fronts that carry an orbital angular momentum. These vortex states can be used to probe the dynamics of atomic, nuclear, and hadronic systems. Recently, researchers demonstrated vortex states of x-ray photons and proposed ways to realize such states for particles at higher energies (MeV to GeV). But verifying high-energy vortex states will be challenging, because characterization techniques used at lower energies would perform poorly. Zhengjiang Li of Sun Yat-sen University in China and his colleagues at Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics propose a new diagnostic method for high-energy vortex states. Their approach would reveal such states through an exotic scattering phenomenon called a superkick.
A superkick is a theorized effect occurring when an atom placed near the axis of a vortex light beam absorbs a photon. Under such conditions, the atom may get kicked to the side with a transverse momentum greater than that carried by the photon. Li and his colleagues considered a similar superkick involving electrons. They analyzed the elastic head-on collision of two electron wave packets at 10 MeV, one in a vortex state and the other in a nonvortex one. According to their calculations, two electrons in the beam, upon scattering, would acquire a nonzero total transverse momentum that could be detectable. The researchers predict an unmistakable signature of the vortex state: The momentum imbalance increases as the collision point gets closer to the vortex axis.
The researchers expect the superkick effect—which has never been observed—to be detectable with realistic experimental settings. They say the idea could be extended to high-energy vortices of photons, ions, and even hadrons.