{"id":120035,"date":"2021-02-28T03:28:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T11:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/supercomputer-powered-machine-learning-supports-fusion-energy-reactor-design"},"modified":"2021-02-28T03:28:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T11:28:06","slug":"supercomputer-powered-machine-learning-supports-fusion-energy-reactor-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/supercomputer-powered-machine-learning-supports-fusion-energy-reactor-design","title":{"rendered":"Supercomputer-Powered Machine Learning Supports Fusion Energy Reactor Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/supercomputer-powered-machine-learning-supports-fusion-energy-reactor-design.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Energy researchers have been reaching for the stars for decades in their attempt to artificially recreate a stable fusion energy reactor. If successful, such a reactor would revolutionize the world\u2019s energy supply overnight, providing low-radioactivity, zero-carbon, high-yield power \u2013 but to date, it has proved extraordinarily challenging to stabilize. Now, scientists are leveraging supercomputing power from two national labs to help fine-tune elements of fusion reactor designs for test runs.<\/p>\n<p>In experimental fusion reactors, magnetic, donut-shaped devices called \u201ctokamaks\u201d are used to keep the plasma contained: in a sort of high-stakes game of Operation, if the plasma touches the sides of the reactor, the reaction falters and the reactor itself could be severely damaged. Meanwhile, a divertor funnels excess heat from the vacuum.<\/p>\n<p>In France, scientists are building the world\u2019s largest fusion reactor: a 500-megawatt experiment called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iter.org\/\">ITER<\/a> that is scheduled to begin trial operation in 2025. The researchers here were interested in estimating ITER\u2019s heat-load width: that is, the area along the divertor that can withstand extraordinarily hot particles repeatedly bombarding it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Energy researchers have been reaching for the stars for decades in their attempt to artificially recreate a stable fusion energy reactor. If successful, such a reactor would revolutionize the world\u2019s energy supply overnight, providing low-radioactivity, zero-carbon, high-yield power \u2013 but to date, it has proved extraordinarily challenging to stabilize. Now, scientists are leveraging supercomputing power [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48,6,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics","category-robotics-ai","category-supercomputing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}