Germany’s nuclear fusion machine just produced its first hydrogen plasma

[Peter1469]

Germany’s nuclear fusion machine just produced its first hydrogen plasma- is fusion finally here?

It always seems to be 50 years away. Maybe now it is closer.

German scientists have just switched on the Wendelstein 7-X (W7X) stellarator - the largest nuclear fusion machine of its kind - to successfully produce and sustain hydrogen plasma for the first time.

Why is this such a big deal? The production of hydrogen plasma is key to harnessing the clean, limitless energy of nuclear fusion - the process that powers our Sun. If we can achieve controlled nuclear fusion, it would quite literally change the world, because it would replace fossil fuels and nuclear fission facilities as a cheaper, more efficient, and more sustainable source of energy.


"It’s a very clean source of power, the cleanest you could possibly wish for. We’re not doing this for us, but for our children and grandchildren," one of the team, physicist John Jelonnek from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, told the Associated Press.


Nuclear fission, which is what our current nuclear facilities achieve, generates energy by splitting the nucleus of an atom into smaller neutrons and nuclei. While fission is super efficient - the amount of energy it releases is millions of times more efficient per mass than that of coal - it requires very careful (and costly) management of dangerous radioactive waste.


Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, produces huge amounts of energy when atoms are fused together at incredibly high temperatures - but produces no radioactive waste or other unwanted byproducts.

Read more at the link.

[waltky]

ITER project still in the works...

Fusion Reactor Still in Works
April 22, 2016 - All today’s nuclear power plants make energy by thge splitting of uranium atoms -- which creates a lot of useful heat but also a lot of dangerous and deadly nuclear waste. The opposite process -- fusion -- also creates heat but with hardly any pesky radiation. The problem is that fusion is way more difficult to achieve. Scientists from 35 nations, including United States, Russia and China, are painstakingly trying to solve the problem -- to create technology that could power the world for thousands of years.

Scientists have long known that fusing atoms of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, releases huge amounts of energy and very little radiation. But doing so requires the kind of heat and pressure found in our sun, though focused on a much, much smaller point, -- about the size of a person's smaller pocket change. Modern technology says it is very difficult but not impossible to achieve. Powerful lasers would provide pressure and heat while huge magnets would keep the little sun levitating in the middle of a special chamber. Fusion, It is projected, will yield up to 10 times more energy than it uses.

Started in 1985, a project in Southern France called ITER is slowly plodding along with plans for a working fusion reactor. It's been plagued by politics, and by organizational and funding difficulties. But its new director general, French physicist and chemist Dr. Bernard Bigot, said the reactor is finally on its way to being built. “For example the first delivery of what we call the cryostat piece is coming from India, okay. In the U.S., General Atomics has been able for example to deliver the first set of the central solenoid,” said Bigot.

The Congressional committee that approves U.S. participation in the project has seesawed on its support. In 1998 it withdrew from the project, only to rejoin the effort in 2005 and then drastically reduce the funding in 2008. Bigot came to the U.S. to try to persuade it to stay on. “The U.S. is now wondering if it is worth to move on, okay, forward with project for the next coming years or maybe to step down. And so it was quite important to show them that despite the fact they just have the sharing of 9%, okay, project is moving on and it’s worth for them to stay in,” said Bigot.

Bigot added that if the new schedule is endorsed by seven core members, including the U.S., China and Russia, the assembly of the reactor could be finished by 2025, with first experiments starting in 2028. Ultimately the reactor will cost billions of dollars to build, but if it works, the results will be literally priceless.

http://www.voanews.com/content/fusio...s/3297916.html

[Peter1469]

Clean energy. And it would take the Global Warming "arrow" out of the globalists' quiver.

[waltky]

Germans test artificial sun...


Let there be light: German scientists test 'artificial sun'

Mar 23, 2017, Scientists in Germany flipped the switch Thursday on what's being described as "the world's largest artificial sun," a device they hope will help shed light on new ways of making climate-friendly fuels.

The giant honeycomb-like setup of 149 spotlights — officially known as "Synlight" — in Juelich, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Cologne, uses xenon short-arc lamps normally found in cinemas to simulate natural sunlight that's often in short supply in Germany at this time of year. By focusing the entire array on a single 20-by-20 centimeter (8x8 inch) spot, scientists from the German Aerospace Center, or DLR , will be able to produce the equivalent of 10,000 times the amount of solar radiation that would normally shine on the same surface.


Creating such furnace-like conditions — with temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Celsius (5,432 Fahrenheit) — is key to testing novel ways of making hydrogen, according to Bernhard Hoffschmidt, the director of DLR's Institute for Solar Research. Many consider hydrogen to be the fuel of the future because it produces no carbon emissions when burned, meaning it doesn't add to global warming. But while hydrogen is the most common element in the universe it is rare on Earth. One way to manufacture it is to split water into its two components — the other being oxygen — using electricity in a process called electrolysis.


Researchers hope to bypass the electricity stage by tapping into the enormous amount of energy that reaches Earth in the form of light from the sun. Hoffschmidt said the dazzling display is designed to take experiments done in smaller labs to the next level, adding that once researchers have mastered hydrogen-making techniques with Synlight's 350-kilowatt array, the process could be scaled up ten-fold on the way to reaching a level fit for industry. Experts say this could take about a decade, if there is sufficient industry support.


The goal is to eventually use actual sunlight rather than the artificial light produced at the Juelich experiment, which cost 3.5 million euros ($3.8 million) to build and requires as much electricity in four hours as a four-person household would use in a year. Hoffschmidt conceded that hydrogen isn't without its problems — for one thing it's incredibly volatile — but by combining it with carbon monoxide produced from renewable sources, scientists would, for example, be able to make eco-friendly kerosene for the aviation industry.


http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...517?yptr=yahoo

[DGUtley]

I recall from my college days at Kent State, and the class Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe, it was cold fusion that was considered the holy grail in energy. Is this similar?

https://www.kent.edu/physics/seven-ideas-shook-universe

[Peter1469]

I recall from my college days at Kent State, and the class Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe, it was cold fusion that was considered the holy grail in energy. Is this similar?

https://www.kent.edu/physics/seven-ideas-shook-universe

The OP is. The last article, I don't think is.