Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology, bringing the goal of harnessing unlimited energy closer to reality.
This latest development will facilitate the initiation and maintenance of nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is considered the “holy grail” of energy sources, and scientists have been working hard to understand the mechanism that would allow them to harness it.
Fusion, the energy that powers the sun and other stars, fuses together light elements to create hot, charged particles called plasma, which produce huge amounts of energy.
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) found that incorporating the physical property of resistivity into an updated mathematical model could result in a more effective design for tokamaks, the donut-shaped melting facility. The donut-shaped fusion facility uses charged particles to create nuclear fusion.
Nathaniel Ferraro, a physicist at PPPL and one of the researchers, said: “Resistivity is the property of any substance that inhibits the flow of electricity.”
“It’s kind of like the viscosity of a fluid, which inhibits things moving through it. For example, a stone will move more slowly through molasses than water, and more slowly through water than air,” he added.
According to the latest research, resistivity can also cause instability at the edge of the plasma, causing a drastic increase in temperature and pressure. Researchers can create more stable fusion facility systems by incorporating resistivity into models that predict how the plasma will behave.
Author Andreas Kleiner said: “We want to use this knowledge to figure out how to develop a model that allows us to plug in certain features of the plasma and predict whether the plasma will be stable before we do an experiment.”
“Basically, in this research, we saw that resistivity matters, and our models should include it,” he added. The researchers will avoid edge-localized modes (ELMs) and plasma flares that can wear down the tokamak’s internal parts over time and require more frequent replacement of those components by stabilizing the plasma.
This will make it possible for future advanced fusion reactors to operate without repair for several months. Many nations are also making a concerted effort to advance in this area.
At the forefront of this research is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which will be the largest device of its kind ever built and the symbol of nuclear fusion, as previously reported by the Eurasian Times.
ITER involves 35 countries and is led primarily by seven members: China, the United States, the European Union, Russia, India, Japan, and South Korea.
In February, British researchers announced that they had produced and sustained 59 megajoules of fusion energy for five seconds in a giant doughnut-shaped machine called a tokamak.
It barely produced enough energy to power a house for a day and used more energy than it generated. But it was a remarkable moment, as it showed that nuclear fusion could occur continuously on Earth.
China advances by leaps and bounds in ‘artificial sun’ research
China has also made significant progress in the field of fusion technology. In December 2020, Beijing effectively loaded its “artificial sun” nuclear fusion reactor for the first time.
This provided a solid foundation for China’s independent design and construction of fusion reactors in its later phase. The achievement has been named one of the “Top 10 Science and Technology Progress News in China in 2020”.
In May 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping praised him at the general meetings of the members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
In December 2021, state media reported that the Hefei Institutes of Physical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) launched a new round of experiments for the advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), also known as the “Chinese artificial sun”.
In May 2022, a Chinese research team reclaimed having developed the first power plant in the world that can convert fusion power into electricity without disrupting the power system.
Beijing anticipates starting commercial fusion power production around 2050. But the fusion power plant will need a unique design with a sizable buffer zone to protect current power infrastructures from these deadly shocks.
Although China’s goal may seem overly ambitious, it would be a game-changer if Chinese researchers could keep their promises. The commercialization of nuclear fusion power would be very beneficial for a nation like China, which has huge energy needs.