The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor program in the south of France will use magnetic fusion and employ strong magnetic fields to hold and
fuse hydrogen plasma.
The catch is that no machine yet devised can hold
a fusing hydrogen plasma long enough to produce more power than is consumed by the electromagnets.
Not exact matches
That is the force and timing needed, it is thought, to compress the
plasma,
fuse the
hydrogen atoms and heat the surrounding liquid lead to even higher temperatures.
Based on previous research and work in the field of
plasma physics, the two former Creo laser printing employees believe they can build a reactor to
fuse hydrogen atoms together by pneumatically - driven pistons and produce enormous increases in energy.
Newman, who as a teen developed a fascination with turbulence as a rafting guide in Colorado, arrived at Oak Ridge in 1993 to explore a different kind of turbulence: the
plasma of
fusing hydrogen atoms inside experimental fusion reactors.
Fusion is commonplace in stars, where
hydrogen nuclei
fuse in superhot
plasma, but temperatures that high are hard to achieve on Earth.
Under laboratory conditions it is the two
hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — that
fuse most readily when held as a
plasma at temperatures of several hundred million degrees.
Fusion reactors heat and squeeze a
plasma — an ionized gas — composed of the
hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, compressing the isotopes until their nuclei overcome their mutual repulsion and
fuse together.
Most fusion research focuses on magnetic confinement, using powerful electromagnets to contain a thin
plasma of
hydrogen isotopes and heat it until the nuclei
fuse.
The aim of ITER is to show that, in theory, nuclei of deuterium and tritium (isotopes of
hydrogen) can be
fused in a searingly hot
plasma at the heart of the reactor, thereby releasing large quantities of heat that could be used to generate power.
Immense heat, pressure and magnetic fields ionise and contain the gas, turning it into a
plasma in which
hydrogen nuclei
fuse to form helium nuclei, releasing energy.
There, the
plasma will be compressed to the point where heavy
hydrogen fuses into helium and releases an immense amount of heat.
Fusion energy is based on the same process that takes place in the sun, where gravity holds together the hot ionized gas called a
plasma and nuclei of
hydrogen collide together often enough that they occasionally overcome forces keeping them apart, called the Coulomb forces, to
fuse together and create a burst of energy, Synakowski explained.