{"id":5538,"date":"2015-08-11T05:58:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T05:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=5538"},"modified":"2015-08-11T05:58:11","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T05:58:11","slug":"a-small-modular-efficient-fusion-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/a-small-modular-efficient-fusion-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"A small, modular, efficient fusion plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

New design could finally help to bring the long-sought power source closer to reality.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A cutaway view of the proposed ARC reactor. Thanks to powerful new magnet technology, the much smaller, less-expensive ARC reactor would deliver the same power output as a much larger reactor.
Illustration courtesy of the MIT ARC team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.<\/strong>— It\u2019s an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away \u2014 and always will be.<\/span><\/p>\n

But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak fusion reactor \u2014 and it\u2019s one that might be realized in as little as a decade, they say. The era of practical fusion power, which could offer a nearly inexhaustible energy resource, may be coming near.<\/span><\/p>\n

Using these new commercially available superconductors, rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes, to produce high-magnetic field coils \u201cjust ripples through the whole design,\u201d says Dennis Whyte, a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and director of MIT\u2019s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. \u201cIt changes the whole thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The stronger magnetic field makes it possible to produce the required magnetic confinement of the superhot plasma \u2014 that is, the working material of a fusion reaction \u2014 but in a much smaller device than those previously envisioned. The reduction in size, in turn, makes the whole system less expensive and faster to build, and also allows for some ingenious new features in the power plant design. The proposed reactor, using a tokamak (donut-shaped) geometry that is widely studied, is described in a paper in the journal\u00a0Fusion Engineering and Design<\/em>, co-authored by Whyte, PhD candidate Brandon Sorbom, and 11 others at MIT. The paper started as a design class taught by Whyte and became a student-led project after the class ended.<\/span><\/p>\n

Power plant prototype<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The new reactor is designed for basic research on fusion and also as a potential prototype power plant that could produce significant power. The basic reactor concept and its associated elements are\u00a0 based on well-tested and proven principles developed over decades of research at MIT and around the world, the team says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe much higher magnetic field,\u201d Sorbom says, \u201callows you to achieve much higher performance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun, involves fusing pairs of hydrogen atoms together to form helium, accompanied by enormous releases of energy. The hard part has been confining the superhot plasma \u2014 a form of electrically charged gas \u2014\u00a0 while heating it to temperatures hotter than the cores of stars. This is where the magnetic fields are so important\u2014they effectively trap the heat and particles in the hot center of the device.<\/span><\/p>\n

While most characteristics of a system tend to vary in proportion to changes in dimensions, the effect of changes in the magnetic field on fusion reactions is much more extreme: The achievable fusion power increases according to the fourth power of the increase in the magnetic field. Thus, doubling the field would produce a 16-fold increase in the fusion reaction. \u201cAny increase in the magnetic field gives you a huge win,\u201d Sorbom says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tenfold boost in power<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

While the new superconductors do not produce quite a doubling of the field strength, they are strong enough to increase fusion power by about a factor of 10 compared to standard superconducting technology, Sorbom says. This dramatic improvement leads to a cascade of potential improvements in reactor design.<\/span><\/p>\n

The world\u2019s most powerful planned fusion reactor, a huge device called ITER that is under construction in France, is expected to cost around $40 billion. Sorbom and the MIT team estimate that the new design, about half the diameter of ITER (which was designed before the new superconductors became available), would produce about the same power at a fraction of the cost and in a shorter construction time.<\/span><\/p>\n

But despite the difference in size and magnetic field strength, the proposed reactor, called ARC, is based on \u201cexactly the same physics\u201d as ITER, Whyte says. \u201cWe\u2019re not extrapolating to some brand-new regime,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another key advance in the new design is a method for removing the the fusion power core from the donut-shaped reactor without having to dismantle the entire device. That makes it especially well-suited for research aimed at further improving the system by using different materials or designs to fine-tune the performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, as with ITER, the new superconducting magnets would enable the reactor to operate in a sustained way, producing a steady power output, unlike today\u2019s experimental reactors that can only operate for a few seconds at a time without overheating of copper coils.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liquid protection<\/span><\/p>\n

Another key advantage is that most of the solid materials used to line the fusion chamber in such reactors are replaced by a liquid material that can easily be circulated and replaced, eliminating the need for costly replacement procedures as the materials degrade over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an extremely harsh environment for [solid] materials,\u201d Whyte says, so replacing those materials with a liquid could be a major advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, as designed, the reactor should be capable of producing about three times as much electricity as is needed to keep it running, but the design could probably be improved to increase that proportion to about five or six times, Sorbom says. So far, no fusion reactor has produced as much energy as it consumes, so this kind of net energy production would be a major breakthrough in fusion technology, the team says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The design could produce a reactor that would provide electricity to about 100,000 people, they say. Devices of a similar complexity and size have been built within about five years, they say.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New design could finally help to bring the long-sought power source closer to reality. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— It\u2019s an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away \u2014 and always will be. But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",600,400,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",600,400,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",540,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",639,426,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/01-ARC_2.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}