A private company in the United Kingdom says it has successfully tested its prototype nuclear fusion reactor at temperatures that are hotter than the Sun. The company hopes to use the nuclear fusion reactor to start supplying energy in 2030.
Over the past few years, there have been a number of nuclear fusion breakthroughs, with different teams sustaining hydrogen and helium plasmas for varying amounts of time. We’re still a way off useful nuclear fusion reactors, but it seems we’re taking steps in the right direction.
“We are taking significant steps towards achieving fusion energy, doing so with the agility of a private venture, driven by the goal of achieving something that will have huge benefits worldwide,” Jonathan Carling, the CEO of the company, said in an emailed statement.
The private company, Tokamak Energy, the is based in Oxfordshire, UK. Their nuclear fusion device is known as the ST40, and it’s the third machine the company has created so far. The ST40 is about the size of a van, compared to much larger fusion reactors seen elsewhere, which are anywhere from the size of a house to a football field.
The firm just revealed that it has achieved plasma temperatures of 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) inside the device, according to IFL Science. “Reaching 15 million degrees is yet another indicator of the progress at Tokamak Energy and a further validation of our approach. Our aim is to make fusion energy a commercial reality by 2030,” Carling added.
There are two major designs for nuclear fusion reactors, both with the aim of twisting magnetic fields and confining the superheated plasma inside. A tokamak does this by using a reactor shaped like a donut and using a large current to twist the plasma. The other design, a stellarator, is shaped like a twisted donut to achieve the same effect. Using a more compact design, Tokamak Energy claims it can achieve higher plasma pressures than conventional tokamaks. It aims to control the plasma with high-temperature superconducting magnets, and eventually start producing useful energy.
Their first prototype, the ST25, was built in 2013. They built a second in 2015, and hope to later reach temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) in the ST40. In 2025 they hope to develop an industrial scale energy device, and in 2030 they hope to start supplying energy to the grid from fusion.
And of course, they need lots of money. So investors, have we got a deal for you! /sarc
I think that sound investors are probably, legally guaranteed, and the rest are probably sucker bets.
But it is still energy negative, consuming more energy than what is produced.
For the last 50 years we have been told that we are only 15 years away from clean fusion energy. That has not changed.
Unless you’re considering basic creation of matter in the universe as a standard, fusion releases more energy than it consumes as two atoms become a single atom and release the differential energy of their fusion as (primarily) heat and light in a self sustaining process.
These materials require a substantial input, before they are useful to man.
This is like the hydrogen economy, solar, and wind, which requires so much energy, up front, so much overhead, that it can never be self-renewable.
For a simple example, imagine a that a semi truck, which hauls one of those giant windmills was charged entirely by wind energy, and the mining equipment, and smelter which formed the metal for those giant props. There is always a net loss.
Every form of energy, of which are aware, is comparable to a rechargeable battery, which requires an input of energy, to get it to it’s “higher energy” state. It’s used as a means to store labor, and as a Ponzi scheme / bridge to nowhere.
There will probably be a plant with turnkey level of simplicity, to operate it, a sinecure position, stipend, and Homer Simpson hire, except he will come from a country with open sewers.
“Every form of energy, of which are aware, is comparable to a rechargeable battery, which requires an input of energy, to get it to it’s “higher energy” state.”
I think the future of energy is here now in the form of magnetic motor generators. These require an initial power input to start the motor running, but then it operates independently using opposing magnetic forces to create the energy output. No carbon fuel, no waste product. Store the excess energy created to restart the motor if you turn it off.
Google magnetic motors for more info. Check youtube for the videos. 🙂
I’m aware of it.
As the legends go, the law of the muses is moral free agency.
The inventor is given an engine, intended to provide for the freedom of mankind.
The plutocrat shorts the wires, so he can collect a rent.
If your mind works on this level, there will generally be one or two, inconspicuous parts missing from the patent application.
Either a financier or visionary will have sabotaged what is a very a simple idea, within the grasp of a child to understand it.
wtf perpetual motion? Hey I thought of that in 7th grade… royalties?
“Perpetual Motion” ???
It would seem so as long as the “permanent magnets” remain permanently magnetized. It’s pretty amazing to watch.
Everyone really needs to view the youtube videos for themselves.
Best of all they are individually sized, and have not been industrial sized (if that is at all possible). So they appear to be especially useful, as demonstrated, for home use. 🙂
The trick is to get more energy than you put in. It is possible with Fusion. EROEI for solar and wind, ethanol is negative. Still I’m trading Federal Reserve Notes for the solar panels and the net cost is decent. The kicker is I didn’t have to buy all of the energy that went into making them, if we did no one would buy them, unless grid power was completely unavailable, because they would be way more expensive.
How come the thing does not MELT?
Small area of plasma held in the center (more or less) of a large containment vessel (large surface area and actively cooled) via magnetic fields.
Not just melting, was wondering how it keeps from evaporating. Solid physical insulation would not work of course, an energy field would have to shield the vessel with some type of energy field, the point of heat would have to be smaller than sub-microscopic.
This type of energy is not just another type of energy source, but TPTB will have some say about its final development and broad utilization. They have snuffed other promising energy producing technologies, and have even crushed present technologies from being more efficient. When Tesla died in 1943 all his papers and research was confiscated by the feds, the people still don’t have access to what was taken. TPTB ultimately want all control of energy, food production, natural resources, information, technology, and anything else necessary that is able for humanity to better their lives and therefore advance and progress, unless it also serves their purpose. They consider most of mankind disposable and existing only to serve them as they deem.
Its not really a question if the technology will eventually be developed, but will it be allowed to be used. I’ll believe it only when this reactor technology goes into commercial production for widespread use.
The reason it does not melt nor evaporate is the magnetic field around it. A strong magnetic field can contain any known material since It is one of the fundamental properties of the universe. Ask yourself this what holds the earth and other planets/stars together? Since space is considered to have no gravitational pull and have a next to zero mass would it not fall apart? The answer to it all is friction as any electrical charge carries a small magnetic field which in turn creates a chain reaction resulting in rotation creating gravity.
It’s probably cooled with something like liquid sodium. No matter how you slice it, it just a huge steam engine. Fission reactors and coal fired are two examples. Fusion would just be a cleaner more efficient way to generate heat, that has to be removed and used to turn water to super heated steam, which would spin a turbine.
ref — plasma bottle
Also, sometimes contraptions like these do melt. Everyone around is a considered a hero, for the full duration of the news cycle. Retrospectives on “60 Minutes” and NPR.
And they still have NOT figured out how to Cool Fukasima Nuke plant down as it destroys every living thing in the Pacific Ocean.
Solar energy is massively cheaper and way safer. But hey, why use common sense.
Some of this has a natural cause.
What about the privately owned nuclear reactors being bought up by the pentagon, Washington DC, and wealthy individuals?
I wonder, what with Agenda 2030, will there even be a grid for the masses, or will there be reactors in cities separated by land like in “The Hunger Games”.
__ nuclear fusion is a wonderful thing, but how will it be used, that’s my concern.
_
Why???? Just drill deep enough and you have all the heat you need for clean minimal risk energy.
Tell that to PGV Hawaii.
It really is not all that simple to
tap into earths heat.
They use Pentene as the working fluid.
You really don’t want to drill wells into
rock hot enough to make the Water steam
really needed for a turbine.
(so much for getting away from fossil fuels)
You have to deal with corrosive and deadly gases
safely.
You have to deal with irrational Democrats afraid
of their shadows.
Not that easy to do in America. Works fine in Iceland,
but they don’t have our EPA.
Rellik,
On the news for weeks they threatened that the geothermal plant in Hawaii would be a disaster and explode when the lava got there. The lava is there, stuff burned, and nothing terrible happened? Hmmm, stupid liberals.
Iceland has huge geothermal plants. I saw an article on them. They are all near active volcanoes. This whole media whoopla here is just fake news.
How can they possibly measure 100 million degree heat…or even fifteen million? At best they’re only guessing. At worst it’s an outright lie.
Do they have any swamp land I can buy?
Yes, there is great swamp land next to me here in FL for sale. Makes for a great BOL Location off the Grid using Solar. I haven’t had an electric bill in over 40 months. Do the Math. I just about met my (ROI) on the cost savings. Works like a champ.
JRS,
There is a direct correlation between particle speed and temperature. Ionized particles will also follow a curved path when passing through a magnetic field. Field strength and particle speed determine the path, track a particle stream and you know how fast i.e. how hot they are. It’s just physics.
There is a basic flaw in fusion and that is these containment systems all end up with a particle stream going the same way like race horses on a track. The hotter particles are the more highly charged they become and the more they repel each other. It becomes harder to reach fusion temperatures. I’ve always been convinced that several intersecting particle streams is the way to go, and why these current research schemes won’t succeed.
We have an energy issue worldwide.
Bill Clinton gutted fusion research money in the US, and no president since, nor congress has put any meaningful resources to this issue. I believe it is because they don’t want it to succeed.
I also blame the bureaucracy that controlled research money. Big budget research projects often rolled research money or donations into political campaigns to promote their projects over all others. Once they choked off all the smaller research projects they were left as last man standing. When their projects failed to produce results, all related research projects died.
There were dozens of tabletop fusion research projects that had promise, but all died for the lack of a five or ten million dollar research grant, while hundreds of millions went to big boondoggles. This kind of research hasn’t happened in the US for over twenty years. We don’t even train physicists to think along these lines.
Nuclear won’t be allowed to go widespread as it’s not quite consumable. They need us dependent on something that runs out continuously. Something like oil.
Fusion research isn’t fission like poison the planet Fukushima.
Fukushima is an unadulterated disaster.
Fusion has never been perfected. We don’t know what it’s about.
The big bright ball in the sky uses fusion to run.
As the dominant THEORY , elevated to a religion by scientist-priests states but which was never really proven.
Serious papers on the subject mention that it’s a THEORY (and then
go on to treat it as if it’s a fact)
Every observed contradiction to this THEORY gets ‘twisted’ into a new (ad-hoc) supplemental theory with a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo and (worst of all) mathematical equations , just like a religion does. Then they call this better understanding and advance of ‘science’ instead of contemplating that they and the scientists before them could have been wrong and looking at other explanations/theories.Just like religious people do (scientists are just humans like the rest of us with the same flaws.)
Like Tesla said ; “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
Another also not perfect ,but in my opinion better, theory is the Electric Universe theory as explained on the Thunderbolts info-site and on Youtube.
God that’s… hot.
I HAVE AN IDEA! BUILD A FUSION REACTOR IN SPACE!
… wait.
._______.
Hrmm.
Um Dyson Sphere?
When the scientists first developed the atomic bomb, they weren’t entirely sure that it wouldn’t destroy the earth. Now scientists are arguing about the possibility of the large hadron collider creating a black home that will destroy the earth. Some people are worried about gun ownership but show no concern about scientists wiping out life on earth. Probably, the last words that are spoken by a human being will be a scientist saying “I wonder what will happen if I….”.
Hummm…!!! (Agenda) 2030, it won’t happen…
Humans can NOT manufacture energy.
Energy has to come from the past into the future: the ‘big bang’ before the Sun, the Sun before Earth, woods before fossil fuels, and so on.
The ‘hotter-than-the-Sun’ temperature achieved is no more than a product of all fossil fuels expended into constructing the reactor, from mining to switching it on, including the energy expanded in sustaining all humans involved in the process – a relationship in thermodynamics entangling all energy streams together, depicted in an online diagram here
The Big Bang , is just (another) THEORY elevated to a ‘scientific’ religion.
Not surprisingly first proposed by a priest.
Not a very good theory , as it starts with a miracle after which the ‘scientists’ try to explain the rest.
The problem of humans is that they think everything has to have a beginning going (in a linear way , time) to an end.
Another theory COULD be that the Universe just IS , no beginning and no end and time is just an illusion ,perceived by us as linear.
Before you pass this of as a religious theory , it’s more a spiritual theory , there is a big difference between the two concepts.
(Religion confines your consciousness with dogmas etc. and everything that contradicts it has to be incorporated some way or another or be ignored (just like we see in scientific theories in
the past , nowadays , and probably in the foreseeable future).
(True) Spirituality tries to expand your consciousness.)
Maybe it’s more like Bill Hicks once said “…all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves…”
The problem with fusion is first a reactor that is able to u>sustain the high temperatures and then the source for hydrogen.
The Core Fusion Model of the Sun is contested by several observations including narrow field x-ray camera indicating a planetary core that is cooler than Sun’s Corona, depletion of hydrogen long before the speculated 4.5 billion year age of the Sun, non-uniformity of the Sun’s surface temperature and structure, and the million-year time to transport heat from the core to the surface. This questions all attempts at duplicating the core fusion model.
There is plenty of H2O (water) in the oceans and sunlight can be used to split H2 from O and then H2 into 2 H atoms. But the fusion process will produce enormous amounts of heat and He. Only 20 percent of that heat will convert to electricity as a result of the Carnot Cycle and overhead to convert to electricity and 80 percent of that heat will escape into the atmosphere. In effect, our oceans and atmosphere will boil away.
The correct way to fusion is to replicate the process in the Sun’s Corona with the z-pinch effect without disturbing the Earth’s oceans.