How long will it still take to generate energy from nuclear fusion? Maybe this time!
"... The PPPL team invented this nuclear-fusion reactor, completed last year, using mainly off-the-shelf components. Its core is a glass vacuum chamber surrounded by a 3D-printed nylon shell that anchors 9,920 meticulously placed permanent rare-earth magnets. Sixteen copper-coil electromagnets resembling giant slices of pineapple wrap around the shell crosswise. ...
PPPL’s new reactor is the first stellarator built at this government lab in 50 years. It’s also the world’s first stellarator to employ permanent magnets, rather than just electromagnets, to coax plasma into an optimal three-dimensional shape. Costing only US $640,000 and built in less than a year, the device stands in contrast to prominent stellarators like Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, a massive, tentacled machine that took $1.1 billion and more than 20 years to construct. ...
PPPL’s new reactor is the first stellarator built at this government lab in 50 years. It’s also the world’s first stellarator to employ permanent magnets, rather than just electromagnets, to coax plasma into an optimal three-dimensional shape. Costing only US $640,000 and built in less than a year, the device stands in contrast to prominent stellarators like Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, a massive, tentacled machine that took $1.1 billion and more than 20 years to construct. ...
“Stellarators are one of the most active research areas now, with new papers coming out just about every week,” says Scott Hsu, the U.S. Department of Energy’s lead fusion coordinator. “We’re seeing new optimized designs that we weren’t capable of coming up with even 10 years ago. The other half of the story that’s just as exciting is that new superconductor technology and advanced manufacturing capabilities are making it more possible to actually realize these exquisite designs.” ..."
A new and unique fusion reactor comes together with PPPL’s contributions "First plasma is coming soon to the University of Seville’s compact spherical tokamak called SMART"
... at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory run nuclear-fusion reactions in a stellarator built with mostly off-the-shelf parts.
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