This came across Slashdot today. . .
A small, modular, efficient fusion plant | MIT News
The importance of this news is hard to overstate.
Until now there have been two categories of nuclear fusion research: the mainstream tokamak design embodied in ITER, and the many other "alternative" approaches. ITER represents a project with very thoroughly researched physics that is almost certain to work -- eventually, and at painfully high cost. Some of the alternatives seem potentially very promising, and could be quicker-and-cheaper, but they are are unproven and limping along on shoestring budgets, because all the major governments have put their R&D money into ITER.
Now we get something that falls in-between. MIT have done this study showing how newly-available superconducting magnets could impact the design of a conventional ITER-like tokamak. They could effectively leapfrog past ITER with a device that uses exactly the same operating principles but is smaller, more efficient, more versatile, much cheaper and quicker to build.
In technological terms that we'd be familiar with here on TMC, this would be like the leap from lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion!
I've noticed that nuclear fusion rarely intrudes into discussions about energy policy or the future energy landscape. I've felt for more than ten years that this was an unfortunate blind spot. With this news fusion power should become something that everybody has to factor into their plans.
A small, modular, efficient fusion plant | MIT News
The importance of this news is hard to overstate.
Until now there have been two categories of nuclear fusion research: the mainstream tokamak design embodied in ITER, and the many other "alternative" approaches. ITER represents a project with very thoroughly researched physics that is almost certain to work -- eventually, and at painfully high cost. Some of the alternatives seem potentially very promising, and could be quicker-and-cheaper, but they are are unproven and limping along on shoestring budgets, because all the major governments have put their R&D money into ITER.
Now we get something that falls in-between. MIT have done this study showing how newly-available superconducting magnets could impact the design of a conventional ITER-like tokamak. They could effectively leapfrog past ITER with a device that uses exactly the same operating principles but is smaller, more efficient, more versatile, much cheaper and quicker to build.
In technological terms that we'd be familiar with here on TMC, this would be like the leap from lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion!
I've noticed that nuclear fusion rarely intrudes into discussions about energy policy or the future energy landscape. I've felt for more than ten years that this was an unfortunate blind spot. With this news fusion power should become something that everybody has to factor into their plans.