50 years away and always has been ...

[mc2fool]

"European scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion - the energy process that powers the stars.

The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen.
:
The experiments produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds (11 megawatts of power).

This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997.

It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. But the significance is that it validates design choices that have been made for an even bigger fusion reactor now being constructed in France.
:
:
The Joint European Torus (JET), sited at Culham in Oxfordshire, has been pioneering this fusion approach for nearly 40 years. And for the past 10 years, it has been configured to replicate the anticipated ITER set-up.
:
:
There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years. Then fusion would need to scale up, which would mean a delay of perhaps another few decades."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633

[scotia]

A report was issued today (9/2/22) on the result of a Fusion experiment at the Joint European Torus (JET) located at Culham in Oxfordshire. The report indicated that a fusion plasma created using the Deuterium-Tritium reaction produced 59MJ over 5 seconds with an average power of 11MW (should be 59/5 - obviously there are some roundings in the reported numbers). The input power to the pulse was 40MW - so the Power out to Power in was approximately 0.3 (again this looks like some roundings and averaging).
A test In 1997 on JET (also using D-T fuel) produced a short pulse with 22MJ energy - and claimed a peak power of 16MW with a Power in to Power out ratio of 0.67. So what is so significant in the current test?
The significant advance is the much longer time (5 seconds) that the plasma generated energy. And it was carried out with changes that had been made to test materials that will be introduced in the ITER, which is currently under construction in the South of France. Originally JET used Carbon Tiles for the inner reactor wall - but it was observed that the Carbon soaked up the fuel. So this Carbon lining was replaced by Berylium and Tungsten, which has been proposed for ITER. Initial signs on this change were not good - and it was discovered that plasma ions were knocking Tungsten ions out of the wall - and this was bleeding heat out of the plasma. Injecting a thin layer of gas (nitrogen, neon or argon) close to the vessel wall has apparently overcome this problem.
JET will have one more experimental run from mid 2022 to the end of 2023, before closing.
Sources - https://www.euro-fusion.org, https://physicsworld.com, https://www.science.org

[FanciThat]

"European scientists say they have made a major breakthrough in their quest to develop practical nuclear fusion - the energy process that powers the stars.

The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen.
:
The experiments produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds (11 megawatts of power).

This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997.

It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. But the significance is that it validates design choices that have been made for an even bigger fusion reactor now being constructed in France.
:
:
The Joint European Torus (JET), sited at Culham in Oxfordshire, has been pioneering this fusion approach for nearly 40 years. And for the past 10 years, it has been configured to replicate the anticipated ITER set-up.
:
:
There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years. Then fusion would need to scale up, which would mean a delay of perhaps another few decades."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633

I worked at JET in 1982, my first ever project at the IT company that I was at for 35 years before I retired 5 years ago. I seem to remember working for an Italian scientist and the Fortran IV code I was supporting had all the comments written in French! Glad to see it was finally of some use

[scotia]

I worked at JET in 1982, my first ever project at the IT company that I was at for 35 years before I retired 5 years ago. I seem to remember working for an Italian scientist and the Fortran IV code I was supporting had all the comments written in French! Glad to see it was finally of some use

I carried out some rather obscure measurements on the D-D fusion reaction way back in the late sixties, but thereafter I turned to problems with a much shorter, and more practical, solution. Maybe a wise choice. But for the keen youngsters still trying to crack the problem of building a power-producing fusion reactor, I wish them the best of luck. Remember that the building of our medieval Cathedrals outlived the lifespan of the builders. And fusion power is much more important to humanity than were the Cathedrals. So don't be discouraged - maybe the final 50 years will arrive sooner than some of our older sceptics expect.

[stewamax]

The title reeks a bit of 'waste of time'.
Before 1938, nuclear fission was a bit pie-in-the-sky.
Before 1934, so was nuclear fusion.
Before 1916, the concept of black holes was unheard of.

Since controlled nuclear fusion has mind-boggling potential benefits for the planet and its population, I say good luck to the boffins; money well spent.

[mc2fool]

The title reeks a bit of 'waste of time'.

Not at all. I'm sure you know it's been a standard joke about fusion power plants for ... well, even longer than 50 years! So I just thought I'd repeat it as I was sure everyone would know what it referred to, and it was a bit less dry than "Fusion power advance" or similar.

Maybe I should have added a smiley to the title ... mea culpa ...

In any case, I'm waiting on shorter time scales, like from the Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" Compact Fusion Reactor. They've been saying they'll have a 100MW reactor within 5 years for, ummm, at least 9 years now.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html

[scotia]

The title reeks a bit of 'waste of time'.

Not at all. I'm sure you know it's been a standard joke about fusion power plants for ... well, even longer than 50 years! So I just thought I'd repeat it as I was sure everyone would know what it referred to, and it was a bit less dry than "Fusion power advance" or similar.

Maybe I should have added a smiley to the title ... mea culpa ...

In any case, I'm waiting on shorter time scales, like from the Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" Compact Fusion Reactor. They've been saying they'll have a 100MW reactor within 5 years for, ummm, at least 9 years now.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html

Yes the initial Lockheed announcement seemed incredible - compact fusion reactors being ready within a few years. What had they discovered that others had missed? But as the years passed and some scientific results were published, it looked like they were a long way away from achieving anything like their goal. I have often wondered why they made the initial announcements. I believe that in the USA, if a commercial company takes up the funding of a Scientific program, then the state will cease to fund that program - so that public money can't give an unfair advantage over private companies. I'm not sure if this still applies.

[scotia]

Not at all. I'm sure you know it's been a standard joke about fusion power plants for ... well, even longer than 50 years! So I just thought I'd repeat it as I was sure everyone would know what it referred to, and it was a bit less dry than "Fusion power advance" or similar.

Yes - its a well reported joke - although 50 years ago, it was thought to be a possible reachable goal! It was certainly hoped that the switch from the D-D reaction to the D-T reaction on JET would result in a power out to power in ratio in the plasma reaching the magic 1 - but 0.65 was all that was attained.
So back to some other big players - about the same time as the Lockheed initial "breakthrough" was announced, MIT proposed a Tokomak using a high temperature superconducting magnet - which would allow a much higher magnetic field to be contained in a modest volume. Again, this seemed to go quiet, but it now seems to be under development with MIT and a private fusion startup "Commonwealth Fusion Systems". See https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc
I have a bit more trust in this setup - but I fear that they are still at an early stage - I quote

the Preliminary analysis has led to a conceptual design

There have been a number of other startups using private capital with a variety of "designs", and hoping for a big return. Its a bit like what happened with the cold fusion fiasco.
I'm still hopeful that ITER may eventually produce some "interesting" results. Will this be the way to go - or will some other approach be required?

[mc2fool]

In any case, I'm waiting on shorter time scales, like from the Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works" Compact Fusion Reactor. They've been saying they'll have a 100MW reactor within 5 years for, ummm, at least 9 years now.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html

Yes the initial Lockheed announcement seemed incredible - compact fusion reactors being ready within a few years. What had they discovered that others had missed? But as the years passed and some scientific results were published, it looked like they were a long way away from achieving anything like their goal. I have often wondered why they made the initial announcements. I believe that in the USA, if a commercial company takes up the funding of a Scientific program, then the state will cease to fund that program - so that public money can't give an unfair advantage over private companies. I'm not sure if this still applies.

Yeah, but they're not the only one. Perhaps most notable is MIT's SPARC project, being commercialised by the privately funded Commonwealth Fusion Systems, spun out of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. They're planning on their compact fusion reactor putting power onto the grid in 2025!

Mind you, if you look at their technology page you'll find that their goal was to be the first net energy fusion machine "Starting in 2021", and if you scroll down that page you'll find that they're still building the facility and both "first plasma" and "net energy" are in the "to do" phase.

In the UK there's Tokamak Energy who I met at the Royal Society a few years ago; very brief write up here: viewtopic.php?p=436559#p436559

[Edit: Oh hey, snap! ]

[GeoffF100]

Tokamak Energy has achieved 100 million degrees:

https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/

They now have a project to incorporate the HTS magnets, amongst other things. They are hoping that project will come to fruition in the mid 2020s.

[mc2fool]

Tokamak Energy has achieved 100 million degrees:

https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/

They now have a project to incorporate the HTS magnets, amongst other things. They are hoping that project will come to fruition in the mid 2020s.

Getting there, eh ... ("a few years back" was 2015)

Then closer to home (Oxford) there's https://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk who I met at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition a few years back. They'd lugged along and set up a skin-off prototype of their reactor, which was around 5ft across, IIRC. Their marketing guy was making all sorts of optimistic claims, but on talking to their more techie guy the project sounded like it was more oriented towards hoping to develop (patentable) components; he was particularly enthusiastic about high temperature super conductors.

viewtopic.php?p=436559#p436559

[GeoffF100]

Getting there, eh ... ("a few years back" was 2015)

Yes, I had noticed much the same, when Tokamak Energy came to my attention a couple of years ago. The sales pitch was way over the top. I could not help feeling that the people who had put the money in did not fully understand that. Nonetheless, I was glad that funding had been made available. The timescales seem to have been elastic, but they have finally got to 100 million degrees. I am not clear about what is to be their next goal. It appears to be trying lots of stuff, and collecting patents perhaps.

[ursaminortaur]

Given how far away most people think that fusion on earth is from producing usable energy outputs is the following Express article a mis-timed April Fool or is there some reason why fusion would be much much easier in a rocket in space ?

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1585027/space-news-nuclear-fusion-reactor-pulsar-richard-dinan-uk

'Groundbreaking moment' UK to launch nuclear reactor in space to create unlimited energy
BRITAIN is poised to launch a nuclear fusion reactor into space by 2027, which could create limitless clean energy in a major breakthrough for the future of both interplanetary travel and energy security.
.
.
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Pulsar Fusion Ltd, a UK nuclear fusion company based in Bletchley, is developing green rocket technology that could eventually send humans to distances further than our Solar System. Nuclear fusion is the energy process that powers the stars which scientists have been scrambling to create on Earth to produce unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.

Bur Pulsar is also seeking to harness the process of nuclear fusion in space with its nuclear fusion reactors, which it says could enable rockets to access travel to planets beyond our solar system.

As fusion rocket technology only works in the vacuum of space, Pulsar has had to develop hybrid rocket engines, which it has been testing.

[mc2fool]

Given how far away most people think that fusion on earth is from producing usable energy outputs is the following Express article a mis-timed April Fool or is there some reason why fusion would be much much easier in a rocket in space ?

Good question, and there's very little detail on Pulsar Fusion Ltd's website, https://pulsarfusion.com.

However, I do note that their page on their Direct Fusion Drive has a sentence, "Modelling shows that this technology can potentially propel a spacecraft with a mass of about 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) to Pluto in 4 years" which is directly lifted, character for character, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Fusion_Drive, which itself references https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2017_Phase_I_Phase_II/Fusion_Enabled_Pluto_Orbiter_and_Lander/.

[GeoffF100]

Here is a video on ITER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaTQSmsJC8

Simply awesome. The scale is incredible.

[Itsallaguess]

Here is a video on ITER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaTQSmsJC8

Simply awesome. The scale is incredible.

It's an amazing feat of engineering, but what if this is the baby one, and they're hoping to build an even bigger one to plug this one into....

My thoughts often turn to 'The Great Filter' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) , and I sometimes wonder if something like this, or the CERN Large Hadron Collider might be the answer, and not in a good way....

<BLIP>

Itsallaguess

[GeoffF100]

Here is a video on ITER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaTQSmsJC8

Simply awesome. The scale is incredible.

It's an amazing feat of engineering, but what if this is the baby one, and they're hoping to build an even bigger one to plug this one into....

My thoughts often turn to 'The Great Filter' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) , and I sometimes wonder if something like this, or the CERN Large Hadron Collider might be the answer, and not in a good way....

<BLIP>

Itsallaguess

They are aiming for G > 10, and they are planning to throw away gigawatts of heat. That is with conventional superconductors in a conventional Tokamak design. It should be possible to do better, but it is right for ITER to go down the tried and tested route. Tokamak Energy and others are trying to come up with improvements on smaller scale machines.