Energy Switch: Nuclear Fusion
If we could harness fusion, it would transform our world, producing limitless energy, safely and without emissions -- the holy grail of energy.
If we could harness fusion, it would transform our world, producing limitless energy, safely and without emissions -- the holy grail of energy.
Yahoo Finance went inside the country’s largest magnetic fusion facility for an exclusive look, to explore the challenges of bringing this technology to commercial use for the latest episode of NEXT.
Although her daughter was only two months old at the time, Casali knew she had to make the trip to the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego to lead the first-ever experiments at high radiation in the new revolutionary negative triangularity tokamak configuration.
Through extensive analysis of data from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility program, the researchers showed that this shaping was inherently free of instabilities across various plasma conditions.
Experiments carried out using the DIII-D National Fusion Facility tokamak investigated the use of negative triangularity shaping to restrict the formation of highly unstable and energetic ELM.
In experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, the researchers demonstrated their model, trained only on past experimental data, could forecast potential plasma instabilities known as tearing mode instabilities up to 300 milliseconds in advance.
At the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, scientists showed that their AI model, trained using old data, could predict tearing mode instabilities up to 300 milliseconds beforehand.
Experiments performed with the DIII-D tokamak demonstrate that magnetic islands exchange energy, or couple, to each other when they rotate at similar speeds.
New observations at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility offer vital insights into energetic ions in fusion plasmas, key for fusion power development and space plasma understanding, with implications for satellite technology.
Schuster, who directs the Lehigh University Plasma Control Group, recently received a $1.6 million grant from the DOE to conduct experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego that will ultimately serve to improve the operation of ITER, FPP, and future reactors through the development of advanced controls and the application of machine learning.
Researchers at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a Department of Energy user facility, have used the first measurements from a new diagnostic system, the Imaging Neutral Particle Analyzer (INPA), to observe the flow of energetic ions in a tokamak.
TECHNOLOGY: DOE taps company expertise
In experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, researchers provided the first demonstration of applying magnetic perturbations and experiencing increased plasma density across the pedestal. In this new regime, magnetic perturbations caused the pedestal confinement to improve.
The hubs will be led by researchers at Colorado State University, the University of Rochester, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where last year a team successfully achieved fusion ignition for the first time, proving that creating energy from fusion is possible.
San Diego-based General Atomics applauded a White House plan unveiled Tuesday to encourage global commercialization of nuclear fusion to produce clean electricity.
The projects focus on advancing innovative fusion technology and collaborative research on both small-scale experiments and the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, the largest tokamak operating in the United States. CMU will receive about $1.2 million over three years.
Staff Scientist Xiangdong Wei will lead Jefferson Lab’s segment of the effort, which includes researchers from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; University of California, Irvine; and General Atomics’ DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego.
The Department of Energy has selected nine projects to receive $16 million in funding to conduct small-scale research experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, an Office of Science scientific user facility operated by General Atomics.
San Diego-based General Atomics assisted in the experiment by making the target capsule and its assemblies.
General Atomics and Tokamak Energy to collaborate on advancing powerful magnet technology; GA will also assist Bay Area company on laser research
UK nuclear fusion outfit Tokamak Energy is teaming up with General Atomics in the US to work on high temperature superconducting magnets for fusion reactors and other potential industry applications.
Mayor Todd Gloria took time off from local politics this week to tour two San Diego laboratories where a limitless source of clean energy is being developed.
General Atomics (GA), a San Diego, California–based developer of advanced technology solutions for government and commercial applications, is a leader in the quest to harness fusion energy. To better understand what this achievement means, what a fusion power plant might look like, and what still needs to be done to bring fusion power online, I spoke with Wayne Solomon, vice president for Magnetic Fusion Energy with GA’s Energy Group, and Brian Grierson, GA’s Fusion Pilot Plant hub director. Both men were extremely excited about the announcement.
Fusion energy is having a moment – an increasingly fruitful one – but as radio astronomers and particle physicists know, bigger and better experiments and simulations mean data deluges that quickly become difficult to manage. In a paper for the 22nd Smoky Mountains Computational Sciences and Engineering Conference – hosted virtually last year – researchers from General Atomics, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Virginia outlined their vision for a science gateway to help manage and share fusion data that the authors expect to “substantially balloon in the near future.”
A magnet so powerful it could lift an aircraft carrier six feet into the air was designed in a project managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It will be used in an international experimental reactor in southern France to produce energy using fusion, the same process used by the sun and other stars to create heat and light. Six modules for the reactor’s central superconducting magnet, plus a spare, are being made by General Atomics in Poway, California.
The dramatic and historic breakthrough on fusion energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is expected to bring an injection of cash into the clean energy source — even though it’s still many years away from becoming a mainstream power source.
The Department of Energy on Tuesday celebrated a major fusion energy milestone, outlining how scientists for the first time were able to produce more energy from a reaction than was consumed. “This milestone moves us one significant step closer” to having zero-carbon fusion energy “powering our society,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at a DOE ceremony celebrating the results of an experiment by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Nuclear fusion has long been the Holy Grail of truly clean energy. The smashing together of hydrogen atoms promises limitless electricity with zero carbon emissions, a minimum of radioactive waste and zero chance of catastrophic meltdown. But for a half-century fusion scientists have been limited by the power of their lasers and the strength of their magnetic fields — never before figuring out how to milk more energy out of their atom smashing than they put in. Until now.
Taking A New Angle to Boost Plasma Performance in Advanced Tokamaks
Magnetic confinement is one of the leading paths to fusion energy. One variant of this approach uses a device known as a tokamak like the DIII-D National Fusion Facility to confine the super-hot plasmas inside powerful magnetic fields until fusion occurs. The tokamak approach has demonstrated exceptional ability to contain these plasmas, which are created when the fuel gas is heated until atoms separate into charged particles and serve as the fuel for nuclear fusion.
General Atomics has designed a compact fusion pilot plant as the company aims to become a leader in producing clean, sustainable energy. The company said Thursday it will collaborate with fusion energy stakeholders to execute its vision for the facility, which will use its proprietary Fusion Synthesis Engine for maximum operational efficiency.