A researcher at MIT has suggested that hat we could potentially have nuclear fusion powering electric grids in a few years that is, if we pursue research aggressively. Earl Marmar, the head of MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak fusion project, says the technological barriers to fusion may be about to fall.
Harnessing the energy that powers the sun and stars–the dream of fusion nuclear reactors has seemed like the technology that is always 50 years away and just around the corner at the same time. Achieving fusion power could mean unheard of clean energy for the planet.
Now, according to Earl Marmar, the head of MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak fusion project, we may potentially have nuclear fusion powering electric grids by the 2030s — that is, if we continue to pursue research aggressively.
“I think fusion energy on the grid by 2030 is certainly within reach by this point,” says Marmar. “2030 is probably aggressive, but I don’t think it’s wildly out of range.”
Fusion's physics are well known today, so Marmar thinks the remaining challenges are mainly technological. Currently, there are a few promising methods to get stable fusion, including changing the shape of the reactor and using high-temperature superconducting magnets.
"I think fusion energy on the grid by 2030 is certainly within reach by this point. 2030 is probably aggressive, but I don’t think it’s wildly out of range."
Marmar thinks fusion will be the power source to get us to a clean energy future, but he thinks we haven’t invested enough to solve the remaining technical issues facing fusion, which could delay the timeline. “I think fusion energy on the grid by 2030 is certainly within reach by this point,” says Marmar. “2030 is probably aggressive, but I don’t think it’s wildly out of range.”Marmar is part of a leading research team unraveling practical uses of fusion. The Alcator C-Mod is an experimental device called a tokamak: a configuration considered for future fusion reactors.
C-Mod creates a high-field – up to 160,000 times the Earth’s magnetic field – that allows the small device to create the dense, hot plasmas, which are greater than 100 million degrees.
Related articles
Electricity runs through the center of the tokamak's donut, and the outside edges are circled with electromagnets. Gas is pumped into the chamber and charged by electricity running in the hole of the donut. This turns it into plasma, which hovers in the chamber because of the magnetic fields.As the pressure and temperature of the gas increases, fusion happens when atomic nuclei squish together.
“So we know that fusion works; we know that the nuclear physics works. There are no questions from the nuclear physics,” says Marmar. “There are questions left on the technology side.”
Marmar suggests there are already some good technological solutions that could solve the problem.
For instance, in the UK, Tokamak Energy has decreased the size of the donut hole in their tokamak to try and get more plasma compared to the total pressure and magnetic energy. This would potentially allow for a fusion reaction that was smaller and, therefore, cheaper to run. “That may well be true but not demonstrated yet. And I hope they will be successful,” he says.
“We think that opens a new pathway for more efficient utilization of the magnetic field, which could be a faster and more economical way to get fusion energy actually on the grid,” says Marmar.
For C-Mod, following completion of operations at the end of last year, the facility has been placed into safe shutdown, with no additional experiments planned at this time. Without programs like this, it looks like fusion, may remain a dream for many years to come.
0 comments:
Post a Comment