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View
of the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device taken on September 18, 2015 at the Max
Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, northeastern Germany.
© DPA / AFP
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The
inauguration of the world’s biggest stellarator, a type of nuclear fusion
reactor, took place at Marx Planck Institute in Germany as the Wendelstein 7-X
heated hydrogen gas to 80 million degrees for a quarter of a second.
The
ceremony was attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who pressed the
button to launch the reactor in Greifswald. The oddly-shaped 5.5m radius
helical machine was completed in April last year and is an alternative design
to the more popular tokamak nuclear fusion device.
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| Source: science.org |
Both
tokamak and stellarator are designed to confine plasma hot enough to start
fusion of nuclei long enough for the reaction to produce more energy than used
to start the reaction. The difference is that a tokamak uses current driven
through the plasma to prevent it from dissipating. A stellarator uses a system
of magnetic coils shaped in a way that compensates for the lack of uniformity
in a ring-shaped reactor.
While
a tokamak is generally considered more promising for creation of a commercial
fusion power plant, the stellarator design has its advantages, such as allowing
plasma containment over long periods of time. The inauguration pulse was
relatively brief, but when the Wendelstein 7-X is fully operational it will
contain plasma for some 30 minutes.
The
fusion reactor will help German scientists study the behavior of plasma. In
December, researchers at Greifswald tried it with helium plasma and the reactor
ran as expected, allowing the team to switch to hydrogen, which has different
properties.
“This
was really the beginning, and the machine works nicely. The confinement time
was very large, we knew we were on the right path,” said Hans-Stephan Bosch,
who directs the division responsible for the operation of the stellarator.
The experiments are to
continue throughout March with the power of microwave pulses, which heat the
hydrogen rising to 20 megawatts. In 2019, the scientists will switch to
deuterium, a hydrogen isotope needed for fusion reaction to happen. |
|
Ready when
you are. (EPA/Stefan Sauer)
|
Germany Is Getting Closer To Nuclear
Fusion —The Long-Held Dream Of Unlimited Clean Energy
German
scientists today will set about the first steps towards what has become the
Holy Grail of energy—nuclear fusion, which has the potential for unlimited
amounts of clean power. There are
a number of challenges to harnessing this power—researchers need to build a
device that can heat atoms to temperatures of more than 100 million °C (180
million °F).
After
almost nine years of construction work and more than a million assembly hours,
researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Greifswald areset to do just that by heating a tiny amount of hydrogen until it becomes
as hot, hopefully, as the center of the Sun.
Researchers
are keen to tap into the incredible amount of energy released when atoms join
together at extremely high temperatures in the super-hot gas known as plasma.
Today’s test will not produce any energy, just the plasma—a different state of
matter created at extremely high temperatures. German chancellor Angela Merkel,
who has a doctorate in physics, will reportedly attend.
The
Wendelstein 7-x is the largest stellarator fusion device in the world—dubbed the “darkhorse in fusion energy research” and costing €370 million (US$404 million) to
build—rivalling the standard tokamak fusion reactor that was developed by
Soviet researchers. Researchers were able to carry out the first
successful experiment last year, producing helium plasma. Satisfied with
the initial results, researchers are setting out to work to produce the first
plasma from hydrogen.
Scientists
are still many years away from producing a clean and safe form of nuclear power
and there have been plenty of setbacks. In the last 60 years, scientists have
failed to create a fusion reaction that makes more energy than it consumes.
The international coalition
behind a rival, multibillion-dollar ITER fusion project, which aims to show
that nuclear fusion is technically feasible, recently
announced it would take six years longer than planned to build their
device—and require a lot more funding.
Originally published (STORY 1) in RT and (STORY 2) in QUARTZ AFRICA
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