[MCTG] Star In a Jar' Fusion Reactor Works

[BC]

    'Star In a Jar' Fusion Reactor Works, Promises Infinite Energy
    <https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/12/10/0123221/star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works-promises-infinite-energy>
    (space.com)
    <http://www.space.com/34960-star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works.html>
    280
    <https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/12/10/0123221/star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works-promises-infinite-energy#comments>


Posted by BeauHD <https://twitter.com/BeauHD> on Saturday December 10, 
2016 @02:00AM from the nothing-lasts-forever dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: /For several decades 
now, scientists from around the world have been pursuing a ridiculously 
ambitious goal: They hope to develop a nuclear fusion reactor that would 
generate energy in the same manner as the sun and other stars, but down 
here on Earth. Incorporated into terrestrial power plants, this "star in 
a jar" technology would essentially provide Earth with limitless clean 
energy, forever 
<http://www.space.com/34960-star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works.html>. 
And according to new reports out of Europe this week, we just took 
another big step toward making it happen. In a study published in the 
latest edition of the journal Nature Communications 
<http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13493>, researchers confirmed that 
Germany's Wendelstein 7-X <http://www.ipp.mpg.de/w7x> (W7-X) fusion 
energy device is on track and working as planned. The space-age system, 
known as a stellerator, generated its first batch of hydrogen plasma 
when it was first fired up earlier this year 
<http://www.seeker.com/fusion-reactor-spits-out-first-hydrogen-plasma-1770849413.html>. 
The new tests basically give scientists the green light to proceed to 
the next stage of the process. It works like this: Unlike a traditional 
fission reactor, which splits atoms of heavy elements to generate 
energy, a fusion reactor works by fusing the nuclei of lighter atoms 
into heavier atoms. The process releases massive amounts of energy and 
produces no radioactive waste. The "fuel" used in a fusion reactor is 
simple hydrogen, which can be extracted from water. The W7-X device 
confines the plasma within magnetic fields generated by superconducting 
coils cooled down to near absolute zero. The plasma -- at temperatures 
upwards of 80 million degrees Celsius -- never comes into contact with 
the walls of the containment chamber. Neat trick, that. David Gates 
<http://www.pppl.gov/people/david-gates>, principal research physicist 
for the advanced projects division of PPPL, leads the agency's 
collaborative efforts in regard to the W7-X project. In an email 
exchange from his offices at Princeton, Gates said the latest tests 
verify that the W7-X magnetic "cage" is working as planned. "This lays 
the groundwork for the exciting high-performance plasma operations 
expected in the near future," Gates said./

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'Star In a Jar' Fusion Reactor Works, Promises Infinite 
Energyhttps://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/12/10/0123221/star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works-promises-infinite-energy
fusion <https://slashdot.org/tag/fusion> hydrogen 
<https://slashdot.org/tag/hydrogen> plasma <https://slashdot.org/tag/plasma>

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