• Question: What is stopping us developing fusion reators and why can't we harness the energy that is relesed?

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      Asked by #lrealsedangerouschemicals to Sarwat, Alex, Anaïs, Peter, Shreesha on 18 Mar 2015.
      • Photo: Peter Maskell

        Peter Maskell answered on 18 Mar 2015:

        the problem we have at the moment is that we have two problems

        1)sustained confinement – we need to be able to confine the reaction so it becomes self sustainable.
        2) choice of container materials – making a container that can withstand long term damage from the reaction

        we seem to be moving closer. hopefully we will crack it one day.

      • Photo: Shreesha Bhat

        Shreesha Bhat answered on 18 Mar 2015:

        Last year, I saw in the news that Lockheed Martin is very close to developing a truck-sized nuclear fusion reactor, and i would say this company is the place where you need to keep an eye on, as any time within the next 10 years, we may see a nuclear fusion reactor working and producing tons of energy!

        The present technology till now used was a tokamak, in which the superhot plasma (formed by heating the gas containing hydrogen ions) is controlled by strong magnetic fields that prevent it from touching the sides of the vessel and, if the confinement is sufficiently constrained, the ions overcome their mutual repulsion, collide and fuse to form helium. It so happens that in this case, they can only contain the plasma to a certain extent (which is very low), if they increase the magnetic pressure, their confining tire will fail and burst.

        In case of the technology used by Lockheed, instead of using tubular rings, they use a series of superconducting coils to contain the plasma, and have a self-tuning feedback mechanism, whereby the farther out the plasma goes, the stronger the magnetic field pushes back to contain it. So, its a really promising approach. Lets see if this materialises in near future.

        I would suggest to bookmark this page: http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/products/compact-fusion.html

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