MIT Researchers Says Fusion Reactor “Most Likely Will Work”
Is controlled thermonuclear fusion almost with us?
A group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other institutes claim that the compact SPARC fusion reactor will work in reality. At least in theory, as they claim in a series of recently published studies.
The team points out that no unexpected obstacles or surprises were found during the planning stages. This is stated in seven articleswritten by 47 researchers from 12 different scientific institutions.
In other words, the research “confirms that the development we are working on is likely to function,” Martin Greenwald, project leader and deputy director of MIT’s Plasma Research and Fusion Center, told The New York Times.
Fusion energy remains elusive. The technology promises a safe and clean way to generate energy by fusing the nuclei of atoms, just as it happens on the Sun. Research has been going on for a century, but so far no one has been able to put the idea into practice.
SPARC is one of the largest privately financed projects in this area (translator’s note: together with the MIT project runs a startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems)… It will be the first “burning plasma” reactor of its kind, where isotopes of hydrogen are fused to form helium, without any additional energy input.
Render tokomak SPARC, CFS / MIT-PSFC
With advances in superconducting magnets, the team hopes to achieve the same performance as large reactors. For example, like the giant ITER reactor (ITER, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which began to be assembled last July.
The magnets keep the reactions that generate huge amounts of heat inside the reactor. This is one of the most acute problems of thermonuclear fusion.
According to the team’s calculations, SPARC will be capable of producing twice as much fusion energy as it takes to generate a reaction. That would be a huge leap, because no researcher has even managed to break even.
SPARC is designed as a medium-sized, high-power tokamak to achieve clean energy gain using the ion cyclotron frequency range (ICRF) as the primary auxiliary heating mechanism. Empirical projections indicate that SPARC baseline plasmas will reach Q ≈ 11. This is well above the Q> 2 target. Integrated physics simulations have also been performed to ensure the success of SPARC. The TRANSP codes, combined with the theoretically based Landau Turbulence Fluid Model (TGLF) and the EPED prediction for pedestal stability, found that Q ≈ 9 can be achieved in standard H-mode of operation, and Q> 2 is possible even with unfavorable assumptions.
In fact, in the articles, the researchers point out that they could theoretically generate ten times more energy. But there is a lot of work to be done before they can say for sure.
The MIT team hopes to build their own compact reactor in the next three to four years. And the ultimate goal is to start producing electricity in 2035, NYT reports.
Some scientists who have worked on thermonuclear power for decades say they are enthusiastic about SPARC, but the timeline seems unrealistic.
“Reading these articles gave me the feeling that they would have the most controlled fusion plasma we dream of there,” says physicist Carey Foster of the University of Wisconsin, not involved in the project. “But if I was evaluating where they are, I would multiply by two, as I do with all my graduate students when they say how long a task will take.”
What fellow physicists think of SPARC
“What we’re trying to do is: put the strongest physical foundation for the project to be sure it will do the job, and then provide guidance and answer engineering design questions as it goes,” Greenwald said in a statement.
* Art with Gordon Freeman was used because of the editor’s personal love for Half-Life. We are not hinting that everything will end like in Black Mesa.
