Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor sets world record on final day of operation

[ScienceRocks]

Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor sets world record on final day of operation

On Friday, Sept. 30, at 9:25 p.m. EDT, scientists and engineers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center made a leap forward in the pursuit of clean energy. The team set a new world record for plasma pressure in the Institute's Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma pressure is the key ingredient to producing energy from nuclear fusion, and MIT's new result achieves over 2 atmospheres of pressure for the first time.

Alcator leader and senior research scientist Earl Marmar will present the results at the International Atomic Energy Agency Fusion Energy Conference, in Kyoto, Japan, on Oct. 17.
Nuclear fusion has the potential to produce nearly unlimited supplies of clean, safe, carbon-free energy. Fusion is the same process that powers the sun, and it can be realized in reactors that simulate the conditions of ultrahot miniature "stars" of plasma—superheated gas—that are contained within a magnetic field.
For over 50 years it has been known that to make fusion viable on the Earth's surface, the plasma must be very hot (more than 50 million degrees), it must be stable under intense pressure, and it must be contained in a fixed volume. Successful fusion also requires that the product of three factors—a plasma's particle density, its confinement time, and its temperature—reaches a certain value. Above this value (the so-called "triple product"), the energy released in a reactor exceeds the energy required to keep the reaction going.
Pressure, which is the product of density and temperature, accounts for about two-thirds of the challenge. The amount of power produced increases with the square of the pressure—so doubling the pressure leads to a fourfold increase in energy production.

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[docmauser1]

Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor sets world record on final day of operation ...Nice

Generals will be happy, indeed.