Our sun is a swirling sphere of hot plasma. It has an internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It generates its heat through nuclear fusion. For a while now, scientists have been striving to perfect miniature suns using a similar process. If they succeed, we could have sufficient clean and safe energy for all our needs, and the battle with carbon could be over.
How Would These Miniature Suns Work In Practice?
The theory is that nuclear fusion could produce heat to generate electricity by boiling purified water. This is much the same as what coal and nuclear do. The idea calls for two lighter atomic nuclei to combine to form a heavier nucleus. These miniature suns, or ‘tokamaks’ would produce heat in a similar process to what powers stars.
Nuclear fusion reactors require an extremely contained environment. Within that, high pressures and temperatures would generate plasma within which the reaction would occur. Inertial or magnetic methods would heat the plasma to millions of degrees C. The engineering challenge is creating a system to confine the plasma long enough for the fusion to occur.
The BBC Website Says We Are Closer Than We Think
Emma Woollcott writing for Technology of Business thinks we are five years away from harnessing power from these miniature suns. Once we achieve this we could have abundant, fossil-free power and escape a future that “looks decidedly bleak”.
“This is the ‘SpaceX moment’ for fusion,” says the CEO of General Fusion. “It’s the moment when the maturation of fusion science merges with the emergence of 21st Century enabling technologies. Additive manufacturing and high-temperature superconductors will get us there within five years.”
He is not alone in his vision. Tomakak Energy achieved plasma temperatures of more than 15 million C in June 2018. This is hotter than the core of the sun. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is building a doughnut-shaped tokamak with magnetic fields for containing the the hot plasma in place.”
They all share a dream of fusion-powered electricity arriving soon. Meanwhile global warming continues unabated. In case you wondered, ‘tokamak” is Russian for ‘toroidal chamber with magnetic field’.
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