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First Plasma on the Levitated Dipole Experiment
deglr6328 writes "In light of recent, somewhat disappointing news in the world of nuclear fusion research, it is worth noting that there are still reasons to keep up hope that some breakthroughs are yet to be made. At 12:53 pm on the 13th. of this month the Levitated Dipole Experiment achieved its first plasma. The Levitated Dipole Experiment(LDX), built at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center as a joint project of Columbia University and MIT, is a magnetic confinement fusion research device, that unlike all previous stellarator, reverse-field pinch and tokamak like experiments, uses a superconducting levitated torus to confine its plasma. The LDX's achievement of first plasma is, in a way, about 17 years in the making even though it has only been in construction since 1999. The concept for LDX was first considered by Akira Hasegawa as he was studying the data coming in from the Voyager missions which flew through the (dipole) magnetospheres of the outer planets. He noticed that unlike laboratory confined fusion plasmas which tended to be unstable, difficult to control, and which lost energy quickly, the plasma of a magnetosphere is intrinsically more quiescent, stable and actually reacts favorably (increases its density/temperature) to outside perturbations such as ie. bombardment by a solar storm. A highly informative and interesting video of operations on the day of first shot can be found here. Congratulations to the scientists and engineers who have worked very hard on getting the project to this point and here's looking forward to the possibility that LDX will reveal fundamentally new physics in the arduous quest for clean fusion energy."
now that's a gay nigger
In other news physics cranks fool slashdot moderators again.
... Focus fusion reactors do not require a heat engine.
The only intelligent sci.physics post that Google could find.
And now slashdot moderators, I would like to teach you how to detect a troll-crank. Let us disect this post.
these so called highly intelligent people at MIT
Why would a physicist speak in a derogatory manner towards a good school like MIT? Smells like a troll to me.
you're working against the Plasma rather than with.
Looks like this troll didn't read the article or even the article summary. What does that say about the moderators?
The only clear way to do this is via Focus Fusion
The only way to do something that has never been done is via some unproven theory that no one has ever heard of? Crank alarms ringing loudly now.
Tokamak reactors generate electricity by boiling water for a steam powered generator
Wow! This is 2 Nobel winning discoveries in one. Coal, Fission, and potentially Fuision all use steam turbines. The crank meter has gone through the roof.
After all, electricity is just moving charged particles.
There are charged particles in my hands. I am waving my hands. Look it's electricity.
The particle decelerators in a focus fusion reactor merely transfer the electricity of charged particle beams into a wire.
Completely inane. Do I have to explain how this is worse than wrong?
A focus fusion reactor should be able to economically generate power in quantities as small as 20MW from a power plant the size of a two car garage. This means they will be useful for powering individual villages in the third world where regional electricity grids are not as well developed. And in developed nations focus fusion power can be generated near where it will be used to reduce transmission losses and can be owned by the communities it serves to reduce dependence on speculative energy markets.
Wow, we can throw in a Nobel peace prize too. Free energy for everyone. That is so economically absurd that it is just rediculous.
If there are any financiers out there who have the backbone to do what is right in this world and do what is right for mankind, I urge you to fund this research to banish forever the specter of Fossil Fuel shortages and associated ecological damage and begin a new era in Human History.
Real research continues via government grants and commercial R&D, but these guys need your money. Sounds about as legit as a televangelist.
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