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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."
Researchers were stunned on Saturday as they discovered that the key component of the new fusion bottle has gone missing. A late-night janitor reported hearing someone say "Mmmmmmm...levitating superconductive plasma donut" shortly before the crucial torus disappeared.
Now we can all keenly anticipate the first episode of Enterprise to mention the almighty superconducting levitated torus that has powered Federation impulse drives all long.
The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he didn't see any theoretical reason why cold fusion would not work. Then again, there is no theoretical reason why every subatomic particle in your body could not simultaneously jump one foot to the left.
is it just me, or does anyone else get a tad nervous when they see 'nuclear fusion' and 'akira' in the same context of an article discussing real world scientific research?
it's nothing like the cool sun like plasma ball they showed in the spiderman 2. No indestructable antimagnetic hands with AI attached to some guy's back and head. I just watched the video and all they showed was some blue light through a looking glass in some ridiculous cylinder. They should take some pointers from the Hollywood producers and start making plasma balls in open space and have people with gigantic robot arms controlling it. Then maybe the will get more funding.
You can't handle the truth.
Too afraid to RTFA with a summary that long. Brain hurts, must go lie down now.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Exactly. Groups like Greenpeace are so informed and ignorant they are hindering clean cheap energy. The amount of radioactive waste put into the atmosphere by coal is much greater than nuclear fission. Fission is clean and a lot more abundant than coal or oil. It will take some time but we should be gearing up for a hydrogen economy where hydrogen gas is used in everything from cars to cell phones. The hydrogen can come from nuclear power plants.
Call me crazy, but I think this is a good solution.
So then the phenomenon of life is merely a complex arrangement of atoms and nothing more?
We have no reason to believe otherwise.
It's the equivalent of using Rockets underwater verses using fins.
Bad analogy; squid, octopus and cuttlefish have no problem whatsoever utilizing a propulsion system that acts on the same principles as a rocket.
Regarding the main thrust of your post, please could you outline the salient points of the conspiracy which currently stands in the way of the cheap, eco-friendly, limitless power which you describe? Extra points if you use the phrase 'zero-point energy'!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
For those unfortunate slashdot readers of lesser ISP fortitude, slashdot is proud to offer the following descriptive video summery.
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Brought to you by The Undergraduate Research Assistants Pool - a statistically significant proportion of particle physicists agree, only Undergraduate Research Assistants can stand up to the kind of abuse a particle physicist demands.
[TITLE SEQUENCE]
[lively tour of facility]
[8 minutes of reality-show-finally like filler including:
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with research assistant]
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with research assistant]
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with female research assistant]
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with research assistant in blue hard hat]
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with Physicist]
[clip montage of scientific equipment]
[uncomfortable in-your-face interview with research assistant in blue hard hat]
]
[nasa tv style clip of scientists congratulating each other over inscrutable data on distant CRT's during and after triumphant success]
[replay of triumphant success, this time with wholly satisfying video of glowing blue science goodness]
[obligatory fade out to historical prospective text that scrolls by too quickly]
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming
Using Chernobyl as an example of why nuclear energy is stupid and I wish you people would cut it out. (By "you people" I mean the people who keep doing it.) Chernobyl was an antiquated design by the time it was built and they were testing what would happen if they did several stupid things at once. Compounded with the stupidity of operating such a crappy old reactor design, this causes a catastrophic accident which, as you point out, made many people unhappy.
Should you do several stupid things at once in a modern reactor, the reactor will fail in such a way that it shuts down. It doesn't melt down. The reactors are designed such that they must constantly be maintained just to keep the reaction going, and if they fail, they fail to a cold state.
This is not to say that it's impossible to have a horrible catastrophic failure with a newer design, but consider this: Coal burning power plants have put more radioactive material into our atmosphere than all the nuclear fission accidents combined.
Fusion would be the clean and safe way to go if it were here, but it isn't. It's going to be a while before we have a reactor that has any output beyond sustaining itself and it's going to be even longer than that before we have a fusion reactor which is actually profitable on a reasonable time scale. As such, I think it's worth it to build a few fission plants now. We can always decommission them when we finally get fusion working meaningfully.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Greenpeace et al will still behave like this is the beast of apocalypse."
The bile spewed by supposedly intelligent people when it comes to atomic energy is simply staggering. Greenies don't object to nuclear power on principle - the problem is safe transport and storage of fuel and waste. Take away that problem (as future fusion reactors could do, correct?) and I'm all for it.
Enjoy your karma, whore.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
Perhaps I miscalculated in thinking that slashdot would be a good place to submit this news to. I had thought that the community here would be so much more scientifically literate and skeptical than, judging from comments here, it clearly is, and who would be a group which would enjoy hearing detailed news of an albeit small step toward a possible clean and infinite energy source of the future. Here we are ~150 posts in, and most are along the lines of "why are we wasting our time on this", "cold fusion is being suppressed", "it'll never work, we're wasting money", "ugh, too much reading" and all manner of other pseudoscientifically inclined rubbish. It's not merely that these posts exist that's depressing, it's that it's being MODDED UP.
Is this truly the state of disaffection and ignorance that exists in the general public (and this is slashdot!) today toward fundamental scientific research and technological achievement? I simply can not imagine that this is actually the case and I stronly hope that what is seen here is not merely a product of intellectual laziness but is, instead, a result of a deep failure on the part of the scientific community to excite and educate the public about its pursuits. At least I HOPE this is the case, then perhaps something might be done to remedy the situation.
Though, a small part of me suspects that this is not the case and that in the ever richer and more comfortable "west" we truly are slowly but surely slipping down a slope of scientific indifference and even hostility; and that subsequent generations may curse our graves for allowing a wide margin of the public to consistently indulge in such shameful, wilfull ignorance.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
In the case of LDX, however, tritium is completely unnecessary for operation, as it makes use of the Deuterium-Deuterium reaction.
And there's a lot of Deuterium in the oceans. I believe the estimate is that we could run our entire civilization off of the Deuterium present in just the first centimeter of the oceans for one or more years. And we'd put most of that water back, so you don't even have to worry about the oceans being taken away from all the little fishies. :-)
You would be referring to the David-Besse plant, not the Perry plant.
:) Try to remember that dying from a nuclear plant accident is orders of magnitude less likely for anyone on the planet than even dying from lightning - even if you are a golfer :)
It wasn't a "hole" it was a crater and pitting from boric acid leakage that damaged the reactor vessel. According to some other articles I saw in a quick Google search, they have a emergency sump system that would recirculate any coolant that leaked thru that hole back into the reactor - there would have been no meltdown *
The boric acid was stopped by a stainless steel outer layer that was another of the layers of defense. It could have eaten thru that, too, but it would have taken many years, many more than elapse between the regular inspections (AMAF it was when the plant was taken down for refueling - which happens pretty seldom - that they discovered the damage) and this was a *very* unusual accident, one which has prompted a considerable amount of redesign. Note that David-Besse and similar plants are also very old designs.
*NO* power production system is safe. NOT EVER. But fission plants have a much better safety record than any of the others do, which was drinkypoo's point. Look at the coalmine disasters, natural gas production facility disasters, and other dangers we face from "conventional" energy production. Even including Chernobyl fission has killed or injured FAR fewer people and environments than any of the other technologies.
Anyway, try to make an effort to get your facts straight and read about the events you describe before fear-mongering. If nothing else it helps other people take you seriously.
BTW, I lived near and got power from a fission reactor for twelve years out of my life. Never bothered me nor any of the people who lived there, either. Of course we Minnesotans know that our winters are much more likely to kill us than a power generation plant is
* Although there is a question of whether the filters in the emergency coolant containment system could have clogged, this problem is being addressed and has already been fixed in many plants - this according to info that's already fairly old and fixes have been implemented.
Cheers,
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
OK, I'll bite (I am a chemist :-).
Those guys indeed knew how to use their calorimeter, but they did not concern themselves with any other part of science, and, hence, in the interpretation of their measurements (not in the measurement results per se) they have made several trivial mistakes. Sadly, that is the way many scientists who are in possession of some exotic/expensive piece of equipment behave. I've seen it many times.
Now about cold fusion... Unfortunately, it is physically impossible, and for a reason. The Coulomb barrier to bring together 2 hydrogen nuclei is enormous, and it is the reason why 10^6 K (or maybe even hotter) temperature is normally needed to start the reaction. At more human conditions, nuclei could, of course, tunnel through the Coulomb barrier and fuse as much as they want. Problem is, this tunnelling is extremely slow (rate is actually easy to calculate - I think it will be in any college radiochemistry course), and it won't be sufficient to sustain the reaction, or even measure its heat on the macroscopic scale.
The mechanism proposed by Fleischmann did not take into account the extremely high activation energy for fusion. They did have a vague concept that there should be an activation energy, and that it is probably high, but they did not realize how high it is...
Actually, they typically do the opposite: they have the cadmium "control" rods get lowered DOWN into the reactor. Cadmium absorbs neutrons, so if something goes wrong, they just drop them and the reaction stops in a fraction of a second.
Not that this makes everything safe. Read the report on Three Mile Island sometime. It's long, but it's a fascinating read.
Just about every power plant uses steam to power turbines, thus this accident could have happened at any of them.
Only types that don't use steam that I can think of off the top of my head is wind and hydroelectric. Most solar plants use mirrors to direct the light to a central point, using the collected light to make steam...
A better link would be Don't Mix Uranium in a Bucket
This was not a power plant accident, but a processing accident where the workers were, in my opinion, darwin award candidates. "Let's bypass safety procedures and rather than using the machine provided and doing it in small batches (to keep the uranium from going critical), we'll hurry it up by dumping it in a bucket and stirring it!"
It should be noted that more people die each year in coal mining/transportation accidents. But since these deaths happen so regularly, they're not reported in the news. It's like the fact that flying is safer than driving, but people pay lots of attention to plane crashes, because they're unusual.
I should be noted that the BBC makes some scary statements, like more than 300,000 people in the surrounding area were placed in danger. Other articles point out "Hundreds evacuated", which makes me think that the BBC is exagerating in their statement. Like most industrial accidents, the dilution needed to reach that many people would render it mostly harmless. The workers were harmed because they were right there.
Anytime industry gets big enough, accidents will happen occasionally. Especially with the universe conspiring to come up with bigger fools...
I don't read AC A human right
IANANP, BIWARPFMEAC*. I'd like to elaborate a little bit on this point:
Fission occurs when a heavy radioactive nucleus (in the control rods) absorbs a neutron and splits into two smaller nuclei and a few extra neutrons. These new neutrons can be absorbed by other heavy nucli, and more fission occurs.
Now most of the neutrons released move too fast to be absorbed by a nucleus; instead, they just bounce off. In order for a sustainable reaction to take place, a material - called the moderator - is required to slow down the neutrons so that they can be absorbed.
Most modern** nuclear reactors are pressure-water reactors. This means that they use water as both a coolant and as a moderator. If the water excapes, then the reaction fissles out.
However, Chernobyl was initially designed with a solid moderator built into the reactor vessel. (I think it was graphite, if I remember correctly.) It used water purely as a coolant. So when the coolant leaked, the reactor kept on fissing atoms and the reaction got out of control (although not fast enough for a thermonuclear reaction).
That wasn't the only problem. The reactor's personal paniced and tried to send the control rods in too quickly. While the control rods were halfway in, neutrons bounced into the bottom of the reactor and formed a critical amount for a chain reaction. At the same time, the heat of the reaction and loss of pressure from the origional malfunction turned the leftover water into steam pockets also in the bottom of the reactor. Soon after, an explosion ruptured the reaction vessel.
Perhaps the primary cause of the accident (and of TMI) was the confusing interface to the equipment! Some devices used red lights to signify emergency conditions, while others used green or another color. Instruments were hard to read and slow to respond. An ergonomical failure contributed to the accident.
Today, most control rooms have learned from the mistakes at TMI and Chernobyl. They are easier and more consistant to use. However, even more improvements are possible with new designs. It is a pity that nobody will allow the old workhorses ot be retired.
* I am not a nuclear physicist, but I wrote a research paper for my Engineering Analysis class.
** "Modern Nuclear Reactor" is somewhat of an oxymoron. Due to NIMBY feelings among the general public, most commercial nuclear reactors are old (60s-70s era) and modern designs are never given a chance despite the improvements in efficiency, safety, and (less) waste production. :-(
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
I had thought that the community here would be so much more scientifically literate and skeptical than
The lack of serious comments might in part be due to skepticisim. I'm coming from more of a medical perspective, but I'm sure in all fields that getting 'too' excited about promising initial results is a sure way to spend a huge amount of time severly let down. Aside from that, as the AC below mentioned, it's Saturday. I think many reading are doing so as a quick fix, rather than getting ready for serious reading.
And for someone lacking in background on this, such as myself, it looks like a significant amount of reading to get the background needed to really appreciate this. You provided ten different links, some of which themselves require additional reading to first determine which links there need to be read in order to grasp their significance to the topic. The general information link on the Stellarator page didn't even work. Yes, I just proceeded to look up Stellarator on wikipedia. But I'm also blessed with an abundance of free time today. That said, I know it is difficult to properly gauage the amount of background information any group is going to have. Assume too little and it can come off as insulting 'plasma is a really hot thing, and would burn you if you tried to eat it!', too much and the audience might wind up too intimidated and just crack jokes instead of doing a little background reasearch in order to catch up. Also, while slashdot does have a scientific nature, it's 'very' heavily skewed to computer science. The further away from that, the more the main audience is going to be out of the area they have the most confidence speaking about. Many people won't speak up if they find themselves in a topic where their lack of knowledge is very apparent.
That said, I hope you don't become too disheartened. While I came to this with very little understanding of the topic, I found a preliminary read of some of the information quite interesting and intend to look further into it. And if I am, I'm sure many others who are as ignorent of physics as myself will be doing so as well. We'll probaly just not comment, as there's little someone in our situation could really add to the discusion.
I in part agree with your view of the moderation. I loaded the comments up hoping for additional clarification by people knowledgable on the subject, and instead most of the moderation was for funnies. I wouldn't be too disdainful of the cold fusion moderation though. Personally, I'm grateful it was moderated up just because it also brought the conflicting replies to my attention as well.
Everything will be taken away from you.
After producing two rings at the opposite end of a vacuum tube, they were guided by a magnetic field until they collided. At collision they repelled each other, and then were compressed. The rings heated up and stayed stable for 30 microseconds under compression ( which by plasma standards is a long time). The funding was cut off in 1978 because the concept was too far from the mainstream.
In 1999 John Brandenburg received a grant from NASA to move the experiment from Miami to Lanham MD (near NASA Goddard). He moved it and reassembled it, but never received an money to operate it. It stands gathering dust.
Right now, Paul Koloc is doing something similar in his garage, producing ball lightning ( a stable plasma structure that has been documented since Roman times). His project, Plasmak, has received some sbir funding. For more details on the Plasmak, look here.
From reading the white paper, I do not think the Trisops plasma is the same configuration as in the levitated dipole experiment. I do not have a clear idea of the structure of the Plasmak.
I list the Trisops papers below for anyone who wants to follow up.
Daniel R. Wells, Paul Edward Ziajka, and Jack L. Tunstall. Hydrodynamic confinement of thermonuclear plasmas TRISOPS VIII (plasma liner confinement). Fusion Tech., 9:83, 1986.
Winston H. Bostick and Daniel R. Wells. Azimuthal magnetic field in the conical theta pinch. Phys. Fluids, 6(9):1325, 1963.
"Simultaneous Electron Density and Ion Temperature Measurements of a Moderately Dense Plasma Using Doppler and Stark Broadened He-II Lines" (with others), Applied Optics (Letters) v 17, p1481, 1978.
"High Temperature, High Density Plasma Production by Vortex Ring Compression" (with others), Physical Review Letters, v 41 #3, p166, 1978. "
The Interaction between Two Force Free Plasma Vortices in the TRISOPS III Machine" (with others), Physics of Fluids, v 22, p379, 1979.