Thermonuclear Reactor To Use Coconut Shells

destinyland writes "A key component of a $10 billion nuclear fusion plant is vintage 2002 Indonesian coconut-shell charcoal. After a 20-year search, German researchers discovered that the coconut-shell charcoal is the best medium for 'adsorbing' waste byproducts sucked out of the thermonuclear reactor's vacuum chamber. In what will be the first fusion power facility that's commercially viable, magnetic fields will heat hydrogen isotopes to over 150 million degrees Centigrade. (Essentially, the super-hot plasma creates artificial stars.) As the article points out, 'It's not quite a Starship warp drive, but it does harness the power of the sun.'"

Comments

Thanks for finding me a tech website to ignore

[sh00z]

Any editor discussing technology who still feels the need to put the word adsorb into quotes, as though it's not a legitimate English term, should be fired. If you're afraid your audience won't understand, then insert a sidebar on the mechanics of adsorption; don't act as though it's a term out of sci-fi.