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Princeton Nuclear Fusion Reactor Will Run Again
mdsolar writes with good news for the National Spherical Torus Experiment. Tucked away from major roadways and nestled amid more than 80 acres of forest sits a massive warehouse-like building where inside, a device that can produce temperatures hotter than the sun has sat cold and quiet for more than two years. But the wait is almost over for the nuclear fusion reactor to get back up and running at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. "We're very excited and we're all anxious to turn that machine back on," said Adam Cohen, deputy director for operations at PPPL. The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has been shut down since 2012 as it underwent a $94 million upgrade that will make it what officials say will be the most powerful fusion facility of its kind in the world. It is expected to be ready for operations in late winter or early spring, Cohen said.
Public cynicism about fusion seems to have peaked at almost exactly the same time as there are a lot of new ideas and experiments ready to go.
Even the needlessly big, expensive NIF has hit some amazing recent roadmarks recently(scientific net positive), while at the same time their funding is being slashed. Lots of new clever experiments seem to be promising(like Larwenceville plasma physics' Focus Fusion record heat density), in an era where no one in policy positions seems interested in chasing the tech.
I'm glad Princeton is getting back in the game, but everything I hear says there won't be enough funding to actually get the staffing they need.
Looks like a sphere with an empty column down the middle
Spherical Torus?
I wondered the same thing. However, the National Spherical Torus Experiment web site has this explanation:
The magnetic field in NSTX forms a plasma that is a torus since there is a hole through the center, but where the outer boundary of the plasma is almost spherical in shape, hence the name “spherical torus” or “ST”.
There are also some links to more detailed descriptions.
Not to be confused with a spherical taurus in a vacuum.
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Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I think you forgot to change accounts before posting.
Newsflash: humans use approximations when convenient for explaining something, and do not use strict definitions at all times.
Of course it makes no sense!
Why would a nice, stable form of baseline power with a compact, energy-dense fuel supply interest anyone? Amiright?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In other words, it's a torus.
No it is not. There is a very clear defintion to what a torus is, and this is not. It may be seen as a torus-like shape, but not a torus. Proper use of terminology is important in science and engineering.
It may not be of the standard donut dimensions people are accustomed to when they think torus, but it's still a torus.
Again, its not a question of what people are accustomed to, but rather a question of definition. And no, the shape named "thorus" is not defined through the shape of a donut.
It's like saying that a rectangle with dimensions of 50x51 is a square-like rectangle. Simply calling it a rectangle would do.
False analogy. Both linguisting points are absolutely not comparable. In the case of the shape of the Tokamak built at PPPL, it is neither a sphere nor a torus. It's something else, which has no specific name. In your analogy, the 50x51 surface IS a rectangle. A better analogy would be, assuming there is no name such as rectangle for a 50x51 surface with straight angles, calling it a square-like box.
Proper use of terminology is important in science and engineering.
When we get to any actual science or engineering then I will pretend to care. Until then it really is not important in a forum like slashdot to anyone but a few overly pedantic people who don't know when to pick their battles. Just because people here generally care about science and engineering doesn't mean we can't deal with a little obvious imprecision in a description of a shape. No one will be negatively affected by the fact that it isn't truly a torus and most of us are well aware that it isn't actually a torus by the proper defintion. It's like pointing out that the Saint Louis Arch is actually a catenary instead of a parabola as is commonly assumed. Interesting but ultimately not genuinely important 99.999999999% of the time.
The first airplane only flew 120 feet. Clearly air travel should never have been researched after such an abysmal failure in one of the first attempts.
The first airplane only flew 120 feet.
... and sixty years later we were walking on the moon. Sixty years after the first fusion reactor, where are we?
One bajillion comments, and nobody's mentioned Thorium yet? I am surprised. Am I the only one around here who thinks a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is a very good idea?
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
Newsflash: humans use approximations when convenient for explaining something, and do not use strict definitions at all times.
Bah silly humans, you don't even have a working protocol for inter individual communication and you think that you are going to master fusion.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame