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The Bizarre Reactor Scientists Hope Will Save Fusion Research (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: In a gleaming research lab in Germany's northeastern corner, researchers are preparing to switch on a fusion device called a stellarator, the largest ever built. The €1-billion machine, known as Wendelstein 7-X looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet. Stellarators have long been dark horses in fusion energy research but the Dali-esque devices have many attributes that could make them much better prospects for a commercial fusion power plant than the more popular tokamaks: Once started, stellarators naturally purr along in a steady state and they are not prone to the potentially metal-bending magnetic disruptions that plague tokamaks. Unfortunately they are devilishly hard to build.
"Tokamak researchers HATE them!"
looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.
Sure, in the same way a croissant does.
Meaning, not at all.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Whirr Whir Whir Whir CLUNK.
"They told me they fixed it! It's not my fault!" as they furiously poke at buttons.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're just spinning in circles at this point.
As any student of history knows, Greifswald was the location of assorted secret Nazi research projects during WWII. This thing wasn't built recently, they dug it up from the mine where it was buried in 1945 to hide it from the advancing Russians. Look at the photo of the cryostat, that's classic 1940s engineering design. The reason for the "schedule slips" mentioned in the article is because they've had problems disarming all the booby traps left to kill Russian investigators. Next thing you know a previously unknown German research institute in the Owl Mountains will invent an antigravity device, and another heretofore-unknown research group at Hillersleben will announce the creation of a death ray.
Remember, you read it first on Slashspot.
And if it melts down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp, we'll just build another, which will be the strongest reactor in all the lands.