Nuclear Fusion: A new British company thinks it’s got there. Here is his step by step procedure

Nuclear fusion always seems like something too distant in the future. It has been talked about for decades, but it always seems to be an energy source “Only a few steps ahead”. Too bad that these steps are very long or turn out to be dead-end paths.

Now it seems that finally there is clarity on a new method to achieve fusion without the large and complicated tokamaks, the plasma containment machines used up to now for this purpose. General Fusion claims to have cracked the code to develop the world's first commercially viable fusion power plant, with a demonstration plant planned in the UK.

Here's how it works.

Phase 1

General Fusion begins by coating a melting chamber with liquid metal. An internal rotor turns the chamber, pushing the metal towards the edges.

Phase 2

Once the metal is spinning, more than 500 pistons outside the chamber start firing. Slight variations in the pressure and velocity of the pistons push the liquid metal inward, compressing its cylinder-to-ball shape.

Phase 3

The plasma injector at the top of the chamber heats the gaseous hydrogen up to 5 million degrees Celsius. This is hot enough to cause the gas to change state in a plasma. Powerful electromagnets inside the injector then wrap a magnetic field around this glowing plasma.

Phase 4

The injector pushes the plasma into the center of the liquid metal which, in a few tens of milliseconds, compresses it and heats it to 100 million degrees Celsius. At this point the fusion takes place. The magnetic field acts as a protective barrier between the plasma and the liquid metal, keeping the tank walls relatively cool.

Step 5

The energy created by the fusion is captured by the liquid metal, at this moment under pressure, which is then pumped through a heat exchanger, where it turns into vapor.

Step 6

The steam drives a turbine that produces electricity.

The initial plant will be demonstrative, but it is under construction and this is already exceptional in itself. If the theoretical system works and demonstrates the operation of this solution, then it will be possible to move on to the first commercial prototype. A long journey, which will take years, assuming it works. But every journey begins with a first step …

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The article Nuclear Fusion: A New British Company Thinks It's Got There. Here is his step-by-step procedure from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/fusione-nucleare-una-nuova-societa-britannica-pensa-di-esserci-arrivata-ecco-la-sua-procedura-passo-passo/ on Mon, 08 Aug 2022 20:17:34 +0000.