Fusion eggheads claim modeling fix for particle escape - at least in stellarators There are plenty of reasons why fusion energy has yet to become reality, but according to a group of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and their collaborators, we may be one modeling breakthrough closer. The team's paper introduces a new method to address a long-standing problem in fusion physics: high-energy …
Makes me wonder if runaway electrons in tokamak fields have the same functional importance as the poorly confined α-particles of unoptimized stellarators, seeing how the latter are generally not omnigenous by comparison (hence the need to optimize stellarators via simulations).
Cool though to see that their machine-learned Hamiltonian-structured non-perturbative guiding-center-motion approach yields improved Poincaré maps relative to perturbed asymptotics (over a gyroperiod)!
"Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus"?
Yes, but only the most juicy and ripe ones ... picked from the arxiv preprint (under "Poincaré maps") ... TFA nicely channeled the bulk of 'em but a few choice pieces remained afield it seems, like "runaway electrons", "omnigeneity", "gyroperiod", "Hamiltonian structure", "asymptotic", and the squared dots of "Poincaré maps" ...
These rare full-flavored words, while treacherous to use in a proper sentence (as lexical fugu), do wonders to brighten everyone's day like a fresh baked granny pie imo ... ;)
So how often does it change?
Once a microsecond? Difficult. Once an hour? Probably manageable.
Congratulations on all of the UT team. Everything that a)Improves accuracy b)Does it quickly should be applauded. Quick approximations are OK to a point, but when you're betting multi $Bn on a design you want a bit more assurance.
Rocket science ain't that hard. Rocket engineering on the other hand is devilishly complicated.
It's much the same for fusion, the science is pretty well understood, engineering that science into a working reactor however may be unattainable for many years if not decades.
Whenever I see one of these fusion articles, I can't help thinking that advanced fission nuclear would be a much better bet.
Rod Adams (of Atomic Insights) has been promoting the idea of using fission heat to run a direct cycle gas turbine to produce electricity since the 90s. The key difference between this and current nuclear is that the gas passes through the reactor core then directly through a turbine, rather than using a heat exchanger as an intermediate step to heat a gas (steam) that then passes through a turbine.
Doing it with helium gas has proved impossible as you cannot go out and buy an off the shelf helium tubrine. But if heavy nitrogen (N15) was used instead, it could be used with the turbines currently used in gas fired power stations (with a closed cycle where the gas is collected on exit and cooled with sea or river water before being put back through the core).
This would cost decent money to develop, but doesn't seem to face the daunting challenges that fusion must overcome.
Some fusion heads seem hyper concerned about nuclear waste (probably because they don't want to think about fission and just want to get on with what they are interested in). But if you are worried about this you could nick Moltex Energy's idea of sticking molten salt fuel in fairly standard fuel pins, and stick them in this glass cooled reactor. Molten salt fuels enable simpler cheaper reprocessing of the fuel as no longer need to obtain ultra pure plutonium and uranium in order to make solid fuel cermaics or alloys. As a bonus molten slats are excellent at retaining fission products in any accident scenario.
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