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Tennessee takes big step towards nuclear fusion power by ferujkll sdff
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Tennessee takes big step towards nuclear fusion power |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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Imagine a world without man-made climate change, energy crunches orreliance on foreign oil. It may sound like a dream world, butUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville, engineers have made a giantstep toward making this scenario a reality. UT researchers have successfully developed a key technology indeveloping an experimental reactor that can demonstrate thefeasibility of fusion energy for the power grid. Nuclear fusionpromises to supply more energy than the nuclear fission used todaybut with far fewer risks.
Mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering professors DavidIrick, Madhu Madhukar and Masood Parang are engaged in a projectinvolving the United States, five other nations, and the EuropeanUnion, known as ITER. UT researchers completed a critical step thisweek for the project by successfully testing their technology thisweek that will insulate and stabilize the central solenoid-thereactor's backbone. ITER is building a fusion reactor that aims to produce 10 times theamount of energy that it uses. The facility is now underconstruction near Cadarache, France, and will begin operations in2020.
"The goal of ITER is to help bring fusion power to the commercialmarket," Madhukar said. "Fusion power is safer and more efficientthan nuclear fission power. There is no danger of runaway reactionslike what happened in nuclear fission reactions in Japan andChernobyl, and there is little radioactive waste." Unlike today'snuclear fission reactors, fusion uses a similar process as thatwhich powers the sun. Since 2008, UT engineering professors and about 15 students haveworked inside UT's Magnet Development Laboratory (MDL) located offof Pellissippi Parkway to develop technology that serves toinsulate and provide structural integrity to the more than 1,000ton central solenoid. A tokamak reactor uses magnetic fields to confine the plasma-a hot,electrically charged gas that serves as the reactor fuel-into theshape of a torus.
The central solenoid, which consists of six giantcoils stacked on top of one another, plays the starring role byboth igniting and steering the plasma current. The key to unlocking the technology was finding the rightmaterial-a glass fiber and epoxy chemical mixture that is liquid athigh temperatures and turns hard when cured-and the right processof inserting this material into all of the necessary spaces insidethe central solenoid. The special mixture provides electrical insulation and strength tothe heavy structure. The impregnation process moves the material atthe right pace, factoring in temperature, pressure, vacuum and thematerial's flow rate.
This week, the UT team tested the technology inside its mockup ofthe central solenoid conductor. "During the epoxy impregnation, we were in a race against time,"said Madhukar. "With the epoxy, we have these competing parameters.The higher the temperature, the lower the viscosity; but at thesame time, the higher the temperature, the shorter the working lifeof the epoxy." It took two years to develop the technology, more than two days toimpregnate the central solenoid mockup and multiple pairs ofwatchful eyes to ensure everything went according to plan. It did.
This summer, the team's technology will be transferred to US ITERindustry partner General Atomics in San Diego, which will build thecentral solenoid and ship it to France. ITER-designed to demonstrate the scientific and technologicalfeasibility of fusion power-will be the world's largest tokamak. Asan ITER member, the US receives full access to all ITER-developedtechnology and scientific data, but bears less than 10 percent ofthe construction cost, which is shared among partner nations. USITER is a Department of Energy Office of Science project managed byOak Ridge National Laboratory. I am Batteries writer, reports some information about chocolate lollipop molds , luxury sheet sets.
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