Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

Listened to the report on the Nuclear Fusion testing Breakthrough this past week by the DOE and Lawrence Livermore Labs (LLNL), More to follow. Here is a presentation to the press and panel discussion.

https://youtu.be/Cmzep3YaRNI

Panel Discussion: Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

On December 5 2022, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone, also known as scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. This historic, first-of-its kind achievement will provide unprecedented capability to support NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program and will provide invaluable insights into the prospects of clean fusion energy .... ' 

Towards Fusion-Nuclear Military Aircraft

As mentioned, not a new thing.

LOCKHEED MARTIN HAS A PATENT FOR FUSION-POWERED FIGHTERS AND BOMBERS

Alex Hollings | October 25, 2022

Back in 2018, Lockheed Martin filed a patent for something it called a “plasma confinement system” — a device small enough to fit inside the fuselage of an F-16 Fighting Falcon that is capable of managing internal temperatures 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

This scalable device was designed to play a vital role in containing an approach to power production that some still consider science fiction: nuclear fusion. Now, recent advancements in the field are making fusion power look not just possible, but potentially even feasible. In the coming years, fusion could not only change everything about the way the world fights wars… it could even change the way humanity approaches conflict itself.

And it all might start within the shadowy confines of the Pentagon’s black budget.

Related: Why does the media report on secretive defense programs?

Nuclear aircraft aren’t a new concept

An air-to-air view of the Convair NB-36H experimental aircraft (s/n 51-5712) and a Boeing B-50 Superfortress chase plane during research and development taking place at the Convair plant at Forth Worth, Texas. (U.S. Air Force Photo)

As soon as mankind realized it could produce huge amounts of power by splitting the atom, efforts began to incorporate this new concept into just about everything, including airplanes. Using just a small bit of fuel, nuclear power could allow fighters, bombers, or reconnaissance platforms to stay airborne practically indefinitely. But despite several programs aimed at fielding such an aircraft propulsion system, atom-splitting fission reactors simply offered greater risk than reward when hurtling through the air at 50,000 feet.

Fission efforts did find a useful home in naval applications, with programs leading to today’s nuclear-powered submarines and supercarriers. But aviation efforts like Project Pluto’s nuclear-powered SLAM missile or Convair’s NB-36 nuclear-powered bomber, on the other hand, now come off as a bit crazy.

Nuclear ramjet from Project Pluto

Project Pluton’s Slam missile could have flown for thousands of miles, dropping hydrogen bombs and spewing radiation all along the way while producing such an intense amount of noise that scientists working on the program believed the soundwaves alone would kill anyone the missile passed over. The NB-36 could also stay airborne practically indefinitely to serve as an ongoing nuclear deterrent… but any crash or mishap could have led to an environmental disaster.

Today, the only publicly disclosed program, of any nation, aimed at fielding a fission-powered airborne platform is Russia’s 9M730 Burevestnik, or Skyfall missile. Despite a great deal of hype, however, it seems no closer to fruition today than when it was announced in 2018. And as if to prove the inherent danger of this enterprise, five scientists from the Russian Federal Nuclear Center were killed in 2019 in a mishap that was reportedly related to the ongoing effort.  ...  " 

Fusion Breakthrough

Been following Fusion forever, was involved in a tech progress analysis in college.   Had been the first I hear of such a technique. 

Nuclear fusion breakthrough achieved with new projectile technique  in New Scientist

Nuclear fusion has been achieved using a new projectile technique that accelerates fuel to 200 times the speed of sound. First Light Fusion, a UK based start-up, used a hyper-velocity gas gun to launch a projectile at fusion fuels, such as deuterium, which starts a reaction. Fusion is a process where two light atomic nuclei combine to form a single heavier one while releasing massive amounts of energy. The team behind the method hopes to create a power plant that could generate around 150 megawatts of electricity by the 2030s.  ... 

Read more: 

Fusion: No Magnets

New ways to efficient Fusion

MAGNETIC-CONFINEMENT FUSION WITHOUT THE MAGNETS

Zap Energy’s new Z-pinch fusion reactor promises a simpler approach to an elusive goal

TOKAMAKS, WHICH USE magnets to contain the high-temperature plasma in which atomic nuclei fuse and release energy, have captured the spotlight in recent months, due to tremendous advances in superconducting magnets. Despite these gains, though, traditional magnetic-confinement fusion is still years away from fulfilling nuclear fusion’s promise of generating abundant and carbon-free electricity.

But tokamaks aren’t the only path to fusion power. Seattle-based Zap Energy’s FuZE-Q reactor, scheduled to be completed in mid-2022, bypasses the need for costly and complex magnetic coils. Instead, the machine sends pulses of electric current along a column of highly conductive plasma, creating a magnetic field that simultaneously confines, compresses, and heats the ionized gas. This Z-pinch approach—so named because the current pinches the plasma along the third, or Z, axis of a three-dimensional grid—could potentially produce energy in a device that’s simpler, smaller, and cheaper than the massive tokamaks or laser-fusion machines under development today.

Z-pinched plasmas have historically been plagued by instabilities. In the absence of a perfectly uniform squeeze, the plasma wrinkles and kinks and falls apart within tens of nanoseconds—far too short to produce useful amounts of electricity.

Four artist renderings of the interior and exterior of a large cylindrical nuclear fusion reactor. Three of the images show a glowing plasma spreading inside the vessel. 

ZAP ENERGY

Zap Energy's Z-pinch design generates magnetic fields without using complex magnetic coils.

Zap Energy’s approach, which it calls sheared-flow stabilization, tames these instabilities by varying the flow of plasma along the column. The design sheathes the plasma near the column’s central axis with faster-flowing plasma—imagine a steady stream of cars traveling in the center lane of a highway, unable to change lanes because heavy traffic is whizzing by on both sides. That arrangement keeps the fusion-reactive plasma corralled and compressed longer than previous Z-pinch configurations could.

“We think our reactor is the least expensive, most compact, most scalable solution with the shortest path to commercially viable fusion power,” says Ben Levitt, Zap Energy’s director of research and development. Levitt predicts that Zap will reach Q=1, or scientific breakeven—the point at which the energy released by the fusing atoms is equal to the energy required to create the conditions for fusion—by mid-2023, which would make it the first fusion project to do so.

Given the long history of broken promises in fusion-energy research, that’s the sort of claim that warrants skepticism. But Zap’s ascent of a forbiddingly steep technology curve has been swift and impressive. The startup was founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the FuZE (Fusion Z-pinch Experiment) research team at the University of Washington. The company produced its first fusion reactions the very next year. Before the company’s founding, the university team had collaborated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers. They won a series of U.S. Department of Energy grants that enabled them to test the sheared-flow approach at progressively higher energy levels. To date, the company has raised more than US $40 million.  .... ' 

Fusion Energy Update by PPPL

PPPL Unravels Puzzle to Speed Development of Fusion Energy

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, John Greenwald, December 17, 2021

A computational technique developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) can model the movement of free electrons during fusion-harnessing experiments. The algorithm would simulate pitch-angle scattering without losing the energy of the speeding electrons. PPPL's Yichen Fu said, "By solving the trajectories we can know the probability of electrons choosing every path, and knowing that enables more accurate simulations that can lead to better control of the plasma." PPPL's Hong Qin said the research findings offer a strong mathematical proof of the first working algorithm for solving the equation.

Full article

Fusion Energy Closer

 Followed the basic concepts for years,  are we closer? 

Fusion energy nears reality thanks to an ultra-powerful magnet

The technology could be key to practical fusion power plants.

By J. Fingas @jonfingas

Fusion energy just had its second breakthrough in as many months. Motherboard notes an MIT- and Commonwealth Fusion Systems-led research team has successfully demonstrated a high-temperature superconducting electromagnet producing a field strength of 20 tesla — the most powerful field of its kind on Earth. The technology could be the key to SPARC, a fusion device due in 2025 that could foster a plasma field producing more energy than it consumes.  ... '