Cold Fusion NewsAboutFor the first time, scientists have built a fusion experiment using permanent magnets, a technique that could show a simple way to build future devices for less cost and allow researchers to test new concepts for future fusion power plants. (21 days ago)
a month ago
How much fuel can we add to the fire while still maintaining control? Metaphorically speaking, that's the question one team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has been asking themselves lately.
a month ago
Rocket science got a bit more science-fiction-like as RocketStar announces it has successfully demonstrated a new ion drive that incorporates nuclear fusion. It's not the sort of fusion that powers the Sun, but it does improve thrust by 50%.
2 months ago
Since Brexit, the UK no longer has access to ITER, the world's largest nuclear fusion experiment, through the European Union. After an invitation to rejoin this week, the UK government has confirmed it prefers to go it alone.
2 months ago
The UK's JET nuclear fusion reactor has been shut down after 40 years, and now researchers hope to repurpose many of its components in a world-first attempt at recycling a tokamak reactor.
4 months ago
The world needs gargantuan amounts of clean energy moving forward, making this an area of colossal and growing opportunity for disruptive innovations. Here are some of the fascinating energy ideas and technologies that made us most hopeful in 2023.
4 months ago
The insides of nuclear fusion reactors are violent and chaotic places. A new cold-spray coating can take the heat and also trap some rogue hydrogen particles at the same time, potentially making for smaller, better plasma chambers.
5 months ago
Fusion reactors could be used to produce radioactive isotopes for hospitals way before they become useful power generators.
7 months ago
If accomplished, the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) spacecraft would be the most advanced spacecraft rocket system ever put into operation. That is unless the team at Pulsar Fusion based out of Bletchley in South East England has their say.
9 months ago
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9 months ago
AI isn't just for chatbots – many companies are using it to tackle everything from protein folding and drug development to commercially viable nuclear fusion.
9 months ago
As the question of how to make a laser fusion reactor practical rises, scientists at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) have come up with a way for fusion lasers to essentially manufacture their own fuel pellets.
a year ago
In an outrageously audacious move, Washington-based fusion power startup Helion has signed the world's first fusion power supply deal, promising to deliver Microsoft at least 50 megawatts of clean fusion power by 2028, or pay financial penalties.
a year ago
Tokamak Energy has released the first images of what its commercial fusion power plant, which it says would safely generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes in the 2030s, would look like.
a year ago
A magnetic cage keeps the more than 100 million degree Celsius hot plasmas in nuclear fusion devices at a distance from the vessel wall so that they do not melt. This could make it possible to build smaller and cheaper fusion reactors for energy production.
a year ago
Accurate and fast calculation of heat flow (heat transport) due to fluctuations and turbulence in plasmas is an important issue in elucidating the physical mechanisms of fusion reactors and in predicting and controlling their performance.
a year ago
Under certain conditions, the fusion devices known as tokamaks can suffer a sudden loss of energy to the vessel walls. Researchers call this energy loss process a disruption. One cause is a magnetohydrodynamic (i.e., conducting plasma in a magnetic field) instability, or mode, coupling to the vacuum vessel.
a year ago
But nuclear fusion is still a pie-in-the-sky fantasy aspiration despite all the good news recently. That said, you shouldn't overlook what's been happening on the fission side of things.
a year ago
In December, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made headlines worldwide. This first-of-its-kind result will provide invaluable insight into the potential for clean energy from fusion.
a year ago
We've spoken to this California company before about its impressive progress and ambitious plans in the fusion power space. With more than US$1.2 billion in investments behind it, TAE has come in ahead of schedule with results from its fifth-generation fusion device, called Norman, which was designed to sustain plasma at 30 million °C (54 million °F), but which has already broken through 75 million °C (135 million °F).
a year ago
After successful recommissioning in autumn 2022, the Greifswald nuclear fusion experiment has surpassed an important target. In 2023, an energy turnover of 1 gigajoule was targeted. Now the researchers have even achieved 1.3 gigajoules and a new record for discharge time on Wendelstein 7-X: the hot plasma could be maintained for eight minutes.
a year ago
As plasma circulates in a fusion device, the surface of the device that faces the plasma erodes. This releases particles of surface material. Most erosion occurs through a process called sputtering, where a particle strikes a surface and results in the ejection of atoms from that surface.