News tagged with magnetic fusion

Fusion presents low proliferation risk, experts conclude

American researchers have shown that prospective magnetic fusion power systems would pose a much lower risk of being used for the production of weapon-usable materials than nuclear fission reactors and their ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 29, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 27 | with audio podcast

Nuclear fusion simulation shows high-gain energy output

(PhysOrg.com) -- High-gain nuclear fusion could be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields, according to a series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 20, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (43) | comments 120 | with audio podcast

Dutch team has solution for troubled ITER nuclear fusion reactor

(PhysOrg.com) -- The superconducting cables designed for the ITER fusion reactor (cost: 16 billion euros = $21.2 billion) are unable to withstand the planned forty to sixty thousand charge cycles. Barring a solution, the ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 4

When worlds collide: Researchers harness supercomputers to understand solar storm, magnetosphere

If the sun is anything, it is reassuring. It rises, sets, and rises again, allowing us to grow crops, get tan, and power homes, just to name a few of humanity's most important life-sustaining functions. No ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Tokamak experiments come clean about impurity transport

A fusion reactor operates best when the hot plasma inside it consists only of fusion fuel (hydrogen's heavy isotopes, deuterium and tritium), much as a car runs best with a clean engine. But fusion fuel reactions ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 23 | with audio podcast

A new spin on understanding plasma confinement

To achieve nuclear fusion for practical energy production, scientists often use magnetic fields to confine plasma. This creates a magnetic (or more precisely "magneto-hydrodynamic") fluid in which plasma is tied to magnetic ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

World's largest fusion device goes back to work

September is commonly the month where things begin to gather pace again, and in the world of fusion energy research, things are no different. European scientists working on the Joint European Torus (JET), ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Sep 05, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 20

New probe to uncover mechanisms key to fusion reactor walls

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new tool developed by nuclear engineers at Purdue University will be hitched to an experimental fusion reactor at Princeton University to learn precisely what happens when extremely hot plasmas touch and ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Aug 26, 2011 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Ultrasound fusion imaging provides comparable accuracy for bone, soft tissue tumors

Biopsies using ultrasound fusion imaging for detecting bone and soft tissue cancers are safe, effective and just as accurate as conventional biopsy methods, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

Medicine & Health / Other

created Feb 16, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Neighbor lends a hand: Spallation Neutron Source's tool to probe ITER's superconducting cable

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists and engineers at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are working with the U.S. ITER Project Office at ORNL, the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency and the ...

Physics / Superconductivity

created Jan 14, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Fusion makes major step forward at MIT through studies of the plasma edge

Researchers at MIT have taken steps toward practical fusion energy through better understanding of the physics that governs the interaction between plasmas and the material walls of the vessels that contain them.

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Nov 08, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Taming thermonuclear plasma with a snowflake

Physicists working on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are now one step closer to solving one of the grand challenges of magnetic fusion research -- ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Nov 08, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (20) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Superconductors face the future

Futuristic ideas for the use of superconductors, materials that allow electric current to flow without resistance, are myriad: long-distance, low-voltage electric grids with no transmission loss; fast, magnetically ...

Physics / Superconductivity

created Sep 10, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New project aims for fusion ignition

Russia and Italy have entered into an agreement to build a new fusion reactor outside Moscow that could become the first such reactor to achieve ignition, the point where a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 10, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (44) | comments 23 | with audio podcast

Levitating magnet may yield new approach to clean energy

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets has yielded its first significant results. The findings confirm that its unique approach has some potential ...

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 24, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (44) | comments 14 | with audio podcast