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 levitated ...
Superconductivity
Sep 10, 2010
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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 instead ...
General Physics
May 10, 2010
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(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 to be developed ...
General Physics
Jan 24, 2010
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If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way. Something similar occurs when one increases the electrical current flowing in a magnetized plasma doughnut: it takes on a wild ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 2, 2009
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In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability are simultaneously ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 2, 2009
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Imagine yourself at the core of Jupiter, a planet 300 times the mass of Earth. At 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit, you and I might think it's hot in here, but to a physicist it's merely warm - warm dense matter, to be precise, ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 16, 2009
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Fusion is best known for powering the sun and stars. But researchers have long been studying ways to transform that power source into future "green" energy that can be used on Earth. A team of researchers from UC San Diego, ...
General Physics
Sep 14, 2009
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(PhysOrg.com) -- UC San Diego researchers are using “star” power to help ignite the field of fusion, which is being looked at as a future reliable green energy source. Under a new $5.8 million five-year grant from the ...
Plasma Physics
Sep 11, 2009
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The simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence ...
Astronomy
Sep 9, 2009
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Currently, most nuclear fusion power plants are large, expensive projects that will take decades to benefit from. But a startup company in Vancouver, Canada, called General Fusion is taking the fast track ...
