This week there were sensational reports about a breakthrough in the practical use of controlled thermonuclear fusion technology. According to researchers, thermonuclear reactors can be quite compact. This makes them suitable for use on ships, airplanes, small cities and even space stations.
Cold fusion reactor verified
On October 8, 2014, independent researchers from Italy and Sweden completed verification of the created Andrea Rossi E-CAT devices for generating electricity based on a cold fusion reactor. In April-March of this year, six professors spent 32 days studying the operation of the generator and measuring all possible parameters, and then spent six months processing the results. A report was published based on the results of the inspection.
The installation includes from 52 to 100 or more individual E-Cat “modules”, each of which consists of 3 small internal cold fusion reactors. All modules are assembled inside a regular steel container (dimensions 5m × 2.6m × 2.6m), which can be installed anywhere. Delivery by land, sea or air is possible.
According to the commission's report, the E-SAT generator does produce a huge amount of heat - over 32 days it produced more than 1.5 megawatt-hours of energy. In the device itself, the isotopic composition of “combustible” materials changes, that is, nuclear reactions occur.
However, unlike commonly used nuclear fission reactors, the E-Cat cold fusion reactor does not consume radioactive materials, release radioactive emissions into the environment, produce no nuclear waste, and does not carry the potential hazards of melting the reactor shell or core. The installation uses tiny amounts of nickel and hydrogen as fuel.
The first public demonstration of E-SAT took place back in January 2011. Then she encountered complete denial and ignorance by academic circles. Suspicions of falsification were supported by a number of considerations: firstly, Rossi is not a scientist, but an engineer who graduated from a reputable university; secondly, he was followed by a trail of prosecutions for unsuccessful projects, and thirdly, he himself could not explain from a scientific point of view what was happening in his reactor.
The Italian Patent Agency granted a patent for Andrea Rossi's invention after a formal (non-technical) examination, and the international patent application received a negative preliminary review due to a possible "contradiction with generally accepted laws of physics and established theories", and therefore the application had to be supplemented with experimental evidence or solid theoretical justification based on modern scientific theories.
Then a series of other screenings and tests took place, during which Rossi was unable to be convicted of fraud. In the last test in March-April this year, as stated, all possible comments were taken into account.
The professors concluded the report with the words: “It is of course not satisfactory that these results still lack a convincing theoretical explanation, but the result of the experiment cannot be rejected or ignored simply because of a lack of theoretical understanding.”
For almost two years it was unclear where Rossi had disappeared. Opponents of cold fusion rejoiced. In their opinion, the swindler failed where he should have. They assured that Andrea Rossi does not know the basics of theoretical physics and is doomed to failure due to his incredible ignorance, says the head of the Center for Economic Research at IGSO Vasily Koltashov. - I remember how in 2013, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, under the guise of a journalist, I asked the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Fortov, what he thought about the prospects for cold nuclear transmutation and Russia’s work. Fortov replied that all this does not deserve attention and has no prospects, and only traditional nuclear energy has them. It turns out that everything is completely different. Everything turns out as we predicted in the report “Energy Revolution: Problems and Prospects of World Energy”. The old energy industry will have to die and no “shale revolution” will save it. With the reduction in the cost of electricity generation, there will be an opportunity for a leap in production automation and the introduction of robots. The entire world economy will change. But the first, apparently, will be the United States. And why all? Because they have little understanding of theoretical physics, but they strive to reduce production costs and increase profitability. But Russia will not put an end to the energy revolution; everything is just beginning. There will be other breakthroughs.
Meanwhile, the American company Lockheed Martin Corp yesterday announced its technological breakthrough in the field of practical use of controlled thermonuclear fusion technology. In the next decade, it promises to present a commercial prototype of a compact fusion reactor, and the first prototype should appear within a year.
Lockheed Martin Announces Breakthrough in Controlled Fusion
Controlled thermonuclear fusion is the Holy Grail of modern energy. Given the widespread radiophobia, which greatly hinders the development of classical nuclear technologies, many consider it the only real alternative to fossil fuels. But the path to this Grail is very thorny, and only recently did Chinese scientists working at the EAST facility succeed in exceeding the Lawson criterion and obtaining an energy output coefficient of around 1.25. It should be noted that all the main successes in the field of achieving thermonuclear fusion have been achieved in tokamak-type installations, and these also include the experimental reactor ITER, which is being built in the European Union.
This is what the working heart of a tokamak looks like
And tokamaks, in addition to the obvious advantages, also have a number of disadvantages. The main one is that all reactors of this type are designed to operate in pulsed mode, which is not very convenient for industrial use in the energy sector. Another type of reactor, the so-called “stellarator,” promises interesting results, but the design of the stellarator is very complex due to the special topology of the magnetic coils and the plasma chamber itself, and the conditions for igniting the reaction are more stringent. And each time we are talking about large stationary installations.
One of the stellarator configuration options
But it seems that Lockheed Martin has managed to achieve a breakthrough in an area that has long been recognized as hopeless. Most of all, the scheme published by employees of the Skunk Works laboratory, owned by Lockheed Matrin, resembles a linear plasma trap with magnetic mirrors, which for brevity is called a “mirror cell”. It is possible that the scientists involved in this project managed to solve the main problem of the “mirror cell”, associated with the disruption of superconductivity under the influence of strong magnetic fields and an insufficient length of the structure. Previously, work on this project was carried out under the veil of secrecy, but now it has been removed, and Lockheed Martin invites both public and private partners to open cooperation.
Simplified diagram of the Skunk Works reactor
But it should be noted that we are still talking about a deuterium-tritium reaction, which produces a neutron at the output, which humanity does not yet know how to use otherwise than through absorption by the blanket of the reactor with the subsequent release of thermal energy into the classical steam-water cycle. This means that high pressures, high-speed turbines and, unfortunately, radioactivity induced in the blanket will not go away, so the spent components of the plasma chamber will need to be disposed of. Of course, the radiation danger of thermonuclear fusion of the deuterium-tritium type is several orders of magnitude lower than that of classical fission reactions, but you should still remember about it and not neglect safety rules.
Of course, the corporation does not disclose complete data about its work, but hints that we are talking about creating a reactor with a power of about 100 megawatts with dimensions of about 2x3 meters, that is, it can easily fit on the platform of an ordinary truck. I'm sure of this Tom McGuire, who is leading the project.
Tom McGuire in front of the T-4 experimental installation
The first experimental prototype should be built and tested within a year, and industrial prototypes of the installation are expected to appear within the next five years. This is much faster than the pace of work on ITER. And in 10 years, if everything goes according to plan, serial reactors of this type will appear. Let's wish McGuire's team good luck, because if they succeed, then we have every chance of seeing a new era in the energy sector of mankind within the lifetime of this generation.
Reaction of Russian scientists
President of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" Evgeny Velikhov said in an interview with TASS that he knows nothing about such developments in the American company. “I don’t know this, I think it’s fantasy. I don’t know about Lockheed Martin’s projects in this area,” he said. “Let them declare it. They will develop it and show it.”
According to the head of the ITER-Russia project office (ITER is an international project to create an experimental thermonuclear reactor. - TASS), Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Anatoly Krasilnikova, the statements of the American concern are an advertising campaign that has nothing to do with science.
“They won’t have any prototype. Humanity has been working for decades, and Lockheed Martin will take it and launch it?” he said, answering a question from TASS. “I think they are doing a good advertising campaign, drawing attention to their name. To a real thermonuclear reactor This has nothing to do with it."
“Yes, for those who don’t understand, this seems to be true. It is impossible to carry out work in a closed mode that humanity conducts in the open,” the scientist added, commenting on the information about the secrecy of the work carried out. “Do they have different physics and different laws of nature? "
According to Krasilnikov, Lockheed Martin does not disclose the details of its discovery, because the professional community will immediately expose the company. “They don’t name the installation, and as soon as they say, the professionals will understand that this is a PR campaign. They behave this way for a reason, because they will be exposed,” he said. “This is not science, this is a completely different activity. They are not science.” are engaged, at least I don’t know about it. This is a group of enterprising people who decided to attract attention, then capitalize in shares and make a profit.”
Krasilnikov recalled the project of a pilot thermonuclear hybrid reactor, which is being developed in Russia. As reported, its construction may begin only in 2030.
“Russia is currently developing a project for an experimental hybrid reactor. It is a combination of the technologies of a nuclear reactor operating on the principle of nuclear fission and a thermonuclear reactor operating on the principle of fusion,” he explained. “A real reactor will be the next step based on the results obtained at experimental (stage) is 2030."
Scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INP SB RAS) intend to create a working model of a thermonuclear reactor at their institute. The project manager, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexander Ivanov, told Sib.fm about this.
To launch the project “Development of the fundamental principles and technologies of thermonuclear energy of the future,” scientists received a government grant. In total, scientists will need about half a billion rubles to create the reactor. The Institute plans to build the installation in five years. As reported, research related to controlled thermonuclear fusion, in particular plasma physics, has been carried out at the BINP SB RAS for a long time.
“Until now, we have been engaged in physical experiments to create a class of nuclear reactors that can be used in fusion-fission reactions. We have made progress in this, and we were faced with the task of building a prototype thermonuclear station. To date, we have accumulated the base and technology and are completely ready to begin work. This will be a full-scale model of a reactor that can be used for research or, for example, for processing radioactive waste. There are many technologies for creating such a complex. They are new and challenging and take some time to master. All the plasma physics problems that we will solve are relevant for the global scientific community,” Ivanov said.
Unlike conventional nuclear energy, thermonuclear energy involves the use of energy released during the formation of heavier nuclei from light ones. The use of hydrogen isotopes - deuterium and tritium - is envisaged as fuel, but the BINP SB RAS plans to work only with deuterium.
“We will only conduct modeling experiments with electron generation, but all reaction parameters will correspond to real ones. We will not generate electricity either - we will only prove that the reaction can proceed, that the plasma parameters have been achieved. Applied technical tasks will be implemented in other reactors,” emphasized Yuri Tikhonov, Deputy Director of the Institute for Scientific Work.
Reactions involving deuterium are relatively inexpensive and have a high energy yield, but when they occur, they produce dangerous neutron radiation.
“In existing installations, plasma temperatures of 10 million degrees have been achieved. This is a key parameter that determines the quality of the reactor. We hope to increase the temperature of the plasma in the newly created reactor by two or three times. At this level, we will be able to use the installation as a neutron driver for a power reactor. Based on our model, neutron-free tritium-deuterium reactors can be created. In other words, the installations we have created will make it possible to create neutron-free fuel,” explained Alexander Bondar, another deputy director of the BINP SB RAS for scientific work.
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Oleg Akbarov
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Nikolay Udintsev
Yesterday, the American company Lockheed Martin announced that it intends to create a portable fusion reactor. According to the press release, they have made significant progress in solving the hitherto unresolved problems, and the first fully functional prototype will appear in 2019. In a world where fluctuating energy prices are so important, the emergence of such technology could globally change not only the environmental, but also the economic and political landscape. Look At Me figured out the history of the problem, and also found out in more detail who Lockheed Martin is and what they are preparing.
How does thermonuclear reaction work?
Current nuclear reactors use the decay of atomic nuclei of superheavy elements, as a result of which lighter ones are formed and energy is released. During a thermonuclear reaction, the nuclei of atoms of lighter elements combine into heavier ones due to the kinetic energy of thermal motion. For example, the Sun and other stars work on the same principle.
To achieve this effect, it is necessary that the nuclei, having overcome the Coulomb barrier, approach at a distance close to the size of the nuclei themselves and much less than the size of the atom. Under such conditions, the nuclei can no longer repel each other, so they are forced to combine into a heavier element. And when they combine, a significant amount of strong interaction energy is released. It is the product of the reactor.
What do they want to do
at Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin has been a major supplier to the Pentagon for decades. She is responsible for the development of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor fighters and 22 other aircraft. However, in recent years, the number of military contracts for the company, which receives about 90% of its revenue from the US Department of Defense, has begun to decline. That's why Lockheed Martin became interested in alternative energy.
→ Lockheed Martin: Compact Fusion Research & Development
Currently, controlled thermonuclear reactions are carried out in tokamaks. or stellarators. These are torus-shaped installations that contain high-temperature plasma (temperature above a million kelvin) inside using a powerful electromagnet. The problem with this approach is that at this stage the energy received is almost equal to that spent on maintaining the operation of the installation.
The main difference between the Lockheed Martin team's concept and the tokamak is that that the plasma is contained in a different way: instead of torus-shaped chambers, a set of superconducting coils is used. They create a different magnetic field geometry that holds the entire chamber where the reaction takes place. And the greater the plasma pressure, the stronger the magnetic field will hold it.
“Our compact fusion reactor technology combines multiple approaches to the problem of magnetic plasma confinement and allows the reactor prototype to be 90% smaller than earlier concepts,” Thomas McGuire, head of Skunk Works Revolutionaly Technology Programs (part of Lockheed Martin).
In the words of McGuire himself, who defended his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the topic of nuclear fusion, he “essentially combined different concepts into a single prototype, filling the gaps of each with the advantages of the other.” The result is a fundamentally new product, which is what his team at Lockheed Martin is working on.
A portable reactor needs about 20 kg of fusion fuel
→ Traditional reactorsoccupy entire landfills and are serviced by hundreds of specialists
Although the reactor is supposed to be built so large that it fits into a truck trailer, its power should be enough to power a small city or 80 thousand homes. It will convert cheap and environmentally friendly hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) into helium. At the same time, a portable reactor needs about 20 kg of thermonuclear fuel per year. The volume of its waste, according to Lockheed Martin representatives, will be much less than the waste from operating, for example, a coal-fired power plant.
The company wants to build a prototype portable fusion reactor by 2016. first 100 MW prototypes by 2019, and working models by 2024. The widespread distribution of devices is planned by 2045.
What will controlled thermonuclear fusion give to humanity?
Ecologically
clean energy
A thermonuclear reaction is much safer than a nuclear one. For example, it is considered almost impossible for a thermonuclear reaction to get out of control. If an accident occurs in the reactor, the damage to the environment will be several times less than in an accident at a nuclear reactor. It is worth noting that existing reactions involving deuterium and tritium still produce a sufficient amount of radioactive waste, but they have a short half-life. At the same time, promising reactions using deuterium and helium-3 will take place almost without their formation.
Flying
across the solar system
Lockheed Martin installation - prototype of thermonuclear rocket engine (TYARD). This can be installed on a spacecraft to explore the solar system and the outer space closest to Earth. It is believed that the TURE will be able to reach a speed of 10% of the speed of light (approximately 30 thousand km/s). In theory, the efficiency of such an engine (its specific impulse) at least 20 times (and a maximum of 9 thousand times) will surpass the efficiency of existing rocket engines.
Almost endless
energy source
Since a thermonuclear reactor requires hydrogen to operate, fuel for it can be obtained from any water. In the future, instead of tritium, they will use helium-3, which is quite abundant in the earth’s atmosphere and even more (hundreds of thousands of tons) on the moon. With time (and with sufficient spread of thermonuclear energy) companies can reduce the extraction of minerals to burn them in existing power plants.
“Lockheed Martin has begun developing a compact thermonuclear reactor... The company’s website says that the first prototype will be built within a year. If this turns out to be true, in a year we will live in a completely different world,” this is the beginning of one of “The Attic.” Three years have passed since its publication, and the world has not changed that much since then.
Today, in nuclear power plant reactors, energy is generated by the decay of heavy nuclei. In thermonuclear reactors, energy is obtained during the process of fusion of nuclei, during which nuclei of less mass than the sum of the original ones are formed, and the “residue” is lost in the form of energy. Waste from nuclear reactors is radioactive, and its safe disposal is a big headache. Fusion reactors do not have this drawback, and also use widely available fuel such as hydrogen.
They have only one big problem - industrial designs don't exist yet. The task is not easy: for thermonuclear reactions, the fuel must be compressed and heated to hundreds of millions of degrees - hotter than on the surface of the Sun (where thermonuclear reactions occur naturally). It is difficult to achieve such a high temperature, but it is possible, but such a reactor consumes more energy than it produces.
However, they still have so many potential advantages that, of course, not only Lockheed Martin is involved in development.
ITER
ITER is the largest project in this area. It involves the European Union, India, China, Korea, Russia, the USA and Japan, and the reactor itself has been built on French territory since 2007, although its history goes much deeper into the past: Reagan and Gorbachev agreed on its creation in 1985. The reactor is a toroidal chamber, a “donut”, in which the plasma is held by magnetic fields, which is why it is called a tokamak - That roidal ka measure with ma rotten To atushki. The reactor will generate energy through the fusion of hydrogen isotopes - deuterium and tritium.
It is planned that ITER will receive 10 times more energy than it consumes, but this will not happen soon. It was initially planned that the reactor would begin operating in experimental mode in 2020, but then this date was postponed to 2025. At the same time, industrial energy production will begin no earlier than 2060, and we can only expect the spread of this technology somewhere at the end of the 21st century.
Wendelstein 7-X
Wendelstein 7-X is the largest stellarator-type fusion reactor. The stellarator solves the problem that plagues tokamaks - the “spreading” of plasma from the center of the torus to its walls. What the tokamak tries to cope with due to the power of the magnetic field, the stellarator solves due to its complex shape: the magnetic field holding the plasma bends to stop the advances of charged particles.
Wendelstein 7-X, as its creators hope, will be able to operate for half an hour in 21, which will give a “ticket to life” to the idea of thermonuclear stations of a similar design.
National Ignition Facility
Another type of reactor uses powerful lasers to compress and heat fuel. Alas, the largest laser installation for producing thermonuclear energy, the American NIF, was unable to produce more energy than it consumes.
It is difficult to predict which of all these projects will really take off and which will suffer the same fate as NIF. All we can do is wait, hope and follow the news: the 2020s promise to be an interesting time for nuclear energy.
“Nuclear Technologies” is one of the profiles of the NTI Olympiad for schoolchildren.
Spanish engineers have developed a prototype of an environmentally friendly fusion reactor with inertial plasma confinement, which is based on nuclear fusion instead of nuclear fission. It is claimed that the invention will allow significant savings on fuel and avoid environmental pollution.
Professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, José González Diez, has patented a reactor that uses a hydrogen isotope as fuel, which can be isolated from water, which allows for significant savings in the production of electricity. Synthesis in the reactor occurs using laser radiation of 1000 MW.
Nuclear fusion has been studied for many years to provide an alternative to nuclear fission in terms of safety and financial benefits. However, today there is not a single fusion reactor for the production of continuous high voltage electrical energy. An example of a natural thermonuclear reactor is the Sun, inside which plasma heated to enormous temperatures is kept in a state of high density.
As part of the Fusion Power project, Gonzalez Diez created a prototype of a fusion reactor with inertial plasma confinement. The reactor's synthesis chamber can adapt to the type of fuel used. Theoretically possible reactions could be deuterium-tritium, deuterium-deuterium or hydrogen-hydrogen.
The dimensions of the chamber, as well as its shape, can be adapted depending on the type of fuel. In addition, it will be possible to change the shape of external and internal equipment, the type of coolant, etc.
According to Boris Boyarshinov, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, projects to create a thermonuclear reactor have been implemented for forty years.
“Since the 70s, the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion has been acute, but so far numerous attempts to create a thermonuclear reactor have been unsuccessful. Work on its invention is still underway and, most likely, will soon be crowned with success,” noted Mr. Boyarshinov.
The head of the Greenpeace Russia energy program, Vladimir Chuprov, is skeptical about the idea of using thermonuclear fusion.
“This is far from a safe process. If you place a “blanket” of uranium-238 next to a thermonuclear reactor, then all the neutrons will be absorbed by this shell and uranium-238 will be converted into plutonium-239 and 240. From an economic point of view, even if thermonuclear fusion can be realized and put into commercial operation, its cost is such that not every country can afford it, if only because very competent personnel are needed to service this process,” says the ecologist.
According to him, the complexity and high cost of these technologies is the stumbling block that any project will stumble over, even if it takes place at a technical level. “But even if successful, the maximum installed capacity of fusion stations by the end of the century will be 100 GW, which is about 2% of what humanity will need. As a result, thermonuclear fusion does not solve the global problem,” Mr. Chuprov is sure.