December 2022 | K. Araoka | Review of Scientific Instruments | Paper
A double-chord ion Doppler spectroscopy (IDS) system was developed to measure the ion temperature and flow velocity of field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasmas in the FRC amplification via a translation-collisional merging (FAT-CM) device.
Fusion is another zero-emissions alternative to fossil fuels and radioactive nuclear energy
With commercialization years away, investors flock to technology’s long-term clean-energy potential
Michl Binderbauer is chief executive of a southern California firm that aims to create almost limitless energy through nuclear fusion, a starry goal that at times struck some prospective investors as futuristic.
Scientists hit a key milestone in the quest to create abundant zero-carbon power through nuclear fusion. But they still have a long way to go.
The Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday that scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain — a major milestone in the decades-long, multibillion-dollar quest to develop a technology that provides unlimited, cheap, clean power.
In some ways, scientists at the Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) have been a bit down and out. The $3.5 billion facility was designed to replicate the atom-smashing reactions that occur inside the sun, a difficult process that requires enormous amounts of heat and pressure, and could theoretically solve humanity’s energy and climate woes.
But technical obstacles put NIF a decade behind in its goal of achieving fusion “ignition,” that is, getting more energy out of one of those reactions than it put in. The facility uses the largest lasers in the world to try and do that, focusing energy on a tiny capsule filled with hydrogen isotopes.