Korean Artificial Sun Sets the New World Record of 20-Sec-Long Operation At 100 Million Degrees (phys.org) 52
The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research(KSTAR), a superconducting fusion device also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it succeeded in maintaining the high temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees. Phys.Org reports: On November 24 (Tuesday), the KSTAR Research Center at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KEF) announced that in a joint research with the Seoul National University (SNU) and Columbia University of the United States, it succeeded in continuous operation of plasma for 20 seconds with an ion-temperature higher than 100 million degrees, which is one of the core conditions of nuclear fusion in the 2020 KSTAR Plasma Campaign. It is an achievement to extend the 8 second plasma operation time during the 2019 KSTAR Plasma Campaign by more than 2 times. In its 2018 experiment, the KSTAR reached the plasma ion temperature of 100 million degrees for the first time (retention time: about 1.5 seconds)
To re-create fusion reactions that occur in the sun on Earth, hydrogen isotopes must be placed inside a fusion device like KSTAR to create a plasma state where ions and electrons are separated, and ions must be heated and maintained at high temperatures. In its 2020 experiment, the KSTAR improved the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier(ITB) mode, one of the next generation plasma operation modes developed last year and succeeded in maintaining the plasma state for a long period of time, overcoming the existing limits of the ultra-high-temperature plasma operation.
To re-create fusion reactions that occur in the sun on Earth, hydrogen isotopes must be placed inside a fusion device like KSTAR to create a plasma state where ions and electrons are separated, and ions must be heated and maintained at high temperatures. In its 2020 experiment, the KSTAR improved the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier(ITB) mode, one of the next generation plasma operation modes developed last year and succeeded in maintaining the plasma state for a long period of time, overcoming the existing limits of the ultra-high-temperature plasma operation.
Should say, "South Korea". (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Should say, "South Korea". (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to give the full name of the country: "South Korea".
If you are going to be a pedant, then at least get it right. The full name of the country is the Republic of Korea.
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thank you for this.
Re:Should say, "South Korea". (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, but using Republic of Korea would have resulted in the better RoKSTAR.
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Which is a better game - whack-a-mole, or shilleileagh-a-pedant?
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It's important to give the full name of the country: "South Korea".
There is no nation named "South Korea," there is a Republic of Korea and a Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Yes most people understand them to be South Korea and North Korea but it is quality communication to use the actual name of the country.
Honestly, there is only one Korea and it is divided by a multigenerational cold war.
Re: Should say, "South Korea". (Score:2)
This is like the old German names when I was growing up:
* Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)
* Bundesrepublik Deutschland
* German Democratic Republic (GDR)
* Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
Which is west and which is east?
Most people only know the common English name.
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More info that can be helpful: (Score:4, Informative)
Quoting: "KSTAR will be one of the first research tokamaks in the world to feature fully superconducting magnets, which again will be of great relevance to ITER [iter.org] as this will also use SC magnets."
ITER has a poorly-designed web site, in my opinion.
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they have other more important things on their plate right now
Re:More info that can be helpful: (Score:5, Funny)
Any longer than 20 seconds.. (Score:3, Funny)
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You're a korney kharacter. +1
20 WHOLE SECONDS? (Score:1)
Now the truly important part.
Was the reaction energy-positive or energy negative?
(Betting I know the answer.)
Re: 20 WHOLE SECONDS? (Score:1)
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Ignition is temperature, pressure is rate. (Score:2)
At 100,000,000K, you get fusion, full stop. How fast the available fuel reacts once it gets to the minimum temperature is a function of its density, which is of dependent on, and largely measured by, pressure.
At the nice low vacuum-plasma pressures in a magnetic confinement system, there's some lazy flickering, some fusion events here and there - at the trillions of atmospheres in the core of a thermonuclear bomb, enough energy to light up large cities is generated in a few tens of nanoseconds. It's why ine
Ole Ole Ole Ole (Score:2)
Wasnâ(TM)t 100 million degrees (Score:2)
Supposed to be the magic number where self supporting fusion took place?
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The problem is keeping the core that temperature without everything melting down.
Neat.. but (Score:2)
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For a solution the whole world can use solar panels and energy storage will be things you can mass produce in factories and ship all over the world... fusion... probably not.
This! Fusion is operating under an old paradigm, of a very few and humongous plants supplying power for a large area. This has the dual problems of being exceptionally expensive, and of being strategically foolish - putting all one's eggs in one or very few baskets.
If I were at war with another country, I would like them to have something like that - only a few electrical generation plants to take out.
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This! Fusion is operating under an old paradigm, of a very few and humongous plants supplying power for a large area. This has the dual problems of being exceptionally expensive, and of being strategically foolish - putting all one's eggs in one or very few baskets.
If I were at war with another country, I would like them to have something like that - only a few electrical generation plants to take out.
Um, okay. Let's consider a navy powered by a diffuse energy source like wind. Now, consider one powered by coal. By oil. By nuclear fission power. Which navy has the advantage? The one using wind power or the one using nuclear fission power?
Let's consider a military base powered by solar and one powered by nuclear fission. The solar panels are going to be covered by millimeters of plastic or glass, the nuclear power plant is going to be covered by meters of concrete and steel. Which one is going to
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Against a saboteur putting hand-grenade-size explosives against the steam inlet pipes of the turbines? Or, for that matter, a Delivery Company (TM) truck with a non-suicidal driver and a pallet of industrial explosives beside the turbine hall?
That's the thing about milita
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Against a saboteur putting hand-grenade-size explosives against the steam inlet pipes of the turbines? Or, for that matter, a Delivery Company (TM) truck with a non-suicidal driver and a pallet of industrial explosives beside the turbine hall?
You do know that the turbine hall of a nuclear power plant is inside the security perimeter for the power plant, don't you? Apparently not.
That's the thing about military thinking - the planners get quite good about re-fighting the previous war, while the innovators try something new in fighting the present war.
Perhaps that's true but it doesn't make nuclear power more vulnerable to attack than solar power.
There's been people trying to sabotage nuclear power plants for a long time now. People from Greenpeace have been claiming nuclear power is vulnerable to terrorism while also being the source of all known terror attacks on nuclear power plants. If Greenpeace wants to put a
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Security perimeters need to be successful all the time. Saboteurs only need to succeed once.
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That's true, also says nothing about how a nuclear power plants are more difficult to defend than solar power. Saboteurs can think up all kinds of ways to destroy solar panels. After every success against a nuclear power plant there will be measures to stop it from happening again, to the point that the nuclear power plant is buried under a mountain. How defensible is solar power when it has to be in the open air to work?
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Take out a mains-generator turbine and you can take out ... hundreds of MW.
I know which target I'd aim for. It was obvious in the 1980s and hasn't changed.
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"Fusion is at the point where it has near zero chance of being used for power plants" and "modular fusion reactors are simple " are rather contradictory unless we make the likely assumption that you meant to say "modular FISSION reactors are simple "
You're assuming that fusion plants would continue to be big capital intensive things like a tokamack instead of evolving to being what you originally said, simple modular fusion reactors
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Solar panels can be layered to catch more spectrums of light and increase efficiency
And how much will that cost compared to other energy sources? If your answer includes the words "carbon tax" any where then you don't understand that increasing the price a consumer pays for energy does not change the costs that the economy must bear.
energy storage is making consistent gains
Fuel is storage. If your energy comes from the ground as fuel then it's energy that has already been stored. The cost of this energy, which is again not the same as the price paid by the end consumer, is largely dictated by the energy return on energy invest
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In the case of carbon, the cost also includes all the damn cleanup necessary after it's burnt. It also includes the cost of global warming and all that entails. It also includes the cost of cleanup for the inevitable accidents like tanker spills, coal ash washed into streams, pipeline ruptures, etc. It is best to include all the costs so we can see what we will be charged.
We need fusion ASAP! (Score:2)
No, production costs will limit usage (Score:3)
So fusion is basically unlimited energy.
Citation needed.
Yes, it's got advantages over fission, including waste management. But "basically unlimited energy"? (or perhaps "too cheap to meter")?
Yes, the fuel is more abundant than fission fuels if we can extract and use deuterium from the oceans. But we are still limited by the cost to do that, and the capital and running costs of the plants (which, given the requirement to keep a 100-million-Kelvin temperature process in place will require some high tech). Fusion (at least for the moment) also will
Re: No, production costs will limit usage (Score:3)
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We get it beamed for free (how much and when varies, of course), and you need no moving parts to convert it to electricity.
The "fuel" for solar power is just as "free" as the deuterium for fusion. There is a capital expense for solar power, and this cannot be ignored. What also cannot be ignored is the land area required, because we get only so much solar power per area of land. There is no such limit on fusion and fission because we can extract deuterium and uranium from sea water. Because the sea is so large it contains as many years of energy as solar power. The sun will burn out before we could consume the fusion or fi
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Yes, I don't believe solar electricity is "free". You need equipment and space.
It's just that fusion most probably won't be either.
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if we can extract and use deuterium from the oceans.
Of course we can extract D2O from seawater. It is done all the time. You can buy the stuff on eBay.
But we are still limited by the cost to do that,
No. Not at all. D2O can be extracted for about $40 per kg.
Compared to the other costs of running a fusion reactor, that is negligible.
A kg of D2O contains about 200g of D. That is enough to generate about 500,000 kwh of power.
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Last time I looked, a few years ago, the fully amortized cost of electricity from Grand Coulee Dam was one US cent per kilowatt hour, which is pretty damn close to f
I understand perfectly (Score:3)
"... with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees."
So kind of like going to the bathroom after eating at Taco Bell?
Neutrons (Score:2)
Do you want.. (Score:1)
Then... (Score:1)
Fusion (Score:1)