On 07/05/2015 04:45 PM, habshi@anony.net wrote:
> excerpt
>
> http://www.dailyuw.com/content/tncms/live/
>
> UW researchers working on novel nuclear fusion technique
> Arunabh Satpathy | Posted 3 days ago
>
> Sustainable nuclear fusion has long been a dream for most scientists
> and energy experts alike. Clean, abundant, and economical, there have
> been many attempts to make it workable. Now, researchers at the
> University of Washington have stepped up their existing involvement in
> the fusion field with a $5.3 million Department of Energy grant to
> scale up their “Sheared Flow Stabilized Z-Pinch” fusion device.
>
> Uri Shumlak, a professor in the department of aeronautics and
> astronautics, co-leads the project and explained that the Z-Pinch
> technique is smaller and cheaper than more conventional magnetic field
> coil-driven reactors.
>
> “The large size of the magnetic field coils drives up the cost,” he
> said. “In Z-Pinch, the plasma column is quite small. In order to get
> fusion, you scale up in the opposite direction, and
>
> get smaller.”
>
> The small size and relative inexpensiveness helps in its possible
> applications, which can be both terrestrial and celestial.
>
> “The real interest of mine is in space propulsion,” he said. “Because
> it is a linear device, it fits better into a spacecraft.”
>
> Michal Hughes, a fifth-year graduate student who has been working in
> the Z-Pinch lab, elaborates on the uses of the technique.
>
> “We can use this device both as a power plant and as propulsion,” he
> said. “That makes it easier to fly the mission and is potentially much
> more powerful than solar panels.”
>
> However, there are problems to be overcome, chiefly the instability of
> the plasma.
>
> “The real challenge has been to find a configuration that is stable,”
> Shumlak said.
>
> The team plans to build a new Z-Pinch device, which will be ready by
> summer 2016. It will be the third machine
>
> they’re building.
>
> “We built three machines,” said Elliot Claveau, a graduate student in
> aeronautics and astronautics who joined the lab in 2014. “The first
> was 16 years ago. Last year, we got the
>
> second machine.”
>
> He said the third machine will be 10 times as powerful as the present
> one and the lab will be running two machines at the same time.
>
> This more powerful machine will be useful in giving the researchers a
> better understanding of what
>
> they’re studying.
>
> “For the second machine, we went past a million degrees,” Hughes said.
> “For the third machine, we’re looking to reach even higher
> temperatures, which will help us investigate different responses of
> the plasma.”
>
> There have been a number of graduate and undergraduate students who
> have worked in the lab, including Hughes, who has been involved for
> six years. Shumlak is appreciative of the students’ contribution to
>
> the project.
>
> “This research has been made possible by dedicated undergraduate and
> graduate students,” he said. “There have been many students who’ve
> made significant contributions.”
>
> The professor and the students are cautiously optimistic about the
> prospects of the research and its potential massive impact.
>
> “If everything turns out as expected, we should be able to get to a
> viable fusion reactor ready for commercial scale in 10-15 years,”
> Shumlak said.
>
> The students are less reserved about the potential of the project.
>
> “The goal we have is the advancement of this field in general, because
> eventually if everything succeeds, the research is the first step in
> developing a cheap fusion reactor,” Claveau said. “This is potentially
> world changing, but we’re not there yet.”
>
>
Habshi, don't you know Herb Glazier and his imaginary friend have
totally solved the problem of energy from fusion. For a 100 million or
so (the price keeps changing) he will provide all plans and diagrams as
to how to build it.
--
___ ___ ___ ___
/\ \ /\ \ /\__\ /\ \
/::\ \ /::\ \ /::| | \:\ \
/:/\:\ \ /:/\:\ \ /:|:| | ___ /::\__\
/::\~\:\__\ /::\~\:\ \ /:/|:| |__ /\ /:/\/__/
/:/\:\ \:|__| /:/\:\ \:\__\ /:/ |:| /\__\ \:\/:/ /
\:\~\:\/:/ / \:\~\:\ \/__/ \/__|:|/:/ / \::/ /
\:\ \::/ / \:\ \:\__\ |:/:/ / \/__/
\:\/:/ / \:\ \/__/ |::/ /
\::/__/ \:\__\ /:/ /
~~ \/__/ \/__/
|
|