Even as the fusion era dawns, we're still in the Steam Age
Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines.
Mar 18, 2024
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Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines.
Mar 18, 2024
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Scientists in Britain announced Thursday they had smashed a record for generating fusion energy in the final experiment using the Joint European Torus (JET) machines.
Feb 8, 2024
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The U.S. Department of Energy reported a major scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion science in December 2022. For the first time, more energy was released from a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it.
Jun 28, 2023
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The German government announced draft plans Thursday to boost domestic research into development of nuclear fusion, a technology some hope will provide abundant clean energy in the future, but left open how those efforts ...
Jun 22, 2023
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Fusion energy is often hailed as a limitless source of clean energy, but new research from Princeton University suggests that may only be true if the price is right.
Mar 16, 2023
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For centuries, the world was lit, in the words of a best-selling book, only by fire. Will the not-too-distant future see a world powered largely by fusion?
Nov 9, 2022
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A student in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science (SCS) has used reinforcement learning to help control nuclear fusion reactions, a significant step toward harnessing the immense power produced in nuclear ...
Sep 9, 2022
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In recent weeks, some of Silicon Valley's most famous technologists have hailed a historically polarizing energy source—nuclear power—as a solution to both cutting carbon emissions and weaning the world off now-controversial ...
Mar 23, 2022
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Materials engineers at the University of Surrey and the UK Atomic Energy Authority are supporting an international effort to develop a new, economically viable and safe source of low-carbon electricity through nuclear fusion.
Feb 22, 2022
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The big holes in Swiss cheese help make it a tasty treat. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are adding tiny, Swiss-cheese-type holes to components to improve ...
Jun 18, 2021
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In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus. It is accompanied by the release or absorption of energy, which allows matter to enter a plasma state.
The fusion of two nuclei with lower mass than iron (which, along with nickel, has the largest binding energy per nucleon) generally releases energy while the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorbs energy; vice-versa for the reverse process, nuclear fission. In the simplest case of hydrogen fusion, two protons have to be brought close enough for their mutual electric repulsion to be overcome by the nuclear force and the subsequent release of energy.
Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars. Artificial fusion in human enterprises has also been achieved, although has not yet been completely controlled. Building upon the nuclear transmutation experiments of Ernest Rutherford done a few years earlier, fusion of light nuclei (hydrogen isotopes) was first observed by Mark Oliphant in 1932; the steps of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars were subsequently worked out by Hans Bethe throughout the remainder of that decade. Research into fusion for military purposes began in the early 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project, but was not successful until 1952. Research into controlled fusion for civilian purposes began in the 1950s, and continues to this day.
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