MIT again proves fusion possible, AND economically feasible.

[Think. Again.]

Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion
Detailed study of magnets built by MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems confirms they meet requirements for an economic, compact fusion power plant.

David L. Chandler, MIT News
Publication Date: March 4, 2024
Full Article: https://news.mit.edu/2024/tests-show-high-temperature-superconducting-magnets-fusion-ready-0304

In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet. That’s the intensity needed to build a fusion power plant that is expected to produce a net output of power and potentially usher in an era of virtually limitless power production.

-snip-

All of this work has now culminated in a detailed report by researchers at PSFC and MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), published in a collection of six peer-reviewed papers in a special edition of the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. Together, the papers describe the design and fabrication of the magnet and the diagnostic equipment needed to evaluate its performance, as well as the lessons learned from the process. Overall, the team found, the predictions and computer modeling were spot-on, verifying that the magnet’s unique design elements could serve as the foundation for a fusion power plant.

-snip-

Before the Sept. 5 demonstration, the best-available superconducting magnets were powerful enough to potentially achieve fusion energy — but only at sizes and costs that could never be practical or economically viable. Then, when the tests showed the practicality of such a strong magnet at a greatly reduced size, “overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40 in one day,” Whyte says.

“Now fusion has a chance,” Whyte adds. Tokamaks, the most widely used design for experimental fusion devices, “have a chance, in my opinion, of being economical because you’ve got a quantum change in your ability, with the known confinement physics rules, about being able to greatly reduce the size and the cost of objects that would make fusion possible.”

-snip-

Full Article: https://news.mit.edu/2024/tests-show-high-temperature-superconducting-magnets-fusion-ready-0304

[Voltaire2]

1. Fusion is perpetually five years away from viability.

Meanwhile existing sustainable renewable energy sources, remain underutilized.

[Think. Again.]

2. You're absolutely correct about existing non-CO2 tech...

...we could have transitioned away from fossil fuels 40 years ago when we understood the dangers of CO2 and were using much less energy.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. You'll be able to tell that fusion energy is about to go on line

When the fossil fuel corporations start running greenwashed campaigns against it.

[Think. Again.]

4. The fossil fuel industry will never let it get that close.

[NickB79]

5. What fuel supply are we using?

Are we trying to get back to the Moon to mine for helium-3 to fuel fusion reactors?

[Think. Again.]

6. The article doesn't mention extraterrestrial fuel sources...

...so I'm assuming they would be using something readily available here on Earth, like the Hydrogen mentioned in the article.

[NickB79]

7. This article in Science has be wondering

https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started

Fusion advocates often boast that the fuel for their reactors will be cheap and plentiful. That is certainly true for deuterium: Roughly one in every 5000 hydrogen atoms in the oceans is deuterium, and it sells for about $13 per gram. But tritium, with a half-life of 12.3 years, exists naturally only in trace amounts in the upper atmosphere, the product of cosmic ray bombardment. Nuclear reactors also produce tiny amounts, but few harvest it.

Most fusion scientists shrug off the problem, arguing that future reactors can breed the tritium they need. The high-energy neutrons released in fusion reactions can split lithium into helium and tritium if the reactor wall is lined with the metal. Despite demand for it in electric car batteries, lithium is relatively plentiful.

But there’s a catch: In order to breed tritium you need a working fusion reactor, and there may not be enough tritium to jump-start the first generation of power plants. The world’s only commercial sources are the 19 Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactors, which each produce about 0.5 kilograms a year as a waste product, and half are due to retire this decade. The available tritium stockpile—thought to be about 25 kilograms today—will peak before the end of the decade and begin a steady decline as it is sold off and decays, according to projections in ITER’s 2018 research plan.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. But there's a catch: In order to breed tritium you need a working ***FISSION*** reactor

Pretty basic error.

DOE quit making tritium for nuclear weapons in 1988, and has not invested in new production facilities since. Oops!