Wie Los Alamos dabei hilft, Kernfusionsenergie bis 2030 ans Netz zu bringen | LANL – Kühlung zukünftiger Fusionsreaktoren mit dem härtesten Metall der Natur

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>As the saying goes, fusion power has been 20 years away for the past 50 years. But technological momentum is now accelerating. In 2022, the Biden Administration declared a [national goal](https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/03/15/fact-sheet-developing-a-bold-vision-for-commercial-fusion-energy/) of getting fusion energy onto the grid by the 2030s, and since then, around 6.2 billion dollars in global investments have poured into the effort to turn fusion’s promise into a reality. In tokamak reactors—the human-made stars being developed for [power production](https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/february-2022/in-their-own-words-a-neutron-in-a-haystack)—the hydrogen contained within the 16 gallons of water used in a typical shower should be able to generate the same amount of energy as 8 tons of burned coal. As the technology nears maturity, problems associated with heating particles to 150 million °C, ten times the temperature in the Sun’s core, keep arising. Michael Lively, a Lab engineer and fusion expert who specializes in modeling solutions to these problems, may have solved one key issue.

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>According to Lively’s results, when the runaways collide with the tungsten particles, all but a very small amount of their energy is removed. The tungsten absorbs 8 percent of the runaway electrons, while the remaining 92 percent is bounced or scattered out of orbit and beyond the risk of damaging the reactor. Lively found that runaways tend to orbit the reactor for just 130 nanoseconds while the tungsten particles have a lifespan of 100,000 nanoseconds. Practically speaking, this discrepancy means the tungsten particles could be blasted into the reactor as soon as runaway electrons are sensed. The particles would remain in the machine for long enough to protect it from all but the most extreme of these, so far, unpreventable runaway events.