A peer-reviewed scientific study published in the Plasma Journal of Physics confirms that a New Jersey laboratory has just made a major breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion that could lead to commercial grade garage size fusion generators within the next 5 years.
The scientist have recorded the highest ever magnetic confinement of a fusion fuel burning furnace reaching a temperature of at 1.8 billion degrees in their plasma fusion furnace.
The temperature is high enough to power nuclear fusion of fuels like hydrogen and boron which are called “aneutronic” because the produce now neutrons and can be converted directly into electricity.
According to the lab, the paper, titled “Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus (DPF) plasmoid,” also lays to rest a long-standing scientific controversy with major implications for whether the DPF is a viable source of useful fusion energy.
The team says they have shown conclusively that the majority of fusion reactions in DPF technology comes from confined, circulating ions, and not from a beam of ions just passing through once.
This major breakthrough will allow the team to focus on the next step into making plasma fusion reactors a reality which is the density of the hot regions required to create net energy output.
The team plans to demonstrate the full scientific feasibility on the density issue by the end of the year.
RT reports:
RT – Scientists in a New Jersey laboratory say they are close to a major breakthrough in the field of fusion that they predict will soon allow for an unlimited source of the cheapest, cleanest and safest energy ever.
Plasma Nuclear Fusion Becomes A Reality?
Researchers at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics in Middlesex, NJ have published the results of their recent work in the Physics of Plasmas journal last week, and expect one of their next rounds of testing to finally tackle an issue of energy procurement that would rival anything already available. In their latest breakthrough, fusion researchers at the lab say that they’ve successfully heated and confined an ionized gas at record temperatures which would be high enough to allow for the nuclear fusion of certain elements, including hydrogen and boron. Those elements double as aneutronic fuels — that is, they produce no neutrons during the fusion process — and could thus be quickly converted to electricity without using the expensive and dangerous conversion measures currently available.
Scientists say they believe they are close to a breakthrough that will allow them to harness energy from the elements and thus work with an energy source more marketable than anything now available.
According to the scientists, they have identified and emulated two of the three conditions necessary to show energy production with aneutronic fuels. Eric Lerner, a chief scientist for Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, says that figuring out the temperature and confinement necessary for the fusion have been established in their research, and that once the team can determine the necessary conditions for the third variable — density — they will be able to harness energy from plasma.
“We are still far from having sufficient density in the tiny hot regions to get net energy, but that is our next goal,” Lerner says in a press release on the research.
To RT, fellow Lawrenceville researcher Derek Shannon adds, “We are working on the third criterion, density, now, with the goal of demonstrating full scientific feasibility this year.” Shannon also predicts that the research coming out of the New Jersey lab could put the groups as far as decade ahead of competing projects that aim to introduce manageable fusion fuels.
Shannon also believes that by successfully harnessing aneutronic fuels into energy, dangerous and dirty nuclear energy could soon be a thing of the past. Lawrenceville is also in the midst of a Fusion for Peace campaign, and claim that “aneutronic nuclear energy itself could be the path to nuclear disarmament.”
The Lab’s press release:
Physics of Plasmas publishes LPP’s latest fusion advance
New Jersey Start-up Publishes 1.8 BILLION Degree Fusion Energy Advance in Leading Physics Journal
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics has published peer-reviewed results in Physics of Plasmas confirming that the firm’s Focus Fusion-1 machine has achieved the highest energy magnetic confinement of a fusion fuel ever, for any device, representing two of three criteria for net fusion energy. Translation: Garage-sized fusion generators could be possible in as few as five years.
Fusion researchers at a small NJ research company report heating and confining an ionized gas at record temperatures equivalent to over 1.8 billion degrees C, as described in a paper published March 23rd in Physics of Plasmas, the most highly cited journal devoted to plasma physics. The temperatures observed are high enough to ignite the nuclear fusion of “aneutronic” fuels like hydrogen and boron. Such aneutronic fuels, which produce no neutrons, could generate energy that can be converted directly into electricity, without going through the expensive cycle of generating steam and putting it through turbines. This would make LPP’s “Focus Fusion” technology potentially cheaper, cleaner and safer than any energy source now available.
“The research reported in this paper shows that we have achieved two of the three conditions needed to scientifically demonstrate net energy production with aneutronic fuels,” explains Eric Lerner, Chief Scientist at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. “We have demonstrated the extremely high ion energies needed to ignite this fuel, and the confinement time of tens of nanoseconds that we need to burn it. We are still far from having sufficient density in the tiny hot regions to get net energy, but that is our next goal.” A year ago, LPP had reported energies for ions of 1.1 billion degrees, equal to record temperatures for the dense plasma focus device that had stood since 1978. The new work shatters those long-standing records and, most importantly, achieves the temperature needed to burn aneutronic fuels.
The paper, titled “Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus (DPF) plasmoid,” also lays to rest a long-standing scientific controversy with major implications for whether the DPF is a viable source of useful fusion energy. Lerner’s team shows conclusively that the majority of fusion reactions in LPP’s DPF come from confined, circulating ions, and not from a beam of ions just passing through once. If fusion reactions in a DPF come primarily from an unconfined beam, then the fusion yields are unlikely to scale to useful quantities of energy. On the other hand, if, as this research has shown, the fusion reactions take place primarily between ions confined within a concentrated ball of plasma (a “plasmoid”), then the energy from the reactions will be trapped and will heat the plasmoid up further, leading to a complete burn and net energy production. (The paper is available from LPP by request.)
The LPP research team is currently upgrading their fusion device to achieve the higher densities required for net energy, a goal they hope to achieve soon.
You can also find this release at our PRLog pressroom.
From the Lab’s website:
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics
Accelerating Unlimited Clean Energy
Follow the fusion @LPPX
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. is a high-tech research and development corporation specializing in applications of plasma physics, including fusion power and intense X-ray sources.
Our lead project is the development of an inherently clean fusion energy generator using a device called the dense plasma focus (DPF) and hydrogen-boron fuel, an approach we call “Focus Fusion.“ This work was initially funded by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is now backed by over forty private investors including the Abell Foundation of Baltimore. LPP’s patented technology and peer-reviewed science will guide the design of a compact, environmentally safe and virtually unlimited source of energy that would be at least ten times cheaper than any existing sources. Our research team has already achieved major experimental milestones, including the achievement of plasma confinement at energies equivalent to two billion degrees, high enough to fuse hydrogen and boron. We intend to win the race for this ultimate energy prize by demonstrating the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion at our laboratory in Middlesex, NJ. Non-exclusive licenses to government agencies and manufacturing partners will aim to ensure rapid adoption of Focus Fusion generators as the primary source of electrical power worldwide.
video at link--
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/04/02/major-breakthrough-nuclear-plasma-fusion-111651/
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