A New Fusion Power Station Will Imitate the Sun to Supply Unlimited Energy

A European consortium, EuroFusion, has taken an essential step on the long road to commercially viable nuclear fusion.

The consortium just revealed the beginning of a five-year “conceptual design” stage for its DEMOnstration power plant (DEMO), a press statement reveals.

This means nuclear fusion researchers are starting design work on a European demonstration power station that they hope will finally allow net nuclear fusion energy– the much-hyped technique to finish our dependence on fossil fuels by supplying practically limitless energy.

DEMO nuclear fusion plant goes into the conceptual design phase

Nuclear fusion is the reaction utilized by the sun and stars to generate energy. It occurs when two atoms smash against each other to create a heavier nucleus, releasing substantial amounts of energy in the process. So far, researchers have essentially tested circular nuclear fusion reactors, called tokamaks, that use powerful magnets to contain the burning plasma needed for the reaction to take place.

EuroFusion’s DEMO power plant is prepared to be a 300 to 500 megawatt tokamak, which the consortium explained in its statement as “a first-of-its-kind facility that represents the following technological step after the global ITER fusion experiment.”

The consortium described in its declaration that DEMO’s conceptual design stage “charts a path of scientific and engineering research study from the fundamental science at current gadgets, all the way to designing the presentation fusion power plant DEMO, able of net electricity production shortly after the middle of the century.” The organization specifically set out the date 2054 as its goal for delivering commercial fusion energy.

Besides demonstrating the net production of 300 to 500 hundred megawatts of electricity, DEMO will also show innovations such as remote maintenance and tritium reproduction. Tritium breeding will allow operators to produce tritium fusion fuel on-site and will be a crucial component for commercial fusion operations in the future.

Taking cues from the world’s most giant fusion experiment

Before reaching the conceptual design stage, EuroFusion revealed the outcomes of its pre-concept design phase, which was executed between 2014 and 2020. This covered many areas, including power exhaust, tritium reproduction, and robust magnet designs.

In EuroFusion’s declaration, Gianfranco Federici, Head of the Fusion Technology Department at EUROfusion, and Tony Donné, EUROfusion Programme Manager, wrote, “the DEMO design and R&D activities in Europe are profiting largely from experience gained from the design, licensing, and building of ITER.” However, they caution that work on facilities such as DEMO must begin soon after ITER reveals its crucial discoveries to avoid a “brain drain” far from nuclear fusion to other industries.

ITER is the largest nuclear fusion experiment worldwide. It is under construction in southern France and is part of a cooperation between 35 partner countries, including all of the EU, China, India, Japan, Russia, and the U.S. Its main objective is to show that nuclear fusion is safe and commercially practical. If all goes to plan, humanity will have profited a new means to harvest substantial amounts of energy without damaging the planet reliably.

Read the original article on Interesting Engineering.