Scientists at MIT have designed a simple fusion reactor that could be ready to run in 10 years.
Above: A cutaway view of the proposed ARC reactor. Credit MIT ARC team
Thanks to powerful new magnet technology, researchers at Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), created a much smaller, less-expensive ARC reactor, that would deliver the same power output as a much larger fusion reactor.
They say, that it’s one that might be realized in as little as a decade.
The era of practical fusion power, which could offer a nearly inexhaustible energy resource, may be coming near.
Using these new commercially available superconductors, rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes, to produce high-magnetic field coils “just ripples through the whole design,” says Dennis Whyte, a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “It changes the whole thing.”
Co-authored by Whyte, PhD candidate Brandon Sorbom, added:
“The much higher magnetic field, allows you to achieve much higher performance. Any increase in the magnetic field gives you a huge win.”
source MIT
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