Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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CharlesKramer
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Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:20 pm

Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)

Post by CharlesKramer »

The artcle also says "The idea of using plasma in controlled thermonuclear reactors actually dates back to the 1950s, when the institute's founder Gersh Budker proposed such a method." This may be one of those funny examples like "who invented the telephone" (or light bulb, or radio) where the answer varies based on national pride, since in other versions of the history of fusion Lyman Spitzer and his stellarator at Princeton perhaps was first. Not that such quibbles of history matter.

The Siberian machine certainly looks very groovy. I want one.

- Charles

[Siberian] Scientists to create prototype for new hot plasma nuclear reactor

http://siberiantimes.com/science/others ... r-reactor/

Scientists in Siberia are developing a pioneering new type of nuclear reactor using temperatures twice as hot as the sun that could create an energy of the future.

Costing approximately 500 million roubles ($9.8 million), it is being built near Novosibirsk by the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics and will allow the study of high energy plasma heated to to an incredible 30 million degrees Celsius to make power.

It is an experimental form of thermonuclear fusion, and it is initially hoped it could be harnessed to incinerate radioactive waste.

But if successful, it could eventually pave the way for a new way of generating electricity.

And since it uses hydrogen isotope deuterium - rather than the radioactive tritium - it is considered far less dangerous and gives out a lower output of energy.

Alexander Ivanov, the deputy director of the institute, said a working prototype of the new reactor will be constructed over the next few years.

He told the Siberian Times: 'This will be a full-scale model of the reactor, which can be used for research or, for example, for the processing of radioactive waste.

'There are a lot of technologies to create such a complex. They are new and it takes some time to master them. All the problems with plasma physics that we will address are relevant to the global scientific community.'

Scientists at the Budker Institute have been experimenting with plasma physics for decades and last December managed a world record temperature of 4.5million degrees Celsius when heating hot plasma in an open quasi-stationary magnetic trap.

[article continues, and with some cool pix]
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D Tibbets
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Re: Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)

Post by D Tibbets »

I don't know what type of reactor they are pursuing. The picture looks somewhat like one arm of a FRC. Could it be a type of magnetized target fusion? The name is unfamiliar. I don't know the comparable machines that the "record " temperature would apply to. I think most of the FRC efforts are operating currently at a few hundred eV. Tokamaks of course have exceeded 5,000 eV, while IEC, Polywell, DPF, and others are well above this.

30 million degrees K is a little less than 3,000 eV. As a way point it may be significant, but it is totally inadequate for any fusion scheme that aims to reach breakeven. For D-T fusion a minimum of ~ 5,000 eV is needed, for other fuels the minimum temperature goes up from there. This is based on fusion energy out divided by Bremmstruhlung energy losses. There is a minimal temperature where the Fusion cross section gains exceeds the Bremmstruhlung cross section losses. There is also a maximum useful temperature where the Bremsstruhlung losses again overtake the fusion gains. There is a window for each fuel where fusion scales faster than Bremsstruhlung losses. This ignores losses associated with particle confinement issues.

How, you might ask, does the Sun overcome this. It operates at a core temperature of only about 15 million degrees K, or about 1,400 eV, and it burns hydrogen which is a fuel with an extreamly smaller fusion cross section. Note that I used particle confinement , not total confinement above. A substantial portion of the energy in the system is carried by the KE of the particles, but X-rays are not particles of matter. In terrestrial reactors there is essentially zero confinement of photons of whatever energy or source. In the Sun there is so much mass/ matter in the core that even very energetic X-rays/ photons cannot escape, thus they do not drain the energy in the core. In the Suns case,the neutrinos are more significant as an energy loss. The Sun with it's gravitational confinement of very high densities and volumes of core hydrogen is an excellent mass and energy confinement device. The X- rays from the Sun that gives us our tans are not coming from the Sun's core. They are generated in the Sun's corona, especially the high thermal tail of the thermalized plasma in this region. If some very small fraction of the core generated X-rays was penetrating the overlying Solar layers, the Earth would be a cinder. The tremendous energy from particle KEs and X-rays from the Sun's core that ends up as mostly heat trapped within the Sun is what supports this cloud of gas that is the Sun against further gravitational collapse.

Note that energy recovery from X-ray losses modifies the picture somewhat. Obviously as in the Sun discussion above. Also,If LPP's x-ray direct converter works and can be applied effectively, most of the energy loss from X-rays can be recovered and recycled.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

Solo
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Location: Wisconsin

Re: Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)

Post by Solo »

Budker is working on two different linear (magnetic mirror) devices. One is the Gas Dynamic Trap, which is being pitched as a neutron source for a hybrid fission/fusion machine or for fusion material science (wall/blanket testing). It is powered by large neutral beam injectors. It can run in more-or-less steady state (if it had big enough power supplies).

The other device is an extremely long multiple-magnetic-mirror device which is heated by an axial relativistic electron beam (short pulse). It has some interesting properties because the turbulence & azimuthal magnetic fields created by the beam reduce the axial energy loss rate for ions.

Neither device is particularly promising from a reactor standpoint as far as I can tell.

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