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| Stare chamber |
It would provide humankind with near limitless energy, ending dependence on fossil fuels for generating electricity.
US Government physicists have backed plans to create 'a star in a jar' - replicating on Earth the way the sun and stars create energy through fusion.
Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) revealed their plan for a next generation fusion device in a paper published in the journal Nuclear Fusion.
The central stack of the reactor being lowered into place (left)
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| Antigravity chamber |
Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory revealed their plan for a next generation fusion device in a paper published in the journal Nuclear Fusion. Pictured, researchers inside the centre stack of the $94-million upgrade of the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, which began operating last year.
'We are opening up new options for future plants,' said lead author Jonathan Menard, program director for the recently completed National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) at PPPL.
The $94-million upgrade of the NSTX, financed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, began operating last year. Spherical tokamaks are compact devices that are shaped like cored apples, compared with the bulkier doughnut-like shape of conventional tokamaks.
The plants already exists in experimental form - the compact spherical tokamaks at PPPL and Culham, England. These tokamaks, or fusion reactors, could provide the design for possible next steps in fusion energy - a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) that would develop reactor components and also produce electricity as a pilot plant for a commercial fusion power station.
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| How to guide plasma |
How it works: Fusion involves placing hydrogen atoms under high heat and pressure until they fuse into helium atoms.
