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![]() ![]() The electrically-neutral neutrons escape from the plasma and slow down only when they reach the “blanket” surrounding the fusion core. ![]() Making a robust divertor is one of the main challenges of practical fusion. The fusion reactor includes a “divertor” to pump helium out of the reactor as fast as it is generated. ![]() However, they must be removed quickly so as not to dilute the plasma and reduce the frequency of deuterium- tritium collisions, which would cool the plasma. The positively charged helium nuclei slow down within the plasma and keep the plasma hot. In deuterium-tritium plasmas, the fusion reaction consumes deuterium and tritium and produces a helium nucleus and a neutron. Plasmas whose constituents are deuterium and tritium (the heavy isotopes of hydrogen) are by far the most likely to produce a burning plasma. ITER will also address many engineering issues such as plasma heating, magnet performance, and the suitability of structural materials. ITER should produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for 400 seconds with only 50 megawatts of input power. To attain a burning plasma as a stepping stone to commercial fusion power, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is currently being built in France. The current step is to achieve a “burning plasma” – a plasma heated predominantly by the energy from fusion reactions occurring within the plasma, rather than by external sources. In the first era, fusion events were minimized because they create radioactivity in the walls of the device and complicate operations. Over time, attention shifted to the edges of the plasma where heat is lost and materials are damaged – and to the actual production of fusion energy. In a fusion reactor, very strong magnets are used to confine plasma within a vacuum vessel – with the goals of high plasma temperature, minimal thermal losses, high ion density, and a prolonged period of energy production.įrom the 1950s to the 1990s, fusion research focused mostly on magnetic confinement and behavior at the core of the plasma. This state of matter is called the “plasma” state. At such temperatures, atoms have been stripped of their electrons, and the electrons co-exist with the bare, positively charged ions. Creating energy from magnetic confinement fusion on Earth requires a temperature of about 200 million degrees Celsius, even higher than the temperature of nature’s fusion reactor, the Sun’s core, which is 15 million degrees Celsius. But when these nuclei are at a high temperature, they move quickly, and some can get close enough to react. Since all nuclei are positively charged, they repel each other. Fusion energy is released in certain nuclear reactions where nuclei of atoms combine and are transformed into other nuclei. ![]()
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