Energy “Laws”

Energy “Producers”

Energy “Consumers”

Next step: Panels

Sustainable Energy:

Complex problem that requires long term

planning and government involvement

Policies, budget, etc….

ExampleInterconnected Policies

Balance of Trade

Transportation policy

Agricultural policy

Foreign policy

Energy policy

Believe it or not…Development

of the technology for the future

ExamplesInternational Collaboration to develop

Nuclear Fusion Energy

1985- Geneva Superpower Summit:

Reagan (USA) & Gorbachev (Soviet Union) agreed on project to develop new cleaner, sustainable source of energy- Fusion energy!!

Why Fusion?

E=mc2

Science well known…

5

We are just copying nature !

Natural Fusion Reactors vsFusion Experiments on Earth

Just need to produce plasma like those in starts…

What is a Plasma?

Four States of Matter

SolidLiquidaseousPlasma

Four States of Matter SOLID LIQUID GAS PLASMA

Matter heated to high temperatures becomes a Plasma

Characteristics of Typical Plasmas

Benefits of Fusion• Abundance of input fuels (world-wide)

– Deuterium can be extracted from seawater– Tritium can be made in the fusion reactor with lithium– Helium-3 can in theory be mined from immense deposits in the lunar

surface– As opposed to fission where uranium is rare and must be mined

• Safe– Only small amount of fuel required compared to fission reactors

• no transport of radioactive fuel for normal operation– Most reactors make less radiation than the natural background

• no meltdown accidents– Risk of accidental release is non-existent since plasma requires

incredibly precise control• Clean

– No combustion by products• no CO2 emissions

– No weapons grade nuclear by products• Potential for production of electricity (and hydrogen)

FUSION

METHODS

Magnetic Confinement

Inertial (laser) Confinement

Magnetic ConfinementTokomak• Invented in the 50’s by Soviet Physicists

– Toroidal chamber with magnetic coils– Toroidal chamber with axial magnetic

fields

• Most common form of magnetic confinement reactor– Most studied

• Walls “capture” the heat and pass it to a heat exchanger which produces steam to drive a turbine

• ITER– International Thermonuclear Experimental

Reactor– Being built in France– First tokomak fusion reactor that will become

productive

Plasma Turbulence: Edge Effects

Toroidal Coordinate System:

• Common in plasma physics• Red arrow - poloidal direction (θ)• Blue arrow - toroidal direction (φ)

Inside JET

Captured by an ultra-high-speed camera, a pellet of fuel is injected into a plasma at the ASDEX Upgrade Tokomak in Garching, Germany. Photo: EFDA.

Plasma image following the injection of a frozen deuterium pellet

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

JET

Fusion Temperature attained Fusion confinement one step away

15

ITER Reactor: Cross Section

Inertial (laser) Confinement

• Implosion of micro-capsules of fuel by high power laser beams– Lasers cause instantaneous sublimation to plasma– Plasma envelope collapses under the radiative pressure– Collapse sends a shockwave through the fuel heating it to its

critical temperature• Final stage the interior fuel reaches 20 times the density of lead and

108 K• Instead of having to confine the plasma for long periods,

IC confines plasma in very short bursts•

• Still not as efficient as magnetic forms • Improvements in laser technology main priority

D-T micro-balloon fuel pellet

Gold Hohlraum

Hohlraum Reactions

Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Recent Developments: Sandia National Laboratories

• Two Purposes:– Weapons research– Pursue the ignition of fusion

• Z Accelerator (inertial confinement)– Uses blasts of X-rays crashing into a hydrogen

(deuterium) capsule at the center• 200 trillion watts of x-rays (10 x electrical energy

than entire generating capacity of the world)• 15 million degrees centigrade

Cheaper than Tokamaks and Lasers

Wrong path…

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KMmlSDWFIc&feature=related