Scientists create mind-blowing phenomenon inside first-of-its-kind energy device: ‘We were all very excited’

Nuclear fusion has high potential as an abundant and clean energy source, but the industry still faces challenges in fully stabilizing the process and making it profitable.

Tokamaks — an apparatus or fusion reactor used to produce and contain the nuclear fusion process — provide a promising setup. However, they still experience edge instabilities (also known as edge localized modes or ELM) akin to solar flares that lead to significant energy losses and damage on the reactor wall.

Scientists at the University of Seville, Spain, have been studying how ELMs interact with energetic particles to help minimize ELM damage. For the first time, their Small Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) fusion reactor, created with researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, successfully created plasma (the soup-like medium required for fusion in the tokamak). The reactor used an innovative method called “negative triangularity,” which has been shown to minimize ELM damage on the tokamak, as reported by Interesting Engineering.

Most tokamaks are configured with “positive triangularity,” where the cross-section of the plasma medium is shaped like the letter D — the straight side of the “D” facing the center, and the curved edge on the outside, the Interesting Engineering report explained. The steep pressure on the outside plasma edges is what has been contributing to ELM instability and potential reactor wall damage.

With negative triangularity, the “D” shape is inverted to face the center, minimizing plasma edge instability while maintaining the high performance of the nuclear fusion process.

So far, only the SMART reactor has achieved plasma production with negative triangularity, which is a massive breakthrough for the nuclear fusion industry.

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“We were all very excited to see the first magnetically confined plasma and are looking forward to exploiting the capabilities of the SMART device together with the international scientific community,” said Eleonora Viezzer, physicist and professor at the University of Seville, per Interesting Engineering.

The world is one step closer to a cleaner and highly abundant energy source. Compared to its counterpart, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion does not produce dangerous radioactive waste that requires special management. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, fusion produces helium as a byproduct, which is not harmful to the environment.

In addition, nuclear fusion sources its fuel, deuterium and tritium, from hydrogen — one of the most plentiful elements on Earth, per the Department of Energy.

Nuclear fusion is a promising source of efficient, clean energy, which could save homeowners and governments money on energy costs while transitioning to a clean energy source. Adopting clean energy sources reduces harmful gas pollution that contributes to a warming planet.

Scientists are continuing to research how to make nuclear fusion a viable energy solution.

A team of scientists from the United Kingdom’s Joint European Torus facility produced 69 megajoules of energy with temperatures reaching 150 million degrees — 10 times hotter than the sun. One U.K. company is building a fusion reactor that can generate enough nuclear fusion energy to power 70,000 homes.

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