Related papers: Converting energy from fusion into useful forms
In the course of the energy transition, energy generation from nuclear power - through nuclear fission and perhaps in the future through nuclear fusion - is often proposed as an alternative or supplement to renewable energy sources. There…
Global consumption of heat is vast and difficult to decarbonise, but it could present an opportunity for commercial fusion energy technology. The economics of supplying heat with fusion energy are explored in context of a future…
Fusion energy is often regarded as a long-term solution to the world's energy needs. However, even after solving the critical research challenges, engineering and materials science will still impose significant constraints on the…
Thermonuclear reactors hold a great promise for the future of Humankind. Within Tokamak and Stellarator reactors, plasma is confined by twisted magnetic fields. Reactors which produce fusion energy have existed since Princeton Large Torus…
Deeper insight into the features of a reactor as a source of antineutrinos is required for making further advances in studying the fundamental properties of the neutrino. The relationship between the thermal power of a reactor and the rate…
Using a combination of laser-plasma interactions and magnetic confinement configurations, a conceptual fusion reactor is proposed in this paper. Our reactor consists of the following: 1) A background plasma of boron11 and hydrogen ions,…
It is pointed out that controlled release of thermal energy from fission type nuclear reactors can be used to alter weather patterns over significantly large geographical regions. (1) Nuclear heat creates a low pressure region, which can be…
Fusion energy is at an important inflection point in its development: multiple government agencies and private companies are now planning fusion pilot plants to deliver electricity to the grid in the next decade. However, realizing fusion…
The energy transition is also about switching to electricity-based technologies such as heat pumps and electric mobility. They avoid heat as an intermediate step and are therefore much more efficient. This can significantly reduce the…
We revisit the assumption that reactors based on deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion processes have to be necessarily developed after the successful completion of experiments and demonstrations for deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reactors. Two…
The confinement of heat in the core of a magnetic fusion reactor is optimised using a multidimensional optimisation algorithm. For the first time in such a study, the loss of heat due to turbulence is modelled at every stage using…
PROCESS is a reactor systems code - it assesses the engineering and economic viability of a hypothetical fusion power station using simple models of all parts of a reactor system. PROCESS allows the user to choose which constraints to…
Future advanced nuclear rocket propulsion, and the availability of new nuclear power cycle designs, will benefit substantially from the large current investment in alternative nuclear energy that is underway today. We propose a new nuclear…
Nuclear power plants are prominent examples of heat-to-work conversion systems, and optimizing their thermodynamic performance offers significant potential for enhancing energy efficiency. With a development history of less than a century,…
The accumulated knowledge and the prospects for commercial energy production from fission breeder and fusion reactors are analyzed in this report. The publicly available data from past experimental breeder reactors indicate that a large…
We consider a relativistic quantum heat engine that goes through a thermodynamical cycle consisting of stages involving laser-assisted cooling of electrons and the generation of Xray radiation. Quantum treatment of the processes makes it…
A feasibility study of fusion reactors based on accelerators is carried out. We consider a novel scheme where a beam from the accelerator hits the target plasma on the resonance of the fusion reaction and establish characteristic criteria…
Nuclear fusion is recognized as the energy of the future, and huge efforts and capitals have been put into the research of controlled nuclear fusion in the past decades. The most challenging thing for controlled nuclear fusion is to…
The thermal performance of high heat flux components in a fusion reactor could be enhanced significantly by the use of nanofluid coolants, suspensions of a liquid with low concentrations of solid nanoparticles. However, before they are…
An approach to achieve nuclear fusion utilizing the formation of high densities of electrons and neutrals is described. The profusion of low energy electrons provides high dynamic electric fields that help reduce the Coulomb barrier in…