Le projet de fusion en UK de Tokamak Energy

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Le projet de fusion en UK de Tokamak Energy

Message par energy_isere » 01 mai 2017, 11:57

Encore un projet de fusion, par une société privée en UK :
Tokamak Energy turns on ST40 fusion reactor

28 April 2017

The UK's newest fusion reactor has been turned on for the first time and has officially achieved first plasma. The reactor aims to produce a record-breaking plasma temperature of 100 million degrees for a privately-funded venture. This is seven times hotter than the centre of the Sun and the temperature necessary for controlled fusion.

Oxford, England-based Tokamak Energy said today that with its ST40 reactor "up and running", the next steps are to complete the commissioning and installation of the full set of magnetic coils which are crucial to reaching the temperatures required for fusion. This will allow the ST40 to produce a plasma temperature of 15 million degrees - as hot as the centre of the Sun - in the autumn of this year.

Image
The ST40 fusion reactor (Image: Tokamak Energy)

David Kingham, CEO of Tokamak Energy, said: "Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world. We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures - 100 million degrees - are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades."

He added: "We will still need significant investment, many academic and industrial collaborations, dedicated and creative engineers and scientists, and an excellent supply chain. Our approach continues to be to break the journey down into a series of engineering challenges, raising additional investment on reaching each new milestone. We are already half-way to the goal of fusion energy; with hard work, we will deliver fusion power at commercial scale by 2030."

Tokamak Energy grew out of Culham Laboratory, home to JET - the world's most powerful tokamak - and the world's leading centre for magnetic fusion energy research. Tokamak Energy's technology revolves around high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, which allow for relatively low-power and small-size devices, but high performance and potentially widespread commercial deployment.
The world's first tokamak with exclusively HTS magnets - the ST25 HTS, Tokamak Energy's second reactor - demonstrated 29 hours continuous plasma during the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London in 2015 - a world record.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-To ... 41701.html

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Re: Le projet de fusion en UK de Tokamak Energy

Message par energy_isere » 01 mai 2017, 13:33

La feuille de route de Tokamak Energy sur leur site :
http://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/about-us/
Tokamak Energy is breaking the problem down into a series of engineering challenges:

Build a small prototype tokamak to demonstrate the concept (achieved 2013)
Build a tokamak with all magnets of high temperature superconductor (achieved 2015).
Reach fusion temperatures in a compact tokamak (we are aiming for 100 million degrees in 2018).
Achieve energy breakeven conditions – where we could get at least as much energy out of the machine as we put in to drive fusion reactions (we aim to achieve this by 2020).
Produce electricity for the first time by 2025.
From here we will go on to build reliable, economic, fusion power plants. This is an engineering challenge in itself – we will be holding an incredibly hot plasma in a device with a desired operation lifetime of decades.

We are currently at stage 3 and are building a new tokamak, ST40, at our facility at Milton Park, Oxfordshire. This will demonstrate that fusion temperatures are achievable in a small tokamak. Stage 4 (energy breakeven conditions) will be the “Wright Brothers Moment” for fusion – a distinctive technology breakthrough.

The Tokamak Energy approach is different to the public-funded one. We progress by delivering results quickly and creating a virtuous circle – if we deliver on a goal then we can raise money to tackle the next goal, generating momentum to make rapid progress.

These are the plans, but they need money and excellent engineers to make them happen. This is cutting edge science, engineering and technology. We can see how to make quick progress, but it is a huge challenge – and it is a race against time.

Successfully harnessing fusion will dramatically change the energy landscape for good, and the faster we can harness it the faster society will reap the benefits.

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Re: Le projet de fusion en UK de Tokamak Energy

Message par Glycogène » 01 mai 2017, 14:00

C'est pipo leur truc.
C'est basé sur exactement le même principe que les tokamaks utilisées depuis 40 ans, qui butent tous sur la possibilité de conserver un "breakeven" durant des heures.
Ils vont juste ajouter une preuve que l'exploitation commerciale de la fusion en tokamak n'est pas possible (en plus de l'échec d'ITER, qui bien que n'étant pas prévu pour une exploitation commerciale, apportera des données prouvant que ce n'est pas possible, alors que leurs concepteurs espèrent le contraire).

Je rappelle que les technos utilisés aujourd'hui pour produire de l'électricité ont toutes commencé par un démonstrateur qui produisait de l'électricité ou de l'énergie mécanique pendant des heures.
La pile atomique de Fermi a immédiatement produit de l'électricité pendant des heures, et on a tout de suite pu construire d'autres protos qui fonctionnaient durant des mois. Pour durée des décennies, il a fallu abandonner une architecture optimisée pour produire du plutonium, mais on y est arrivé en moins de 15 ans.

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