The dream of abundant, affordable, and clean fusion energy just got a big boost. A team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Type One Energy Group has made a major breakthrough that could speed up the path to practical fusion power.
One of the biggest hurdles in fusion energy has been figuring out how to trap high-energy particles inside fusion reactors. These particles, called alpha particles, tend to leak out, making it impossible for the plasma to stay hot and dense enough to keep the fusion reaction going. Engineers use powerful magnetic fields to contain the plasma, but finding and fixing gaps in these fields takes enormous computing power and time.
Now, as published in Physical Review Letters, the team has discovered a shortcut. Their new method helps engineers design magnetic confinement systems, especially for a type of reactor called a stellarator, 10 times faster than the standard approach, with no loss in accuracy. That’s a huge leap forward for fusion research.
“What’s most exciting is that we’re solving something that’s been an open problem for almost 70 years,” said Josh Burby, assistant professor of physics at UT and first author of the paper. “It’s a paradigm shift in how we design these reactors.”
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