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July 25th, 2008
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Star power

'Compass' reactor gives nuclear fusion research new bearing

By Victor Velek
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 16th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Physicist Jan Mlynář, in front of the Compass reactor, says the country will see a boost in its stature as a fusion research location.
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COURTESY ILLUSTRATION
At ITER, plasma will be heated to extreme levels in the reactor's tokamak.
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In the middle of a panelák suburb in the north of Prague, researchers will soon be harnessing the power of the stars.
The Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) unveiled its new nuclear fusion reactor, called the Compass-D, earlier this month. The reactor is a miniature version of the pan-European fusion reactor, ITER, planned to be built in southern France by 2016.
Unlike today’s nuclear power plants, which produce electricity from fission, nuclear fusion facilities of the future are expected to be free of high-level radioactive waste. And, instead of scarce uranium, they will be fueled by an inexhaustible source: hydrogen.
The IPP says that the Compass reactor will significantly boost the Czech Republic’s stature as a fusion research location, attracting researchers from the whole of Europe. Its installation will allow Czech scientists to be significant contributors to ITER, said Jan Mlynář, an IPP physicist.
“Compass is a precondition for us to become a strong partner of European fusion research,” he said.
The facility’s previous reactor, Castor, had grown outdated. It was built in Moscow in the 1950s and installed in Prague in 1977. By then, Soviet fusion research was already on the decline due to sub-par computer development, Mlynář said.
The Castor, Compass-D and ITER projects all use the same basic design for their reactors, called the tokamak, which was first invented in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Tokamak reactors use magnetic fields to confine plasma, the incredibly hot ionized gas that composes such objects as the sun or lightning.
The Compass-D tokamak comes to the IPP from the nuclear fusion research center in Culham, United Kingdom, which launched a new reactor in 1999, called Mast. That left the Compass relatively neglected.
Even though it is secondhand, the reactor is far from outdated, said Nick Holloway of the British fusion research hub.
“As it is a smaller version of the ITER design, it can provide experimental results that can be scaled up for use on larger devices,” Holloway said.
Compared with ITER, Compass-D is 10 times smaller in dimensions and 1,000 times smaller in terms of its plasma capacity.
“It can also be used to address some of the key issues in fusion, for example, studies of plasma instabilities inside tokamaks,” Holloway added.
The 22-ton machine’s second home is a building specially constructed to house the reactor at the Czech Academy of Sciences’ research complex near Ládví metro station in Prague, which cost more than 300 million Kč ($18.8 million) to construct.
Still, the reactor is a bargain considering the academy paid only a symbolic £1 for the device.
Fusion future
Scientists hope that the ITER experiment will open the door to building a full-scale experimental nuclear fusion power plant, called DEMO. It could start generating electricity by 2050, Mlynář said.
As the basic physical questions of nuclear fusion have been solved, ITER will address mainly engineering and material challenges, with materials looming as the largest potential “showstopper,” Mlynář said.
Fusion reactors splice nuclei in extreme temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees centigrade. These conditions require state-of-the-art materials and designs.
Beyond materials, nuclear fusion has been notoriously inefficient, requiring more energy to achieve than it puts out. Heating hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — to high temperatures consumes enormous amounts of power.
For example, the IPP’s planned experiments on Compass, which should begin by the end of the year, will require a 50-megawatt injection of electricity for three seconds of operation. That’s enough power to turn on half a million 100-watt light bulbs.
Scientists expect the inefficiency of fusion will be corrected by larger scales. ITER should create 10 times more energy than it takes for it to create a fusion reaction, for example.
If the ITER project paves the way for making electricity from fusion a reality, its estimated cost of 10 billion euros ($15.7 billion/251 billion Kč) would be a priceless investment, Mlynář said.
Not only would nuclear fusion plants generate clean and sustainable energy, the use of abundant hydrogen as fuel could also contribute to world peace: “It could solve the geopolitical friction over limited fuel resources,” he said.
Some environmental groups don’t share this optimism.
“Governments should not waste our money on a dangerous toy,” said Jan Van de Putte of Greenpeace International, when the ITER project gained momentum three years ago. “They should invest in renewable energy, which is abundantly available, not in 2080, but today.”
Investment in fusion research does not oppose similar contributions to renewable power, Mlynář said. The world’s future energy mix will be based on both, he added.
“It is a matter of widening our knowledge,” he said. “It can be compared with Columbus’ voyage. There is a clear and attractive vision of nuclear fusion energy on the horizon and we simply must explore it.”

Victor Velek can be reached at vvelek@praguepost.com


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