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150 million degrees for clean energy
Let's digress from politics and talk about the coming revolution in the energy sector.
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER, without exaggeration, be called the most significant research project of modernity. The scale of construction it is easy to shut up for the belt Large Hadron Collider, and if successful, will mark for all of humanity is much bigger step than a flight to the moon. After all, the potential of controlled thermonuclear fusion - a virtually inexhaustible source of unusually cheap and clean energy.
This summer there was more than one good reason to brush up on the technical details of the project ITER. Firstly, a big undertaking, which is considered the official start of the meeting of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in the distant 1985, before our eyes takes materializes. Designing a new generation of reactors, with the participation of Russia, the USA, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the European Union took more than 20 years. Today ITER - is no longer kilograms technical documentation, and 42 ha (1 km 420 m) perfectly flat surface of one of the world's largest man-made platform, located in the French town of Cadarache, 60 km north of Marseille. And the foundation of the 360 000-tonne reactor, consisting of 150 000 cubic meters of concrete, 16,000 tons of rebar and 493 columns with rubber coated antiseismic. And, of course, thousands of complex scientific instruments and research facilities, universities scattered all over the world.
Production of key components of the reactor is in full swing. In the spring, France has reported about 70 frames for the manufacture of D-shaped toroidal field coils, and in June the first winding coils of superconducting cables received from the Russian Institute of cable industry in Podolsk.
The second good reason to remember the ITER right now - the political. The reactor of the new generation - a test not only for scientists but also for the diplomats. It's so expensive and technically complex project that no country in the world to pull him alone. The ability of the states to agree among themselves in both the scientific and in the financial sector depends, Will to pursue the case.
On June 18th ITER Council was scheduled in St. Petersburg, but the US State Department as part of the sanctions banned US scientists to visit Russia. Taking into account the fact that the idea of tokamak (toroidal chamber with magnetic coils underlying ITER) belongs to Soviet physicist Oleg Lavrentiev, the project participants reacted to the decision as a curiosity, and just moved in Cadarache Council on the same date. These events have once again reminded the world that Russia (along with South Korea) is the most responsible attitude to fulfill its obligations to the project ITER.
The phrase "fusion reactor" at many people is a suspicion. An associative chain is clear: the thermonuclear bomb just terrible nuclear, and therefore more dangerous fusion reactor of Chernobyl.
In fact, nuclear fusion, which is based on the principle of the tokamak, is much safer and more efficient nuclear fission used in modern nuclear power plants. Synthesis is used by nature itself: The sun is nothing else than the natural fusion reactor.
In reaction involving nuclei of deuterium and tritium - isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium nucleus consists of a proton and a neutron, and tritium nucleus - of a proton and two neutrons. Under normal circumstances, equally charged nuclei repel each other, but at very high temperatures, they may face. When the collision comes into play the strong interaction, which is responsible for the unification of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. There is a nucleus of a new chemical element - helium.
This forms one free neutron and a large amount of energy. The energy of the strong interaction in the nucleus of helium is less than in the nuclei of the original elements. In this way, the resulting kernel even loses weight (according to the theory of relativity, energy and mass are equivalent). Remembering the famous equation E = mc2, where c - the speed of light, you can imagine what an enormous energy potential is fraught with nuclear fusion.
To overcome the mutual repulsion, the original nucleus must move very quickly, so a key role in nuclear fusion is the temperature. In the center of the Sun the process occurs at a temperature of 150 million degrees Kelvin, but it contributes to the enormous density of the substance due to the influence of gravity. The tremendous mass of light makes it an effective fusion reactor.
Create such a density in the world is not possible. We can only increase the temperature. To isotopes of hydrogen energy gave earthlings their nuclei requires a temperature of 150 million degrees, that is ten times higher than the Sun.
None of the solid material in the universe can not communicate directly with the temperature. So just build a stove for cooking helium fail. Help solve the problem is the same toroidal chamber with magnetic coils, or tokamak. The idea of creating a tokamak dawned bright minds of scientists from different countries in the early 1950s, while the championship is uniquely attributed to Soviet physicist Oleg Lavrentiev and his eminent colleagues Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm.
The vacuum chamber is in the form of a torus (a hollow "donut") surrounded by superconducting electromagnets that create therein a toroidal magnetic field. That is, this field holds the burning ten suns plasma at some distance from the chamber walls. Together with the central electromagnet (inducer) tokamak is a transformer. By varying the current in the inductor, generate within the plasma current - the movement of particles required for the synthesis.
Tokamak can rightly be regarded as a model of technological finesse. The electric current flowing in the plasma creates a poloidal magnetic field, encircles the plasma column and maintains its shape. Plasma exists under strictly defined conditions, and the slightest change in their response immediately stopped. In contrast to the nuclear reactor, the tokamak can not "to hawking" and uncontrolled temperature increase.
In the unlikely event of failure of the tokamak is no radioactive contamination. Unlike nuclear power, fusion reactor produces radioactive waste, and the only reaction product synthesis - helium - are not a greenhouse gas, and is useful in the economy. Finally, the tokamak very carefully Fuel consumption: during synthesis in the vacuum chamber is only a few hundred grams of the substance, and the estimated annual supply of fuel for industrial power is only 250 kg.
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER, without exaggeration, be called the most significant research project of modernity. The scale of construction it is easy to shut up for the belt Large Hadron Collider, and if successful, will mark for all of humanity is much bigger step than a flight to the moon. After all, the potential of controlled thermonuclear fusion - a virtually inexhaustible source of unusually cheap and clean energy.
This summer there was more than one good reason to brush up on the technical details of the project ITER. Firstly, a big undertaking, which is considered the official start of the meeting of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in the distant 1985, before our eyes takes materializes. Designing a new generation of reactors, with the participation of Russia, the USA, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the European Union took more than 20 years. Today ITER - is no longer kilograms technical documentation, and 42 ha (1 km 420 m) perfectly flat surface of one of the world's largest man-made platform, located in the French town of Cadarache, 60 km north of Marseille. And the foundation of the 360 000-tonne reactor, consisting of 150 000 cubic meters of concrete, 16,000 tons of rebar and 493 columns with rubber coated antiseismic. And, of course, thousands of complex scientific instruments and research facilities, universities scattered all over the world.
Production of key components of the reactor is in full swing. In the spring, France has reported about 70 frames for the manufacture of D-shaped toroidal field coils, and in June the first winding coils of superconducting cables received from the Russian Institute of cable industry in Podolsk.
The second good reason to remember the ITER right now - the political. The reactor of the new generation - a test not only for scientists but also for the diplomats. It's so expensive and technically complex project that no country in the world to pull him alone. The ability of the states to agree among themselves in both the scientific and in the financial sector depends, Will to pursue the case.
On June 18th ITER Council was scheduled in St. Petersburg, but the US State Department as part of the sanctions banned US scientists to visit Russia. Taking into account the fact that the idea of tokamak (toroidal chamber with magnetic coils underlying ITER) belongs to Soviet physicist Oleg Lavrentiev, the project participants reacted to the decision as a curiosity, and just moved in Cadarache Council on the same date. These events have once again reminded the world that Russia (along with South Korea) is the most responsible attitude to fulfill its obligations to the project ITER.
The phrase "fusion reactor" at many people is a suspicion. An associative chain is clear: the thermonuclear bomb just terrible nuclear, and therefore more dangerous fusion reactor of Chernobyl.
In fact, nuclear fusion, which is based on the principle of the tokamak, is much safer and more efficient nuclear fission used in modern nuclear power plants. Synthesis is used by nature itself: The sun is nothing else than the natural fusion reactor.
In reaction involving nuclei of deuterium and tritium - isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium nucleus consists of a proton and a neutron, and tritium nucleus - of a proton and two neutrons. Under normal circumstances, equally charged nuclei repel each other, but at very high temperatures, they may face. When the collision comes into play the strong interaction, which is responsible for the unification of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. There is a nucleus of a new chemical element - helium.
This forms one free neutron and a large amount of energy. The energy of the strong interaction in the nucleus of helium is less than in the nuclei of the original elements. In this way, the resulting kernel even loses weight (according to the theory of relativity, energy and mass are equivalent). Remembering the famous equation E = mc2, where c - the speed of light, you can imagine what an enormous energy potential is fraught with nuclear fusion.
To overcome the mutual repulsion, the original nucleus must move very quickly, so a key role in nuclear fusion is the temperature. In the center of the Sun the process occurs at a temperature of 150 million degrees Kelvin, but it contributes to the enormous density of the substance due to the influence of gravity. The tremendous mass of light makes it an effective fusion reactor.
Create such a density in the world is not possible. We can only increase the temperature. To isotopes of hydrogen energy gave earthlings their nuclei requires a temperature of 150 million degrees, that is ten times higher than the Sun.
None of the solid material in the universe can not communicate directly with the temperature. So just build a stove for cooking helium fail. Help solve the problem is the same toroidal chamber with magnetic coils, or tokamak. The idea of creating a tokamak dawned bright minds of scientists from different countries in the early 1950s, while the championship is uniquely attributed to Soviet physicist Oleg Lavrentiev and his eminent colleagues Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm.
The vacuum chamber is in the form of a torus (a hollow "donut") surrounded by superconducting electromagnets that create therein a toroidal magnetic field. That is, this field holds the burning ten suns plasma at some distance from the chamber walls. Together with the central electromagnet (inducer) tokamak is a transformer. By varying the current in the inductor, generate within the plasma current - the movement of particles required for the synthesis.
Tokamak can rightly be regarded as a model of technological finesse. The electric current flowing in the plasma creates a poloidal magnetic field, encircles the plasma column and maintains its shape. Plasma exists under strictly defined conditions, and the slightest change in their response immediately stopped. In contrast to the nuclear reactor, the tokamak can not "to hawking" and uncontrolled temperature increase.
In the unlikely event of failure of the tokamak is no radioactive contamination. Unlike nuclear power, fusion reactor produces radioactive waste, and the only reaction product synthesis - helium - are not a greenhouse gas, and is useful in the economy. Finally, the tokamak very carefully Fuel consumption: during synthesis in the vacuum chamber is only a few hundred grams of the substance, and the estimated annual supply of fuel for industrial power is only 250 kg.
