Fred Derf Veteran Posted March 10, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2006 Plasma hotter than star's interior created on Earth SUE MAJOR HOLMES Associated Press Albuquerque, N.M. ? A particle accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories has heated a swarm of charged particles to a record 2 billion degrees Kelvin, a temperature beyond that of a star's interior. Scientists working with Sandia's Z machine said the feat also revealed a new phenomenon that could eventually make future nuclear fusion power plants smaller and cheaper to operate than if the plants relied on previously known physics. ?At first, we were disbelieving,? said Chris Deeney, head of the project. ?We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result and not an 'Ooops'!? Sandia's experiment, which held up in tests and computer modelling in the 14 months since it was first done, was outlined in the Feb. 24 edition of Physical Review Letters. The authors also presented a theoretical explanation of what happened by Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines, a physicist at Imperial College in London. The achievement will not mean fusion in the near future, but it's another step toward that goal, said Neal Singer, a Sandia spokesman. Sandia's Z machine, housed in a warehouse-sized laboratory, is designed to generate tremendous amounts of energy. It normally passes 20 million amps of electrical current through a cluster of tungsten wires about the size of a spool of thread. The massive electrical pulse instantly vaporizes the wires into a cloud of charged, superhot particles known as plasma. At the same time, the Z machine compresses the plasma in a powerful magnetic field. Almost instantly, the particles smash together in a collision that can emit temperatures in the millions of degrees. Sandia boosted the Z machine's output into the billions of degrees in part by substituting steel wires around a larger, coffee cup-sized core. Increasing the size of the core increased the distance the ions travelled, giving them more time to gain velocity and therefore energy. But the larger core did not account for all the heat generated in the collision. It also could not explain why the plasma particles did not stop moving once they collided with one another ? for about 10 billionths of a second, some unknown energy caused them to keep pushing back against the magnetic field. Dr. Haines theorized that the energy of the Z machine's magnetic field itself added energy to the particles. The new phenomenon could be exploited in fusion power as a trigger that would set off a controlled nuclear reaction by heating a small amount of deuterium or tritium. It is likely to be more efficient than other proposed methods because it produces higher temperatures while requiring less input energy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ry/Science/home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 That is so cool! But how is 2 Billion degrees not melting anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raid517 Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Not so cool as much as very, very hot! And as the article clearly states the plasma that was created in the experiments was contained within a magnetic field, so it never touched anything in order to be able to melt it. Even at that you are talking about creating these temperatures often for only thousands or billionths of a second. Once we work out how to reliably create these temperatures and to sustain them and how to keep them from destroying everything that they come into contact with, then we can start dreaming about the prospect of achieving a genuine nuclear fusion reactor. GJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quigley0 Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 how do you even measure that temperature? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raid517 Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 One way is by measuring the frequency of light that is produced - just as we do when we measure the temperature of distant stars. GJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~WinGz~ Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 just out of curiosity, if something was that hot, wouldnt its surroundings melt? i mean for example the sun can melt objects a few hundred miles away from its surface. But wouldnt something that hot need alot of room to spread out its heat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 One way is by measuring the frequency of light that is produced - just as we do when we measure the temperature of distant stars. GJ And that frequency is achieved by breaking that light up into a sprectrum right? Kind of the same method used for distance measuring...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Not so cool as much as very, very hot! And as the article clearly states the plasma that was created in the experiments was contained within a magnetic field, so it never touched anything in order to be able to melt it. Even at that you are talking about creating these temperatures often for only thousands or billionths of a second. Once we work out how to reliably create these temperatures and to sustain them and how to keep them from destroying everything that they come into contact with, then we can start dreaming about the prospect of achieving a genuine nuclear fusion reactor. GJ And if we are able to achieve nuclear reaction that sustains as an energy source for use by man kind the possibilities will be almost endless, if we can maintain a proper ratio for hydrogen into helium conversion rate then our energy crisis might be extinct. However if it is anything that nature tells us, is that nothing lasts forever in a singular form. Eventually the 1st law of thermodynamics will take over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermal+paste Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 the power of the sun in the palm of my hand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted March 25, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 25, 2006 And if we are able to achieve nuclear reaction that sustains as an energy source for use by man kind the possibilities will be almost endless, if we can maintain a proper ratio for hydrogen into helium conversion rate then our energy crisis might be extinct. However if it is anything that nature tells us, is that nothing lasts forever in a singular form. Eventually the 1st law of thermodynamics will take over. Well, just using current nuclear reactors, we have about 7 millennia of fuel available, so if we switched entirely to nuclear fuels, we would solve a lot of the worlds energy problems for a long time to come (still a finite amount of energy), but we wouldn't have a problem until around the year 8,000, add in safe breeder reactors, and it's a good idea. :yes: Now, this is clean fuel (waste can be managed), which will last for a much longer time than coal and oil will (and has). I might be wrong on the amount left though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beastage Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 How exactly is nuclear waste managed? by putting in barrels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted March 25, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 25, 2006 Well, not every form needs to be put in barrels, some kinds can be used in other reactions, and such Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borbus Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 "degrees Kelvin" :no: Hopefully this means we are one step closer to slef sustaining Fusion reactions. I think we should go 100% nuclear now and put loads of money into researching fusion rather than putting up all these crappy wind turbines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beastage Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 (edited) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060313.html the Z Machine, looks like an overmodded computer room... Edited March 25, 2006 by Beastage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shibby Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 If we are going to go to fusion reactors then we need to addres other things such as not producing more emissions when making the sites. Also with fusion it cuts down alot of the harmfull waste doesn't it? because the atoms and stuff bang in to each other and then form together. where as curernty fision doesn't do this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermal+paste Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 How exactly is nuclear waste managed? by putting in barrels? sent to nevada Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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