Dutch Scientists make breakthrough in Nuclear fusion power station

The superconductivity research group of the University of Twente (UT) has made a technological breakthrough crucial to the success of nuclear fusion reactors, allowing for clean, inexhaustible energy generation based on the workings of the stars in our galaxy.

The crux of the new development is a highly ingenious and robust superconducting cable system.

This makes for a remarkably strong magnetic field that controls the very hot, energy-generating plasma in the reactor core, laying the foundation for nuclear fusion.

The new cables are far less susceptible to heating due to a clever way of interweaving, which allows for a significant increase in the possibilities to control the plasma.

Moreover, in combination with an earlier UT invention, the cables are able to withstand the immense forces inside the reactor for a very long time.

The increased working life of the superconductors and the improved control of the plasma will soon make nuclear fusion energy more reliable: the magnet coils take up one third of the costs of a nuclear fusion power station.

The longer their working life, the cheaper the energy will be. The research is a project within the context of the Green Energy Initiative of the University of Twente.

Cost-effective clean energy Project leader Arend Nijhuis: 'The worldwide development of nuclear fusion reactors is picking up steam, and this breakthrough leads to a new impulse.'

Arend Nijhuis

'Our new cables have already been extensively tested in two institutes.' Mr Nijhuis has been invited to form a new collaboration with oppressive China and expects that the UT system will become a global standard.

The world's largest nuclear fusion reactor, ITER, is under construction in Cadarache in France, and is expected to start operation by 2020, as a joint project of the US, EU, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea and China.

However, China and South Korea have also initiated their own national large-scale nuclear fusion projects, in which the UT technology can be incorporated.

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NASA: Nuclear Fusion Rockets for Future Space Exploration

A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. 

In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. 

Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion.

CREDIT: University of Washington, MSNW

Rockets that harness the power of nuclear fusion may provide the next big leap in humanity's quest to explore the final frontier, NASA's science chief says.

Nuclear fusion rockets could slash travel times through deep space dramatically, potentially opening up vast swathes of the solar system to human exploration, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

John Grunsfeld

"It's transformative," Grunsfeld said last month after his presentation at Maker Faire Bay Area in San Mateo, Calif., a two-day celebration of DIY science, technology and engineering.

"You could get to Saturn in a couple of months. How fantastic would that be?"

For a little perspective: NASA's robotic Cassini spacecraft blasted off in October 1997 and didn't enter Saturn orbit until July 2004.



Traditional chemical propulsion systems can get humans to destinations in deep space, but with a lot of travel time.

For example, a roundtrip manned mission to the vicinity of Mars, which NASA aims to execute by the mid-2030s, would require about 500 days of spaceflight.

Speeding up the trip to Mars, or anywhere else, is desirable for a number of reasons — to minimize the radiation dose astronauts receive during the journey, for example, and to save money on consumables such as food and water.

So NASA and researchers around the world have been investigating advanced propulsion technologies, including space-bending "warp drives," enormous solar sails and matter-antimatter engines.

Nuclear fusion is perhaps the most promising of these possibilities, at least in the relatively near term, proponents say.

Fusion rockets would harness the energy released when the nuclei of two or more atoms combine.

Our sun and other stars are fusion-powered, converting this energy to light; the same principle also gives hydrogen bombs their immense destructive power.

NASA has funded several early-stage fusion ideas recently via a program called NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts).

One of these groups, led by scientists at the University of Washington, recently calculated that a fusion rocket could make it possible to get astronauts to Mars in as little as 30 days.

Nuclear Fusion Rockets could transport humans to Mars

A concept image of a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. 

In this image, the crew would be in the forward-most chamber. 

Solar panels on the sides would collect energy to initiate the process that creates fusion. 

Credit: University of Washington

Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs.

Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbour through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars.

University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks.

John Slough

"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics.

"We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace."

The project is funded through NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

Last month at a symposium, Slough and his team from MSNW, of which he is president, presented their mission analysis for a trip to Mars, along with detailed computer modeling and initial experimental results.

Theirs was one of a handful of projects awarded a second round of funding last fall after already receiving phase-one money in a field of 15 projects chosen from more than 700 proposals.

The plasma (blue) is injected into the rocket nozzle. 

Lithium metal rings (red) then collapse at great force around the plasma, compressing it to fusion conditions. 

The sudden release of fusion energy vaporises and ionises the lithium in the magnetic nozzle, causing it to eject and power the rocket forward. 

Credit: University of Washington

NASA estimates a round-trip human expedition to Mars would take more than four years using current technology.

The sheer amount of chemical rocket fuel needed in space would be extremely expensive – the launch costs alone would be more than $12 billion.

Slough and his team have published papers calculating the potential for 30- and 90-day expeditions to Mars using a rocket powered by fusion, which would make the trip more practical and less costly.

Nuclear fusion-generated electricity: Is safer, more efficient energy on the horizon?

Fusion-fueled power generation has been the energy of the future for several decades.

"There's always been this sense that fusion is fifty years away," Saskia Mordijck says, but she adds that the horizon for safer and more efficient fusion-based electricity in our homes is really, truly getting closer.

Mordijck, a research assistant professor based in the Computer Science Department at William & Mary (with adjunct positions in physics and applied science), has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue her investigation of fusion energy.

She says most people are only vaguely aware of how fusion works and therefore have little idea of the advantages is offers over "traditional" nuclear power.

Fusion Energy
"Fusion energy is the exact opposite of what we have across the river in Surry where we have a nuclear power plant," she explained.

"In a nuclear power plant they actually bombard their material with small particles so it splits apart so there is energy released—that's fission."

To accomplish fusion, she says, you take two very small particles and heat them at high enough temperatures so that they fuse together.

"As a result of their fusing together they actually will release energy, as per Einstein's famous equation E=mc2.," Mordijck explained.

That's one most people recognize even if they have not had any physics."

Many advantages over fission 
When it comes to power generation, fusion has a number of advantages over fission and many of them relate to safety.

Mordijck says that the usual causes of anxiety over nuclear power generation just don't exist with fusion. Fukushima/Chernobyl-type incidents are not part of the equation.

"The nice thing about a fusion reaction is that if somehow it would go out of control, it would just stop itself automatically. If a fission reaction goes out of control, it can really go out of control," Mordijck explained.

"You can't stop it and it actually might go into a nuclear meltdown." The second set of fusion-over-fission benefits centers around radioactive waste.

Dealing with Nuclear waste
Mordijck acknowledges that certain amount of waste is inescapable, but a fusion power plant would generate only a fraction of the amount of nuclear waste that even the most efficient fission plants produce.

Not only is the amount smaller, but waste from a fusion plant also stays dangerous for much shorter periods of time.

"In a fission power plant we create a lot of radioactive waste which lasts for a very long time. It lasts longer than most things that we have here on Earth, and so we have to store it somewhere.

We cannot clean it any way or form," Mordijck explained. "Whereas in a fusion power plant, the lifetime of this waste is very short.

After 50 to 100 years, it will be completely gone and it will not be more radioactive than the surrounding environment and it won't be able to contaminate anything."

Funding cuts hinder progress
Fusion energy has been working in the sun, where the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium has been keeping us warm for years.

Despite all the potential advantages, fusion remains an experimental technology and an underfunded one at that, Mordijck says.

 "When people say that fusion always seems to be perpetually fifty years off, we fusion scientists point out that our funding has been cut every single year, so it's hard to make any progress," she noted.