Yet fusion produces no greenhouse gas emissions or long-lived radioactive waste. Like a gas, coal, or fission plant, a fusion plant will provide highly concentrated, baseload energy around the clock. The deuterium fuel is readily available in seawater, and the only by-product is helium. Hydrogen fusion is an ideal method of generating energy.
The hydrogen is heated until it becomes an ionized plasma, which looks like a cloud.A small amount of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen) gas is injected into a large, donut-shaped vacuum chamber, called a tokamak.
STRONGEST MAGNET IN THE WORLD PLUS
Five additional Central Solenoid modules, plus one spare, are at various stages of fabrication. The Central Solenoid modules are being manufactured at GA’s Magnet Technologies Center in Poway, California, near San Diego, under the direction of the US ITER project, managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This is a significant achievement for the GA team and US ITER.” We have all felt the responsibility of working on a job that has the potential to change the world. “I speak for the entire team when I say this is the most important and significant project of our careers.
“This project ranks among the largest, most complex and demanding magnet programs ever undertaken,” says John Smith, GA’s Director of Engineering and Projects. The Central Solenoid will play a critical role in ITER’s mission to establish fusion energy as a practical, safe and inexhaustible source of clean, abundant and carbon-free electricity. This week it will be loaded onto a special heavy transport truck for shipment to Houston, where it will be placed on an ocean-going vessel for shipment to southern France. The support structures for the Central Solenoid will have to withstand forces equal to twice the thrust of a space shuttle lift-off.Įarlier this year, General Atomics (GA) completed final testing of the first Central Solenoid module. At its core, it will reach a magnetic field strength of 13 Tesla, about 280,000 times stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. How powerful is the Central Solenoid? Its magnetic force is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier 2 meters (6 feet) into the air. It is sometimes called the “beating heart” of the ITER machine. It will induce a powerful current in the ITER plasma, helping to shape and control the fusion reaction during long pulses. contributions to ITER.įully assembled, it will be 18 meters (59 feet) tall and 4.25 meters (14 feet) wide, and will weigh a thousand tons.
The Central Solenoid, the largest of ITER’s magnets, will be made up of six modules. This arrangement drives companies like General Atomics to expand their expertise in the futuristic technologies needed for fusion. Most of ITER’s funding is in the form of contributed components. ITER is a collaboration of 35 partner countries: the European Union (plus the United Kingdom and Switzerland), China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States. When assembled together, they will make up the ITER Tokamak, a “sun on earth” to demonstrate fusion at industrial scale. For the past 15 months, massive first-of-a-kind components have begun to arrive in France from three continents. The materials to power society with hydrogen fusion for millions of years are readily abundant.ĭespite the challenges of Covid-19, ITER is almost 75 percent built. Fusion energy is carbon-free, safe and economic. ITER’s mission is to prove energy from hydrogen fusion can be created and controlled on earth. ITER is being built in southern France by 35 partner countries. It will become a central component of ITER, a machine that replicates the fusion power of the Sun. San Diego, June 15 – After a decade of design and fabrication, General Atomics is ready to ship the first module of the Central Solenoid, the world’s most powerful magnet. contribution to global fusion energy project
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