‘Stellarator’ artificial sun that generates clean energy

'Stellarator' artificial sun that generates clean energy

We have a new sun in our solar system. Nacer has cost nearly a decade and not have to go very far to see it. Moreover, it is not even necessary to go with telescopes or hop on a rocket. We just set sail to German soil.

There is nothing to fear with respect to competition which may involve the sun king. Even remotely it has sufficient mass for its gravity to succeed in planter’s girasol around him. Of course, all energy could be a revolution that would make clean energy empresses not so much to turn around, but to look in your mirror.

But, what is it? It has been called Stellarator (stellar reactor), and is a German machine of great complexity that could revolutionize energy. His secret? It is safe, clean and inexhaustible nuclear power, and for the first time seems feasible.

However, it is a relatively old invention. Although just launched as a invention, after 9 years of work at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, I invented the American astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer in 1950.

Why is an artificial sun?

The development of this device is based on a similar operation to the sun by fusing nuclei. It performs the same process as our sun thanks to the achievement which has meant recreating the existing helium plasma therein through an atomic reactor.

Its donut-shaped cage looking plasma (ionized gas) in magnetic fields while heating it to high temperatures for the hydrogen nuclei to fuse.

As a fusion device is the great challenge and maintain a gas heated to over 100 million degrees, seven times the core temperature of the sun.

As it does?

Stellarator is a ring of sixteen meters, the largest ever built property, and performs nuclear fusion to about 82 million degrees Celsius. This necessitates calientar hydrogen atoms to about 100 million degrees centigrade in order to achieve fusion in its core.

Heat is the separating electrons of atoms leaving a plasma of electrons and ions, which ions travel at a speed sufficient to fuse, overcoming their mutual repulsion. However, in turn it creates a problem, which is that the gas is impossible to maintain a standard container.

On the one hand, only when this temperature is reached it is possible to generate plasma and it is this which ultimately generates energy. But only if consiguiese prolong plasma would get unlimited energy, another breakthrough from an ecological perspective.

It is the first large-scale example of a new generation of supercomputers stellarators designed thanks to which, among other advantages, have helped optimize containment.

That is, they help keep the trapped gas and the required temperatures for the reactions are sufficiently durable. Thus, great results are achieved.

Is a green energy?

The generation of nuclear energy through fusion, Stellarator system is more secure than the traditional focus on fission, which is currently using nuclear power plants. On the one hand, it does not generate direct radioactive waste or require use non-renewable fuel, such as uranium pollution.

In short, with the merger we avoid the risks of nuclear power production as well as the serious problem of radioactive waste. Hunky-dory, no doubt, but its realization was a great challenge. Now with Stellarator, he could have taken the final step to achieve.

If the merger has not been used as an alternative to fission it has been practically impossible. Only now they are beginning to emerge inventions that, like the Stellarator, manage to overcome the technical challenges posed by its practical expression.

The problem is how difficult it is to start it. We had to reach the point of balance between the energy needed to accelerate and confine the plasma and that obtained with the fusion of some particles.

For the reasons stated it is considered clean energy. Further, if we worked on it it has been to find an innovative solution for the production of clean energy by taking advantage of a nuclear power plant without suffering its drawbacks.

More reliable than its competitor

Currently, the best known for energy through nuclear fusion technology is called Tokamak. Russian invention (Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov from the proposal of Oleg Lawrentiev in 1950), manufacturing collaboration with different countries is it being terribly complicated but, as has now become the German invention, he managed to overcome these technical hurdles.

In fact, it was necessary to build more than 200 times, and remains a project with serious problems still unsolved. Opposite the tokamak, experts say the regularity and reliability of Stellarator as its main advantages.

Its implementation has also been a pacienzudo teamwork. Yes, they have had a budget of vertigo, of more than 900 million euros. The green light to launch occurred in the years 1993-1994 by the German authorities and since then more than one million hours of work were necessary.

It was now that the operation has been verified successfully. Why its creators have decided to launch it. “Everything seems to be exactly as it should be, with very high accuracy,” says Professor Thomas Sun Pedersen, the Max Planck Institute.

In this case, Stellarator could play an important role in the ambitious transition plan German, constantly moving towards a low carbon society. Or, why not, in any corner of the world, especially now that the world is beginning to become aware of the importance of leaving the energies based on fossil fuels.

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