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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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 Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:48 am Scientists may have stumbled onto focus fusion |
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Found at
http://www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html
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Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.
This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.
They don't know how they did it.
The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.
"At first, we were disbelieving," said project leader Chris Deeney. "We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result."
Thermonuclear explosions are estimated to reach only tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin; other nuclear fusion experiments have achieved temperatures of about 500 million degrees Kelvin, said a spokesperson at the lab.
The achievement was detailed in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world. It�s designed to test materials under extreme temperatures and pressures. It works by releasing 20 million amps of electricity into a vertical array of very fine tungsten wires. The wires dissolve into a cloud of charged particles, a superheated gas called plasma.
A very strong magnetic field compresses the plasma into the thickness of a pencil lead. This causes the plasma to release energy in the form of X-rays, but the X-rays are usually only several million degrees.
Sandia researchers still aren�t sure how the machine achieved the new record. Part of it is probably due to the replacement of the tungsten steel wires with slightly thicker steel wires, which allow the plasma ions to travel faster and thus achieve higher temperatures.
One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma�s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.
Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.
Sandia National Laboratories is located by Albuquerque New Mexico and is part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
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The Z Machine is a larger version of the dense plasma focus which has been under study for 40 years and more. Sandia may have stumbled onto something almost exactly like www.focusfusion.org. We can only hope that this leads to serious investigation.
-------signature-------
"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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WeAz
Commodore
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Where you aren't
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| Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:41 pm |
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So a reactor like this might power the world, and more?
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:19 pm |
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No one power source can power everything. This technology has both an upper and lower limit in terms of output. Too small and it won't work, too big and it begins to make more sense to make more smaller ones.
But yes, this type of technology could supply the world's electricity needs. But unless we drive cars with looooooooong extension cords, we will need other technologies to make that power usable where wires don't go.
-------signature-------
"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:54 am |
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Wow, thats rather warm. Maybe a little bit of overkill for home heating in the winter?
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Seven of Nine
Sammie's Mammy
Joined: 16 Jun 2001
Posts: 7871
Location: North East England
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| Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:56 am |
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Just a little 
Hopefully this wil ve investigated further- looks good so far 
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