Mar 22, 2019
After the first generation of nuclear fusion reactors had profound instabilities, and couldn't confine the plasma for long enough to achieve their aims, the world began to realise that fusion might not be just ten years away from reality - and the whole field sank into the doldrums... until a very...
Mar 15, 2019
In 1958, to great fanfare, the ZETA experiment at Harwell announced that they had achieved thermonuclear reactions, controlled in the lab. It was considered a huge breakthrough along the road towards nuclear fusion, and tabloids at the time trumpeted the experiment as allowing "limitless energy from sea water",...
Mar 8, 2019
In the early 1950s, optimism surrounding the potential for nuclear fusion in devices like the Stellarator, the pinch devices, and the magnetic mirror were frustrated by plasma instabilities. It turns out that you cannot treat plasmas like charged particles whizzing around in magnetic fields - instead, the complex theory...
Mar 1, 2019
In 1950-1, Argentine dictator Juan Peron and German scientist
Ronald Richter announced that they had cracked the secret of
limitless energy from nuclear fusion, and would soon sell energy
"in pint-sized bottles, like milk" to every household in the
nation.
Of course, the slight problem was that this technology was...
Feb 25, 2019
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Thermonuclear Takes - our
occasional bonus episodes that deal with topics in the news when
there's just TOO MUCH EXCITING STUFF out there to talk
about.
This episode:
- The teenager who built a nuclear fusion reactor in his bedroom - should ITER give up and go home? (Spoiler:...