Apr 2, 2012

Sandia simulation suggests sunny skies for fusion reactors

Sandia's Z-Accelerator in action (Photo: Sandia National Laboratories)

In the beginning, there was the thermonuclear bomb - mankind had harnessed the energy of the Sun. Confident predictions abounded that fusion reactors would be providing power "too cheap to meter" within ten years. Sixty years later many observers are beginning to wonder if billions of dollars of effort has been lost in digging out dry wells. Now a new simulation study carried out at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, suggests that magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) experiments could be retrofitted to existing pulsed-power facilities to obtain fusion break-even. .. Continue Reading Sandia simulation suggests sunny skies for fusion reactors