Latest Fusion power Stories

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Purdue University is investigating complaints about a scientist who claimed to have achieved "cold fusion" using sound waves to make bubbles in a test tube, the university said on Wednesday. Nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan's work has been controversial since he published a study in 2002 claiming to have achieved the Holy Grail of energy production -- nuclear fusion at room temperature. Nuclear fusion is the...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Friday to include India in a 10-billion-euro project to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor that in the long-run could provide virtually unlimited, cheap and clean energy. The EU's willingness to work with India on a civil nuclear project comes months after the United States said it would support India's nuclear power development despite its refusal to sign a global treaty barring the spread of atomic weapons. That move was...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. "“ Researchers at Purdue University have new evidence supporting earlier findings by other scientists who designed an inexpensive "tabletop" device that uses sound waves to produce nuclear fusion reactions.The technology, in theory, could lead to a new source of clean energy and a host of portable detectors and other applications.The new findings were detailed in a peer-reviewed paper appearing in the May issue of the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design....

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) - France is to host the world's firstnuclear fusion reactor, the project's multinational partnersagreed on Tuesday, bringing closer a technology backers saycould one day provide the world with endless cheap energy. France beat off a rival bid from Japan to host the10-billion-euro ($12.18 billion) experimental reactor atCadarache in the south of the country, according to anagreement signed by the partners after a meeting in Moscow. The ITER (International...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - France won its bid to build a10-billion-euro ($12.18 billion) experimental nuclear fusionreactor after more than a year of wrangling with Japan, theproject's multinational partners said on Tuesday. Ministers from the partner countries signed an agreement ata meeting in Moscow making France the site for the ITERreactor, European Union spokeswoman Antonia Mochan toldReuters. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)project is backed by China, the EU, Japan,...

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) - Science's quest to find a cheap andinexhaustible way to meet global energy needs took a major stepforward on Tuesday when a 30-nation consortium chose France tohost the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japanand signed a deal to site the 10-billion-euro ($12.18-billion)experimental reactor in Cadarache, near Marseille. The project will seek to turn seawater into fuel bymimicking the way the sun...

By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - If scientists succeed in building anexperimental nuclear fusion reactor and making it work it couldsolve the world's energy problems for the next 1,000 years ormore, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japanand signed a deal to build the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion)experimental reactor at Cadarache in the south of the country. Ian Fells, of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britainand an expert on...

PASADENA, Calif. -- Applied physicists at the California Institute of Technology have devised a plasma experiment that shows how huge long, thin jets of material shoot out from exotic astrophysical objects such as young stars, black holes, and galactic nuclei. Reporting in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, applied physics professor Paul Bellan, his graduate student Gunsu Yun, and postdoctoral scholar Setthivoine You describe how they create jets of plasma at will in an...

LONDON -- If scientists succeed in building an experimental nuclear fusion reactor and making it work it could solve the world's energy problems for the next 1,000 years or more, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japan and signed a deal to build the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion) experimental reactor at Cadarache in the south of the country. Ian Fells, of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain and an expert on energy conversion,...

Nuclear fusion reactors could be used to study what the universe was like just after the big bang. So claims a physicist who noticed that the plasma created inside these reactors is distributed in a strikingly similar way to galaxies in today's universe. Nils Basse of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not normally concern himself with events in the early universe. Instead, he studies turbulence in the plasma created in fusion reactors. But when he chanced upon the Sloan Digital...