After nearly two decades of construction and an investment of more than $1 billion, the new Wendelstein 7-X stellarator fusion device at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) was activated on Thursday and produced helium plasma for the first time.
The successful activation comes following more than 12 months worth of tests and technical preparations, IPP officials explained in a statement. The team fed approximately one milligram of helium gas into the device’s evacuated plasma vessel and heated it to a temperature of nearly one million degrees Celsius. The ensuing plasma lasted for one tenth of a second.
Project leader Professor Thomas Klinger explained that his team decided to start with helium, a noble gas, because it is “easier to achieve the plasma state with helium,” and they can “clean the surface of the plasma vessel with helium plasmas.” Starting early next year, the IPP team intends to begin making hydrogen plasma to demonstrate its effectiveness as a clean energy source.
Dr. Hans-Stephan Bosch, who is a part of the team responsible for the operation of the device, said that they were “very satisfied” with the Wendelstein 7-X’s initial results. “Everything went according to plan,” he added, noting that the next task will be to extend the plasma discharges’ duration and the evaluate different methods for producing and heating helium plasmas.
A ‘turning point’ in stellarator-type fusion technology
Touted as the world’s largest stellarator-type fusion device, the Wendelstein 7-X will be used to study whether or not such devices could be effectively used as a power station. Assembly on the device was completed in April following more than one million hours of work, after which time, the unit’s cooling system, superconducting coils, and other components were tested.
According to Science, the machine is 16 meters wide and resembles what the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s spaceship from Star Wars, would look like if it was in the garage being repaired. The fusion device has “innumerable cables trailing off to unknown destinations” and contains 50 six-ton magnetic coils that are “strangely twisted as if trampled by an angry giant,” they added.
The overall objective of fusion research, the IPP team explained, is to find a new power source that is environmentally friendly and which can harvest energy from the fusion of atomic nuclei, similar to what occurs naturally in the sun. Historically, such devices have been “devilishly hard to build” and “prone to cost overruns,” Science explained, but they believe that the Wendelstein 7-X “could mark a turning point” for the technology.
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Image Credit: IPP, Tino Schulz
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