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  • Were struggling to figure out what the future of sustainable energy looks like on our planet,

  • and there are a lot of different directions we could go.

  • The UK, however, made a bold move

  • when they recently announced a huge investment in a prototype fusion power facility

  • that could be functioning as a commercial power plant by 2040!

  • That’s pretty mind blowing for many reasons, one of which is that fusion power isn’t really a reality yet.

  • See, nuclear fusion is what powers stars, including our Sun.

  • And thefusionpart refers to the fact that isotopes of extremely light elements like hydrogen,

  • are fusing together at the extremely high temperatures and pressures that exist at the center of stars.

  • Under these conditions, gases like helium and hydrogen actually exist as plasmas.

  • For a fusion interaction to occur, the nuclei of the atoms that are being joined have to undergo a change

  • in the way theyre put together.

  • We take those two isotopes, usually heavy hydrogen isotopes like deuterium and tritium, and expose them to really extreme conditions.

  • What comes out on the other side of that really hot, dense party is a rearrangement of their component parts:

  • helium atoms, neutrons and a HUGE amount of energy.

  • So how the heck do we recreate what happens inside of stars...here on Earth?

  • Well, you have to try and replicate those extreme conditions

  • so that you can get the atoms to behave the way you want them to.

  • That involves creating plasmas, or taking gases to very high temperatures and densities

  • which a number of innovative facilities do in a variety of ways.

  • One of these facilities is called Iter, which meansthe wayin Latin

  • and is a major international fusion collaboration that’s been in progress since 1985.

  • China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the U.S.

  • are all contributing members who have agreed to fund ITER’s goal

  • of producing fusion energy that could power our world

  • Because if we could make it work the way we hope to?

  • Fusion energy could provide us with clean, basically limitless energy.

  • And the U.K. government just dedicated 220 million pounds for a facility of their own.

  • So the race is very much on, as it has been for several decades.

  • Because as amazing as the idea of fusion energy is,

  • we still haven’t reached a point where the amount of energy produced by the fusion reaction

  • is greater than the amount of energy it takes to create the interaction in the first place.

  • Until were able to make that happen, it doesn’t really make sense

  • to think about fusion energy as a commercial option.

  • This U.K. prototype fusion facility is called the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production, or STEP.

  • And the first step toward making STEP a reality is to come up with the design for the plant.

  • Thenif the project gets approved to move forwardactually building the spec power plant

  • would cost somewhere on the order of billions of pounds.

  • STEP is hoping to make breakthroughs in the field by pursuing a slightly different approach from Iter

  • specifically, a different kind of tokamak.

  • A tokamak is a common design for the central machine of a potential magnetic fusion reactor,

  • where the plasma is created and where the fusion takes place.

  • The newly proposed U.K. facility will use a smaller, more spherical tokamak which they hope will be cheaper.

  • Iter’s long-standing plans incorporate a larger donut-shaped tokamak,

  • a design which has been more extensively studied.

  • So on the one hand, STEP’s innovation presents a risk,

  • but it also presents an opportunity to potentially improve energy yield and on a smaller initial budget.

  • It’s definitely interesting that the UK is announcing their plans for this extremely ambitious project

  • just as it faces uncertainty around the Brexit decision

  • and therefore its involvement with Iter.

  • Because remember, the EU is one of Iter’s contributing members, so if the U.K. leaves the EU...

  • then theyre on their own for fusion innovation.

  • But theyre not alone in branching out

  • each of the seven Iter partners are exploring commercial reactors on their own as well.

  • With all of these efforts, plus the ongoing international collaboration of Iter,

  • the hope is to make fusion energy a reality sooner, rather than later.

  • 2040 seems like an ambitious goal,

  • but I think it’s going to take that kind of audacity to get us where we need to go...

  • and in the process, make the future of humanity on this planet more sustainable

  • and honestly, possible.

  • If you want to see how close we are to fusion energy, check out this video here,

  • and let us know what other futuristic energy developments you want us to cover

  • down in the comments below.

  • Subscribe to Seeker for all your energy tech news, and thanks for watching!

  • I'll see you next time.

Were struggling to figure out what the future of sustainable energy looks like on our planet,

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英國正在競相建造世界上第一座商業核聚變發電廠。 (The UK Is Racing to Build the World’s First Commercial Fusion Power Plant)

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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