Project 2: Individual Reflection on Grand Challenge essay

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Engineering

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After you have completed your research, while preparing your poster, you should write a short (500-750 word) reflection paper on the project. The reflection paper is open-ended, and you can write about any topics salient to the project and your experiences with it. It should include, at a minimum, the following: 1. An introduction of the Grand Challenge your team selected. 2. A personal statement on how you relate to the challenge and the issues surrounding it that you researched.

This reflection paper must be in your own words. While it will draw on your research and experiences with the team, this is an individual assignment

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Intro To Challenge Definition-Fusion Also called nuclear fusion- a thermonuclear reaction in which nuclei of light atoms join to form nuclei of heavier atoms, as the combination of deuterium atoms to form helium atoms --Fusion power is a theoretical form of power generation in which energy will be generated by using nuclear fusion reactions to produce heat for electricity generation. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, and at the same time, they release energy. ---fusion is the energy source for the sun Human-engineered fusion has been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenge is to scale up the process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way. Half-life (t1⁄2) is the time required for the amount of something to fall to half its initial value. The term is very commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo decay, or how long stable atoms survive, radioactive decay, and it is also used more generally of any type of exponential or non-exponential decay. The converse of half-life is doubling time. -The theoretical idea behind the employment of nuclear fusion as an energy source is that light atomic nuclei combine to release energy. This energy comes from the difference in mass between the input material and the products of the reaction. The total mass of the reactants’ nuclei is slightly larger than the mass of produced nuclei. This excess mass is converted into energy, the amount of which can be described by Einstein’s famous rest energy equation E=mc , which is a consequence of special relativity. 2 Graphic representation of a D-T reaction ( H + H --> He + n + 17.59 MeV Energy) 2 3 4 1 Societal Impact -The fuel for fusion is abundantly available. Two isotopes of hydrogen are well suited for fusion: deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is available from seawater (and can be extracted by electrolysis) and it is expected that tritium can be produced within a fusion power station from small quantities of lithium. -Some of the greatest benefits that fusion reactors present are fuel abundance and accessibility. Deuterium is a stable isotope and naturally occurs in place of hydrogen. In fact, it constitutes a small fraction of hydrogen in water. Quantitatively, it exists in great amounts and is virtually unlimited, taking into account how much water there is on planet Earth. -The second constituent of the reaction, is an unstable isotope and, for that reason, is much less abundant then Deuterium and quite rarely occurs naturally. However, this problem can be solved by a reactor design that produces Tritium during the reaction, and such design does exist. The nuclear reaction of Deuterium with Tritium produces a neutron. If the reaction space is confined inside a lithium blanket, the neutrons produced in the primary reaction will engage a secondary reaction with lithium, producing Tritium. The lithium supply is also virtually unlimited, since lithium is the third most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. -There is a significant correlation between oil price and support for fusion research -Fusion has the unique capability to provide utility-scale energy on-demand wherever it is needed, making it an excellent complement for intermittent renewables and battery storage. Combined, these technologies make for a practical energy portfolio that mitigates climate change while driving economic prosperity. it is not harmful for the environment and safety risks associated with its storage and handling are minimal Because of the low energy available to drive an accident and the low hazard to be released in the event of an accident History of Work-to-Date -During the late 1940s and early ’50s, research programs in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union began to yield a better understanding of nuclear fusion, and investigators get on ways of exploiting the process for practical energy production. Fusion reactor research focused primarily on using magnetic fields and electromagnetic forces to contain the extremely hot plasmas needed for thermonuclear fusion. These plasmas proved very difficult to get at the temperatures needed to form energy. This is because the hot gasses escape through the magnetic structure. In the 1950s the plasma physics theory was incapable of describing the behavior of the plasmas. -In 1958 the research went from classified to public. In 1961 the idea of inertial confinement fusion was proposed. This idea was kept classified until the 1970s. Through the early 1980s they continued their research on this topic. They attempted to employ large pulses of laser energy to implode and shock-heat matter to temperatures needed for nuclear fusion to occur. The research group has made significant progress through years of sophisticated work to design and develop short pulse, high power lasers that are arcuate for millimetre-sized targets. Although they have not been able to create fusion reactors, the necessary conditions of plasma temperature and heat insulation have been largely achieved. This suggests that fusion energy for electric-power production is very possible. The finished product of a successful fusion power systems must be capable of producing electricity safely and in a cost-effective manner, with a minimum of radioactive waste and environmental impact. Current state of practice and conversation -There are a number of conditions that need to be satisfied in order to facilitate a fusion reaction. The reactants’ nuclei need to have enough kinetic energy (or, roughly speaking, speed) to overcome the electrostatic force, which causes the positively charged nuclei to repel. The combining nuclei need to get in the vicinity of each other where the strong nuclear force will overcome the electromagnetic force. In macroscopic terms, this means that the gas of the reacting material has to be heated to a certain temperature before fusion can occur. That temperature is on the order of 100 million degrees Kelvin -In the 21 century however The dream of nuclear fusion is on the brink of being realised, according to a major new US initiative that says it will put fusion power on the grid within 15 years. -The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. The team intend to use a new class of high-temperature superconductors they predict will allow them to create the world’s first fusion reactor that produces more energy than needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction going. -Bob Mumgaard, CEO of the private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which has attracted $50 million in support of this effort from the Italian energy company Eni, said: “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.” Future Directions - Tritium has a very short half-life of only 12 years, as compared to the materials used in fission reactors, for which the half-life approaches thousands of years. This makes fusion fuel much safer than that of fission or even fossil fuel power plants. -Finally, the waste products of fusion reaction are either much safer than those of other kinds of power plants, or are absolutely harmless. The discussed reaction of Deuterium with Tritium, as can be seen in Fig. 2, produces the regular isotope of helium and a neutron. It is the same isotope of helium that is used to fill air balloons which is not radioactive and cannot activate the equipment. However, the neutrons, although not radioactive themselves, are capable of activating the reactor’s structure, especially the metallic parts, when they hit them at high speed. This effect can be mitigated by using less reactive materials (carbon fiber has been proposed), which will produce short half-life waste. In contrast, even regular materials activated by high energy neutrons have a half-life of only about 30 years or less which is much less than the half-life of nuclear waste produced by fission. So, no complex storage would be required. -the parts should hold for approximately 40 to 50 years (the lifetime of a regular power plant of any kind) Nuclear fusion reactor
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Running head: NUCLEAR FUSION

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Nuclear Fusion
Name
Institution Affiliation

NUCLEAR FUSION

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Nuclear Fusion

Introduction
Nuclear fusion may be defined as being a thermonuclear reaction where nuclei of light
atoms come together to form nuclei of heavier atoms. This brings about the combination of
deuterium atoms to form helium atoms. Consequently, fusion power is the theoretical form
which power generation takes place to generate energy using nuclear fusion reactions that
produce heat for electricity production. The process involves two lighter atomic nuclei
combining to form a heavier nucleus as well as ensuring energy is released. The major challenge
facing human-engineered fusion as demonstrated on...


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