IASNOVA
Why it’s a Probable for Prelims 2019?
October,2019-Gandhinagar
For the first time in India, nuclear scientists, researchers and physicists from over 40 countries came together under one roof to explore new avenues in energy generation through nuclear fusion technology.
Noted Indian physicist and former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission R Chidambaram inaugurated the 27th edition of week-long biennial Fusion Energy Conference (FEC) on Monday at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.
The nodal agency for the project in India is Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, which is jointly organising the event with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The top officials of ITER confirmed that the project has reached 58 per cent of completion and is likely to start generating power by 2035.
As an ITER member, India is responsible for about 9 per cent of in-kind contribution to the ITER project. This contribution is in the engineering and development of key components, including cryostat, cooling water systems, vessel in-wall shielding blocks, radio frequency heating sources, and diagnostic neutral beam system among others.
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)
– It is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.
– It is an experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor that is being built next to the Cadarache facility in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, in Provence, southern France.
– ITER was proposed in 1987 and designed as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
– The ITER thermonuclear fusion reactor has been designed to produce a fusion plasma equivalent to 500 megawatts (MW) of thermal output power for around twenty minutes while 50 megawatts of thermal power are injected into the tokamak, resulting in a ten-fold gain of plasma heating power.Thereby the machine aims to demonstrate the principle of producing more thermal power from the fusion process than is used to heat the plasma, something that has not yet been achieved in any fusion reactor.
– The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
– The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing about 45 percent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing approximately 9 percent each.
– The goal of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful use.
– It is the latest and largest of more than 100 fusion reactors built since the 1950s
– ITER’s planned successor, DEMO, is expected to be the first fusion reactor to produce electricity in an experimental environment. DEMO’s anticipated success is expected to lead to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations and future commercial reactors.
Nuclear Fusion
In nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles (neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in atomic “binding energy” between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Fusion is the process that powers active or “main sequence” stars, or other high magnitude stars.
Example reaction-
2D1 + 3T1 → 4He2 + 1n0 + 17.59 MeV
When deuterium and tritium fuse, two nuclei come together to form a helium nucleus (an alpha particle), and a high-energy neutron.
