Damian Carrington writes for The Guardian that MIT researchers set a new world record for the highest plasma pressure ever recorded using the Alcator C-Mod reactor. Carrington notes that the “MIT record shows that using very high magnetic fields to contain the plasma may be the most promising route to practical nuclear fusion reactors.”
MIT researchers have found that two types of turbulence within plasma could explain the heat loss that takes place in fusion reactors, reports Thomas Tamblyn for The Huffington Post. “With the mystery solved, researchers can now better understand how the plasma reacts and then in turn start working on fundamental ways to combat it.”
“With the push of a button Monday, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology resumed efforts to try to harness the process that powers the sun — nuclear fusion — in the hope of developing a stable, nonpolluting source of energy,” reports The Boston Globe’s Erin Ailworth on the restarting of MIT’s Alcator C-mod fusion reactor.
WBUR reports that, “now that federal funding has been restored for a fusion energy research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is proposing long-term funding for the project.”
WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman reports on the restoration of funding to MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, “where for the past 20 years scientists have conducted experiments using a reactor known as “Alcator C-Mod” to create and control the energy source of the stars.”