Scientists make incredible breakthrough that could help unleash limitless energy source: 'Trying to make the design process as smooth as possible'

Although fusion reactors hold the promise of abundant, carbon-free energy, building them is a complex task requiring detailed machine designs and an understanding of the superheated plasma's flow within them. 

To address these issues in stellarator reactors, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has developed its QUADCOIL computer code for optimizing and accelerating the design process, according to Interesting Engineering. 

Of the various fusion designs, stellarators require less injected power and have greater design flexibility to simplify plasma control, but they are also prohibitively complex. Stellarators require intricate magnetic field coil designs to "generate rotational transform by external coils rather than a plasma current," like tokamak designs do, as the researchers detailed.

Development of this technology began in the 1950s at the same location where PPPL is located, and the work was so difficult that it was once nicknamed "Project Matterhorn," as the Department of Energy noted. 

"QUADCOIL predicts the complexity of the magnets quickly, helping you avoid the plasma shapes that are great physics-wise but not helpful for actually building a fusion facility," said Frank Fu, a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics based at PPPL.

After scientists choose a plasma shape they believe can foster fusion reactions, the software calculates which magnet shapes could create that result, as Fu explained. 

If the shapes are too complex to realistically build, QUADCOIL can help redesign the plasma shape itself, providing a perfect blend of physics and engineering. It also does the work faster than traditional magnet-design programs, according to Fu, taking only 10 seconds, whereas the others would take 20 minutes. 

"This problem tells us that we need to be thinking about magnet complexity at the very beginning," said Elizabeth Paul, an assistant professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University and a co-author of the research paper, per the IE report.

"If we can use computer codes to find plasma shapes that both have the physics properties we want and can be formed using magnets with simple shapes, we can make fusion energy more cheaply."

Once fusion power becomes a reality, it could be a perfect complement to solar and wind power, helping us reach our net-zero energy goals. It could tilt the scales toward renewables in a big way and help speed the transition away from burning dirty fuels for energy.

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This could lower energy costs for everyone without spewing harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. Plus, fusion runs on hydrogen-rich deuterium and tritium, and we have enough of these resources on the planet to power the processes for millions of years.

Future versions of QUADCOIL are already being considered, but it will take a lot more processing power to get there. That will require a lot of energy to run, but there are sustainable solutions to make that viable.

"Developing a stellarator requires a lot of computation," Fu concluded. "I'm trying to make the design process as smooth as possible."

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