Update on Fusion - and those practical Canadians

[Keepitsimple]

Good old practical Canadians......an interesting update on Fusion Power:

To reach the cost-competitive goal of $0.07 a kilowatt-hour, General Fusion is banking on a “magnetized target fusion” strategy.

Delage explained that in the full-scale prototype, twin plasma injectors resembling five-metre-long cones, each attached to opposite ends of a three-metre-diameter sphere, would pulse a few milligrams of hydrogen gas, heat it until it becomes a plasma, and inject it into a vortex of swirling liquid metal. Electricity circulating in the plasma would create magnetic fields that bind the plasma together and confine the heat.

From there, an array of as many as 300 huge pistons attached to the sphere’s shell would act like synchronized jackhammers, ramming it at 200 km/hr. This would send shockwaves into the very centre of the chamber, compressing the hydrogen isotopes to 100 million degrees celsius — hot enough for fusion to occur, and good enough to generate clean electricity from steam turbines.

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/partners/thomsonreuterscapitalize/advtrtechnology/bc-tech-firm-aims-to-save-the-world-with-nuclear-reactor/article22760798/