
Fusion
The energy of the universe
Garry McCracken, P.E. Stott - Collection Complementary Science Series
Résumé
Fusion powers the stars, and could in principle provide almost unlimited, environmentally benign, power on Earth. Harnessing fusion has proved to be a much greater scientific and technical challenge than originally hoped. In the early 1970s the great Russian physicist Lev Andreevich Artsimovich wrote that "thermonuclear [fusion] energy will be ready when mankind needs it". It looks as if he was right and that time is approaching. This excellent book is therefore very timely.
As early as 1920 it was suggested that fusion could be the source of energy in the stars, and the detailed mechanism was identified in 1938. It was clear by the 1940s that fusion energy could in principle be harnessed on Earth, but early optimism was soon recognized as being (in Artsimovich's words of 1962) "as unfounded as the sinner's hope of entering paradise without passing through purgatory". That purgatory involved identifying the right configuration of magnetic fields to hold a gas at over 100 million degrees C (ten times hotter than the center of the Sun) away from the walls of its container. The solution of this challenging problem-which has been likened to holding a jelly with elastic bands-took a long time, but has now been found.
Garry McCracken and Peter Stott have had distinguished careers in fusion research. Their book appears at a time when fusion's role as a potential ace of trumps in the energy pack is becoming increasingly recognized... This important book describes the exciting science, the fascinating history, and what is at stake in mankind's quest to harness the energy of the stars.
From the Foreword by Chris Llewellyn Smith
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith FRS is Director UKAEA Culham Division, Head of the Euratom/UKAEA Fusion Association, and Chairman of the Consultative Committee for Euratom on Fusion. He was Director General of CERN (1994-98).
L'auteur - Garry McCracken
Garry McCracken gained a PhD in solid state physics from Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, but has spent most of his life as an experimental physicist working on various aspects of the magnetic confinement fusion program with the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Culham Laboratory. When the Joint European Torus (JET) Joint Undertaking was set up as a European Fusion Laboratory to build the JET experiment, he led a task agreement on the plasma boundary physics. There, his group built and installed major diagnostics on JET, and an active experimental program was pursued. In 1993 he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and worked on the C-Mod tokamak in the Plasma Fusion Center. In 1996 he returned to the UK to continue his work on JET, until his retirement in 1999. He has published over 300 scientific papers, including three major reviews in the general area of plasma-surface interactions.
L'auteur - P.E. Stott
Peter Stott earned his PhD in theoretical and experimental plasma physics working between Manchester University and the Harwell and Culham Laboratories. He joined the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Culham Laboratory in 1966 and has spent his professional career as an experimental physicist working on magnetic confinement fusion. In 1979 he joined the JET Joint Undertaking to take charge of the design and construction of the plasma diagnostics systems, and from 1982 to 1999, he was head of JET's Experimental Division 1. From 1989 to 1999, he was coordinator for the European contribution lo the design of diagnostics for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project and was a member of the international Advisory Group. He left JET in 1999 to move to the Département des Recherches sur la Fusion Contrôlée, Cadarache, France. He has published over 200 scientific papers, edited six books on plasma diagnostics, and co-authored two books on fusion energy.
Sommaire
- What is nuclear fusion ?
- Energy from mass
- Fusion in the sun and stars
- Man-made fusion
- Magnetic confinement
- The hydrogen bomb
- Inertial-confinement fusion
- False trails
- Tokamaks
- From T3 to ITER
- Fusion power plants
- Why we need fusion energy
Caractéristiques techniques
PAPIER | |
Éditeur(s) | Elsevier |
Auteur(s) | Garry McCracken, P.E. Stott |
Collection | Complementary Science Series |
Parution | 21/02/2005 |
Nb. de pages | 186 |
Format | 15 x 23 |
Couverture | Broché |
Poids | 392g |
Intérieur | Noir et Blanc |
EAN13 | 9780124818514 |
ISBN13 | 978-0-12-481851-4 |
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