Part 1 of 2 Parts
     The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) is a physics institute investigating the physical foundation of a fusion power plant. The IPP is an institute of the Max Planck Society, part of the European Atomic Energy Community, and an associated member of the Helmholtz Association.
    The IPP is researching stellarators for nuclear fusion. It uses magnetic fields to confine plasma in a chamber shaped like a donut. Stellarators use extremely strong electromagnets to produces twisting magnetic fields that wrap lengthwise around the donut. They have several advantages over tokamaks which are the most popular design for experimental fusion reactors. They require less power to sustain a plasma, have greater flexibility of design and allow for some simplification of plasma control when compared to tokamaks. On the other hand, they are more complex than tokamak designs.
    One of the projects at the IPP is the experimental Wendelstein 7-X stellarator. It was built in Greifswald, Germany. It was constructed to advance stellarator technology to evaluate the main components of a future nuclear fusion power plant. The design was based on the predecessor Wendelstein 7-AS reactor.
     One of the most important optimization goals for the Wendelstein 7-X has now been verified. In the optimized magnetic field cage, the energy losses of the plasma are reduced in the intended way. The Wendelstein 7-X is designed to prove that the problems with earlier stellarators can be solved and that stellarators will be suitable for the construction of commercial nuclear fusion power plants.
     The optimized Wendelstein 7-X stellarator went into operation five years ago. The magnetic field encloses the hot plasma and keeps it away from the wall of the containment vessel. Its design was produced with great theoretical and computational effort in a way that the disadvantages of earlier stellarator could be avoided. One of the most important goals for the IPP was to reduce the energy losses of the plasma which are caused by ripples in the magnetic field. The result of these ripple is to cause plasma particles to drift outwards from the magnetic trap and be lost.
     In competing tokamaks, this type of energy loss is not the major problem that it is for stellarators. It can cause the energy losses to increase so much with increasing temperatures that a power plant designed on this basis would be very large and very expensive.
     The symmetrical shape of tokamaks prevents the magnetic field ripples from growing to the point where they cause a significant problem. In a tokamak, the energy losses are mainly determined by small vortex movements in the plasma which is also the case in stellarators. Lowering the magnetic ripple losses in stellarators are necessary to match the good confinement properties of the tokamaks. The magnetic field of the Wendelstein 7-X was designed to minimize those losses.
     Dr, Craig Beidler works in the IPP’s Stellarator Theory Division. His team conducted a detailed analysis of the experimental results of the Wendelstein 7-X to ascertain whether their planned optimization would lead to the desired effect. With the heating devices currently available, the Wendelstein 7-X has already been able to generate high-temperature plasmas and has set the stellarator world record for the “fusion product” at high temperatures. This product of temperature, plasma density and energy confinement times indicates how close the device has come to the values necessary for a burning plasma that generates more energy that it consumes.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 76 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 83 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 83 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 106 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole – Caught in USA = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Bob Mumgaard is a plasma physicist who is the chief executive of Commonwealth. He said, “If you go to a much higher magnetic field, you can go to a much smaller size.” The ITER system being constructed in France is about the size of a soccer field. Mumgaard commented that if it was possible to construct a device that was just one-fiftieth the size of the ITER system in France, it would be able to generate almost as much power.
     Commonwealth’s magnet will be one of twenty used to construct a donut-shaped vessel in a space about the size of a tennis court. This year, Commonwealth established a forty-seven-acre site in Devens, MA. It will use the site to build both its prototype reactor and a factory for its new magnets. The magnets are produced by depositing a thin film of exotic materials on a videotape-like backing that is then wound around a bottle that is used to contain the fusion reaction.
     Commonwealth has raised more than two hundred and fifteen million dollars so far. It employs over a hundred people. Commonwealth received an important boost last year when physicists at M.I.T.’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and the company published seven peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Plasma Physics explaining exactly how their system will work.
     What remains to be demonstrated is that the Commonwealth prototype fusion reactor can produce more energy than it consumes. Scientists refer to this as a “Q” greater than one. The company is confident that when its prototype is complete, it will produce about ten times more energy than it consumes.
     So far, the most successful effort to reach positive energy output from a fusion reactor was achieved by the Joint European Torus, or JET, project, a Tokamak that began operation in 1983 in Oxfordshire, England. Before it was shut down over a decade ago, the device was able to produce about sixteen megawatts of fusion power while consuming twenty-four megawatts.
     Daniel Jassby is a retired plasma physicist at Princeton University who has written critical essays about the commercial potential of fusion power in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and in Physics & Society. He has said that some of the fusion startups are engaged in “voodoo fusion energy”. Some of the companies have not yet shown that their technologies will create fusion reactions. Jassby said, “Their claims are unjustified. They might be able to make something like that work eventually, but not on the time scale they’re talking about.”
      Mumgaard said that Jassby was not taking into account the new technical advances that his Commonwealth and the M.I.T. researchers will soon achieve. He said that unlike other energy sources, fusion would generate energy largely without a resource. He commented that when “You add up all the costs, the cost of normal stuff like concrete and steel, and it will make as much power as a gas plant, but without having to pay for the gas.”

Ambient office = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 117 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 147 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water =  137 nanosieverts per hour