We are a little closer to nuclear fusion thanks to the work of, among others, the Spanish Pablo Rodríguez

nuclear fusion

Today the truth is that there are many researchers and centers involved in projects closely related to nuclear fusion, a rather delicate issue that, in addition to promising large amounts of energy, still slows us down too much since, despite the large investments of effort and economics that are being made, we are not able to reach that point where, finally , we will be able to supply ourselves with the energy generated by nuclear fusion.

The truth is that there are many scientists who, in one way or another, have achieved quite significant advances in this field, although there are still many problems to solve for us to see the first nuclear fusion reactor work or offer energy. Among the most serious problems we find that literally our understanding of how the plasma we work with behaves in this type of reaction is, to say the least, imperfect.

the energy

Although we have been researching nuclear fusion for a long time, the truth is that we are still a long way from understanding it

To say that our compression is imperfect may sound a bit pessimistic since, thanks to the large number of research projects that have been carried out, our scientists have achieved a compression of how the plasma behaves quite large, at least when this is in fairly stable conditions. Unfortunately when it goes from a stable state to a disturbed one, its behavior literally defies all our understanding, studies and even theories.

A clear example of the problems faced by all scientists working in this field can be found at the moment when we decided to start cooling the edges of the plasma that we have by relying on a thermonuclear reactor. In response to this beginning of cooling we find that the plasma, according to different studies, begins to suffer rather large instantaneous temperature increases that cannot be controlled, it is like a kind of pulse that cannot be explained using current models of heat transport.

fusion

Pablo Rodríguez, an MIT student who could have found the solution to this determining problem

Specifically, this problem of specific increases in heat inside the plasma has been troubling the scientific community for more than 20 years. Curiously, it had to be a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), through a paper where the first author is the Spanish Pablo Rodríguez, just came up with a new model of heat transport for plasma that could be the solution that many have been waiting for for so long.

In order to find, or rather propose a possible solution to this complex problem, Pablo Rodríguez has been working with MIT's Tokamak-type thermonuclear reactor to study the turbulence produced by the temperature rises and falls experienced by the plasma when we try cool it down, a task that, as the study authors acknowledge, was far from easy. In the words of Anne White, director of the research group:

We knew that the rotation of the plasma would change during these cold pulse experiments, something that makes it quite difficult to analyze it. We needed to unequivocally isolate one effect from the other.

tomakak

There are still many years to go before we can benefit from nuclear fusion

To reach a solution, the team had to isolate all possible interactions between the transfers of motion, energy, and matter that occur within the plasma. Once this step was achieved, the members of the same came to the conclusion that the cold pulse is linked to the transport of heat completely independent of the state of the plasma rotation.

According to the work published by Pablo Rodríguez, in charge of modeling all the results obtained in all the previous experiments, the conclusion is reached that within the plasma there are a large number of subsystems that are in a very weak equilibrium that can change quickly before any type of disturbance.


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