This Revolutionary Fusion Reactor Could Change Everything
This Revolutionary Fusion Reactor Could Change Everything
Z-pinch fusion could be our ticket to fusion power.
If you haven’t paid attention over the past few years, fusion power is inching closer to reality. Theoretically, this utopian energy source could grant us near unlimited on-demand power without producing carbon emissions or nuclear waste. There are some hurdles in our way, though. The reactors we have use more energy to create the insane heat and pressures needed to initiate nuclear fusion than they actually produce from fusion. Not only that, but these machines are so vast, complex, and built from such exotic materials that even if they produced a usable net-gain in energy, it would be commercially unfeasible to use them. This is where Zap Energy comes in. Their revolutionary reactor is far simpler and way cheaper to build than any other fusion reaction. Yet, it seems no less capable, as it recently reached an immense plasma temperature of 37 million degrees Celsius! So, could Zap Energy unlock fusion power?
Let’s start with what fusion is and why hitting this temperature matters so much.
Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun. The Sun is made of mostly hydrogen, and in its core, the temperature and pressure are so high that the collisions between hydrogen atoms have enough kinetic energy to overcome the repulsive forces that keep atoms separate. These collisions cause the two hydrogen atoms to fuse into a single, larger helium atom, but because a helium atom is slightly lighter than two hydrogen atoms (as it needs fewer gluons in its nucleus), this excess mass is turned into energy and released. As Einstein stated in his famous E=MC² equation, a small amount of mass is equal to a vast amount of energy. This means that a single fusion reaction releases an ungodly amount of power via radiation and heat.
To give you an idea of how powerful fusion is, if you fused 17 tonnes of hydrogen, the energy released would be enough to power the entire US for a year, with nothing but helium as a by product. No carbon emissions. No nuclear waste.
Our current reactor designs use either potent lasers or massively powerful superconducting magnets to heat up and compress hydrogen plasma to create fusion. Now, we can’t recreate the pressures of the Sun’s core, so to compensate, fusion reactors need to reach much higher temperatures. Zap Energy’s 37 million degrees Celsius is by no means the highest temperature reached by a fusion reactor, but it is enough for fusion within the reactor to happen.
Okay, so why is this reactor so promising? Well, unlike every other reactor, this one doesn’t use massive and complex lasers or superconducting electromagnets. Instead, it uses the hydrogen plasma itself to heat and compress itself. Let me explain.
The physics behind Zap Energy’s reactor was first discovered in Australia. A hollow-pipe-like lightning rod was found after a storm completely crushed along its entire length. It turns out this crush was caused by the lightning. As the enormous electric current shot down the pipe, a magnetic field was created, just like how any current flowing through a wire creates a magnetic field. However, because of the hollow pipe shape, this magnetic field pulled inwards on the pipe. The power of the lightning created such a strong magnetic field that it crushed the pipe. This phenomenon is known as a Z-pinch.
Zap Energy’s idea is to build a machine that can produce hot hydrogen plasma in the shape of a tube, then put enough electric current through that plasma to create a strong enough Z-pinch to crush the hot plasma with enough force to induce fusion. This way, there is no need for massive lasers or superconducting electromagnets, which are costly and woefully inefficient, making reaching a net-gain in energy even harder. Instead, they can use the plasma as the electromagnet, which is far cheaper and potentially more efficient as it is far more direct.
This idea is far from novel. Scientists have been experimenting with Z-pinch fusion for decades but could never get it to work. The plasma wouldn’t hold its shape long enough, causing it to lose the Z-pinch effect and rapidly cool down, making fusion impossible.
But Zap has solved this problem using fluid dynamics. Their reactor effectively blows hydrogen plasma ‘smoke rings’ that flow down a cylindrical reactor chamber. This creates a phenomenon known as sheared flow stabilisation (similar to laminar flow), in which layers travel at different speeds, making an even and stable flow. Fluid mechanics is famously complex, so for now, all we need to know is that this innovation is enough to ensure the plasma keeps its shape, enabling Z-pinching to heat and compress the plasma enough to reach the conditions required for fusion.
Okay, so why does that matter?
Well, take the NIF reactor, which uses lasers to achieve fusion. It has achieved a net gain in energy! But only in terms of energy going into the hydrogen and energy out. The laser is so inefficient that the overall machine still uses way more energy than it produces from fusion. Superconducting electromagnetic-based tokamak reactor designs have the same problem: they have to keep giant electromagnets close to absolute zero while being inches away from plasma hotter than the Sun, making them very inefficient. Tokamaks also need help managing losses in the plasma, and as these reactors are so expensive and complex to run, development in this area is painfully slow.
As Zap Energy’s reactor doesn’t use lasers or superconducting electromagnets, it has the potential to be innately far more efficient, making genuine net-gain in energy a far easier target to hit. What’s more, this makes the reactor far cheaper, quicker to build and far easier and cheaper to operate. As such, developing the plasma management protocols required to make these reactors reach net gain in energy can happen far quicker for far less expenditure. It also means that if they ever do develop a usable fusion reactor that produces power, its simple and low-cost nature means that it could be a viable source of energy, unlike every other fusion reactor, which seems set to be far too expensive and slow to build to be a viable power source.
So even though it might seem like Zap Energy is far behind other fusion projects, who have reached higher temperatures or even net-gain in energy, don’t write them off just yet. Their simplistic approach could yield lightning-quick and giant leaps in development, and they could be the only fusion project capable of making a product we could actually feasibly use. As Zap Energy’s approach is so unique that the path forward for them is far from certain. There could be a vast number of unseen hurdles and dead-end development routes ahead of them. But, with a bit of luck and some hard work, Zap Energy really could make fusion energy a reality.
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Sources: The National News, IE, Eurekalert, Zap Energy