Three Ways to Make a Star on Earth

Massive magnets to confine plasma

This year, construction will begin on the 35-nation megaproject ITER, located in France. A doughnut-shaped, powerplant-size reactor, ITER will contain a fusion reaction within a magnetic ﬁeld and siphon oﬀ energy through its metal walls. Scientists hope to have a test-scale reaction running within the next decade.

A reflective wall in a compact reactor

In Lockheed’s design, a row of magnetic coils create a reﬂective wall to contain the plasma. The company’s small-scale reactor allows scientists to tweak experimental setups more nimbly than they can with a reactor the size of ITER. Lockheed says it has already ﬁred up its reactor 200 times but won’t release any data—so whether those attempts were successful remains to be seen. If they were, well, we may all be driving literal Ford Fusions before long.

A micro-explosion ignited by lasers

At the National Ignition Facility, scientists approach fusion diﬀerently. They ﬁre dozens of lasers at a BB-size bead of solid deuterium and tritium. In a billionth of a second, the hydrogen-based fuel collapses into a dense plasma and bursts into a puﬀ of energy. Last year, scientists produced the ﬁrst-ever net positive fusion reaction, meaning they got slightly more energy out of the plasma than they put in.

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How Energy conversion from coal is done?

Single generator sets of over 600 MW are now used in the UK, though there are many smaller generators in use. A 600 MW generator can supplythe average needs of over 1 million UK households. Three or four such generators are typically installed in a single large coal-fired station which isoften sited close to a coal mine, away from the city dwellers who consume the electricity. Such generators are usually driven by a compound arrangement of highpressure, intermediate-pressure and low-pressure turbines, increasing in size as the pressure decreases. Modern turbines rotate in a speed range from 1500 to 3500 r.p.m., usually 3000 r.p.m. for the UK’s 50 Hz system. For large coal-fired plant the steam pressure could be 25 megapascals (MPa) with steam temperatures of 500–600 °C to improve the thermodynamic efficiency. In nuclear reactors, which operate under less demanding conditions, the steam is superheated to about 5 MPa and 300 °C. Modern water tube boilers are complex and have ...

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5 TOP FACTS LIGHTHOUSES

1 The builder of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Sostratus – disobeying orders from the pharaoh Ptolemy – engraved his name and a dedication to the sea gods on the tower base. Fame 2 The technical term for the study of lighthouses is ‘pharology’, a word derived from Pharos, the island upon which the great Lighthouse of Alexandria once stood. Academia 3 George Meade built many notable lighthouses in the US during the classical lighthouse period. He is remembered in history as the winning general in the Battle of Gettysburg. War 4 The tallest lighthouse in the world is the Yokohama Marine Tower in Yokohama, Japan. The structure ﬂ ashes alternately green and red every 20 seconds. Tallest 5 Originally lighthouses were lit merely with open ﬁ res, only later progressing through candles, lanterns and electric lights. Lanterns tended to use whale oil as fuel.

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