Join Pheely, Liam, and special guest Edward Dewit for episode 54 of The Hyperthesis podcast (Patrick was unfortunately unable to attend the live recording)! Edward is a plasma/nuclear physicist and engineer who is working on nuclear fusion energy. We discuss his work and experiences in his field surrounding nuclear energy, how rotating plasmas can be used to study the accretion disks of black holes, and end the episode with a story about the world's first every nuclear reactor.
Errata: 1. Magnetic field falls off as 1/r instead of the 1/r2 as Pheely mentioned.
2. On fusion reaction, the parameter space is density, temperature, and confinement time, where both MCF (magnetic confinement fusion) and ICF (inertial confinement) require about the same temperature of 10 keV for the fusion cross-section of the Deuterium–tritium reaction. The density of ICF is much higher but for short periods of time (order of nanoseconds). The density of MCF is lower but for much longer periods of time (order of seconds).Â
3. The compact structure of a spherical tokamak is quantified by a low aspect ratio. The on-axis magnetic field strength of a spherical tokamaks is higher than that of a conventional tokamak and therefore higher plasma pressure is possible. Increasing magnetic field strength is more feasible than making larger tokamaks with greater plasma volume.
