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MIT's Pathway to Fusion Energy (IAP 2017) - Zach Hartwig

MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center · 121.8K views · 2017-02-06 · 1:11:40

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Overview

Zach Hartwig of MIT introduces the key concepts of magnetic fusion energy and the state of fusion research. He then presents MIT's proposed pathway of using high-field superconducting magnets to build smaller, cheaper tokamaks on a climate-relevant timescale.

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Recommended again and again as the best accessible overview of fusion physics, useful for judging fusion announcements and understanding why high-temperature superconducting magnets matter.

Recommended by 16 HN people across 13 months · HN mentions 2017–2023

Topics

Nuclear power & fusionUniversity lectures & courses
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tokamakhigh-temperature superconductorssparcmagnetic confinementiter

What people said

fusionbro · 2022-02 · Strong recommendation

This has been by far the most informative source on Fusion I've seen and gives a clear picture on how to evaluate claims like this. MIT's Pathway to Fusion Energy (IAP 2017) - Zach Hartwig [VIDEO]

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wcarss · 2020-09 · Strong recommendation

My layman's understanding is that recently available (~last 5 years) industrial scale processes to produce rebco tape[1] is the specific advance in superconductor tech that's specifically enabling higher tesla magnetic field strengths from significantly smaller and lighter and easier to manage magnets, so you can get a system that's "powerful enough" to run net posititve at a size that's small enough to be built by a few universities rather than a few dozen nations (i.e. ITER), so the complexity of the engineering project drops from "unimaginable" to "just very high". 1 - [LINK] 2 - really great talk from a few years ago about this from MIT's Plasma Science Fusion Centre: [VIDEO] (really, if you like this stuff, give the talk a watch. It's great.)

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jabl · 2018-11 · Strong recommendation

As there seems to be quite a lot of confusion in this thread about what this is, here's an excellent video giving an overview of the state of the art in fusion energy research that is understandable by a lay audience: [VIDEO] (somebody posted that video on another recent HN fusion thread)

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Sources

Video by MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, played through YouTube.

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