Last week, we got the chance to tour MIT’s plasma research center. Here, the team is dedicated to finding a clean and efficient form of energy for our future. We got to see a very informative presentation from one of the students that works there. I learned a ton from the presentation…
81% of global electricity in 2009 was generated from the burning of fossil fuels. In a decade or two, we will have used all of our fossil fuels, which is why the search for more efficient energy has begun. According to the presentation, temperature is the measure of kinetic energy of particles (how fast particles are moving). In plasma physics, they use electron-volt (eV) – kinetic energy given to a single electron when accelerated through an electric potential difference of 1voH.
There goal, of course, is to create plasma energy. Plasma is a state of matter that makes up 99% of the visible universe (stars, sun, etc). Plasma is a “sea” of negatively charged electrons and positively charged neutrons. However, it is so hot, that there is no material to contain it. So, what they do is create a donut-shaped magnetic field to contain the ions and electrons. At the MIT center, they have what they call the C-Mod- a compact, high-density, high magnetic field density fusion tokamak.
After the presentation, we were given the tour…take a look at these images I was able to capture:
A computer design of the C-Mod...notice the donut shape to contain the orange plasma.
This is an example of the exotic steel used to help keep the plasma contained...
A snapshot of their workspace
The main attraction...the C-Mod!
Computers that collected the data from the C-Mod
I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed the tour!