The director of Lehigh University\u2019s Plasma Control Laboratory believes the 2030s will be \u201cthe decade of nuclear fusion,\u201d and his lab recently received an infusion of federal funds to accelerate development of the next generation of clean energy technology.<\/p>\n
Moving from nuclear fission technology, which splits atoms, to nuclear fusion technology, which joins atoms<\/a>, has been a dream for decades because fusion reactors employ more common materials, generate less damaging waste and eliminate the risk of runaway reactions.<\/p>\n A commercial fusion reactor could run on hydrogen and lithium, so nuclear power producers would no longer be reliant on a limited supply of uranium mines, and the radioactive material produced would be lower-level and faster to decay, ending the need to safely isolate high-level waste for thousands of years.<\/p>\n Such reactors don\u2019t exist. Fusion reactions are difficult to maintain, and scientists are still working out the physics behind the machines that attempt to confine and pressurize superhot plasma long enough to create the kind of self-sustaining reaction needed to generate commercial levels of power.<\/p>\n The difficulty of maintaining a fusion reaction is why the process doesn\u2019t create the kind of runaway reactions that cause core meltdown in fission reactors. An unstable fusion reaction would shut down rather than cause an accident, but without precise control it could also damage the reactor\u2019s inner walls.<\/p>\n That leaves scientists with little room for error. They need a longer-lasting fusion reaction to create their dream of safer, sustainable nuclear power, and they need to control their experiments precisely to avoid destroying the expensive equipment they use to manage plasma.<\/p>\n Lehigh\u2019s project, dubbed \u201cREACT: Reactor Exhaust And Core Twin \u2014 Multi-fidelity AI Predictions for Safe, Integrated, and High-Performance Control,\u201d is part of the federal Genesis Mission, a U.S. Department of Energy program designed to apply artificial intelligence to scientific work.<\/p>\n