A stellarator may sound like something cooked up in the laboratory of a supervillain, but a breakthrough with this device may help bring us clean fusion energy at an affordable price.
As detailed by Interesting Engineering, a team at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) developed the first stellarator with permanent magnets rather than electromagnets.
In other words, scientists created a device that generates a fusion reaction — the process that powers the sun and other stars — with refrigerator magnets.
"Using permanent magnets is a completely new way to design stellarators," graduate student Tony Qian explained to the online platform. "This technique allows us to test new plasma confinement ideas quickly and build new devices easily." READ MORE...
