A radio-wave trick from the 1980s could keep fusion reactors running continuously
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Why it matters: A fusion power plant only makes sense if it can run for days on end, much like the coal and gas plants it would replace. Most tokamaks, however, still work in bursts, because the giant magnet coil driving their plasma current eventually has to stop and reset. Physicists in San Diego have now shown that radio waves can carry some of that load instead, using a trick that every experiment in the 1980s failed to pull off.
The coil in question, a central solenoid, works a lot like a transformer. It keeps ramping up its own current to induce one in the plasma, but it eventually runs out of room to ramp. Those stop-start cycles also wear on the machine over time, so engineers would much rather run a reactor...
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