Kalistani Major History

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Kalistani Physicists overcome first practical obstacle for Fueling Fusion Reactor
New Plant to breed Tritium using plasma-Lithium reaction
Kaliburg, Ananto
October 18, 5086


Tritium breeding, a process of creating tritium for fusion reaction

A major obstacle to building a working practical fusion reactor has been overcome this week in Kaliburg. Three years ago, physicists demonstrated the theory of compact fusion in a z-pinch reactor. The physicists, building on previous knowledge that was obtained as other nations tried to build working fusion reactors, specified that the appropriate fuel for such a fusion reactor was deuterium and tritium.

Deuterium, which is a stable non radioactive hydrogen isotope with one neutron and one proton is found naturally in seawater in a proportion of 33 mg per liter of water. It is remarkably easy to separate deuterium from water to create what is known as "heavy water" where deuterium isotopes replaces hydrogen atoms in water, and can then be used to supply deuterium to the fusion reactor.

Tritium, on the other hand is incredibly rare. It is usually caused by sunlight hitting air molecules and shearing off hydrogen to create an unstable, marginally radioactive isotope with two neutrons and one proton. The isotope decays quickly, and while it is found in trace amounts in ground water, it is neither common, nor easily seperatable from regular water. As a result, acquisition of tritium has been a major limiting factor for the progress of the Kalistani Z-Pinch Fusion project.

A normal source of tritium is a nuclear fission reactor. However, Kalistan does not have one, and will not build one, due to their extremely harmful environmental potential side effects. And shipping radioactive isotopes over the sea eliminates the economic attractiveness of the entire project.

This question confounded the developers who are working on building a practical reactor in Ananto for years. "It was an amazing hurdle to overcome," said project lead Dr. Janice Schmidt. "We had no idea how to acquire the needed source of tritium reliably. If we took all the naturally occurring tritium in the world, it would power the reactor for a year. That would hardly suffice." But a breakthrough in recent months has potentially solved the problem for the reactor project. "We found that if an atom of lithium was bombarded with a neutron we could actually breed tritium, which could then cycle back into the reactor. This was a discovery made by graduate student Victor Davis, and has been confirmed in laboratory studies."

"We found that if we introduce lithium atoms into the blanket that surrounds the plasma stream which we need to contain the reaction," said Davis, "we find that loose neutrons are occasionally ejected from the plasma stream, and interact with the lithium atoms to produce the tritium. We can then feed those back into the reactor, where they combine with deuterium to create helium and various free neutrons that feed back into the plasma stream. It is a virtuous cycle which is fueled then by easily obtainable deuterium, and easily obtainable lithium, both of which are found naturally in sea water. We find then that the sea will provide all we need in the way of clean and virtually limitless energy."

Dr. Janice Schmidt, Project Lead on the Kalistani Fusion Project

The Republic has been working on building the Z-Pinch reactor for three years now. Several different designs have been hypothesized and the sheared flow plasma Z-pinch, which borrows the technology that has already been employed for other sorts of chemical processing, has been found to be not only the most compact design, but also perhaps the most efficient, in terms of energy. When built, it is believed that the energy out to energy in ratio of the Z Pinch Reactor will be greater than 1, meaning that it will produce more energy than is required to run it, and that stumbling block has prevented fusion reactors that were begun in other nations from producing energy on a commercially viable basis.

"Moving entirely off hydrocarbons is still years away," said Schmidt. "But this method of acquiring tritium in quantities that will allow us to power Kalistan for centuries puts us one major step closer to that dream."

Schmidt notes that the project is still waiting for significant external investment. "Grants from the Tech Ministry, and investment from KalMD have kept the project going for three years," said the Doctor, "But when it comes time to actually begin to build the first practical reactor, we will need a lot more money than what one government ministry, KALNAPECO and one technology firm can kick down to us. It would be a major setback if we had the theory and the were ready to start testing it and the project was shelved due to lack of funding. If other energy firms are interested in working with us to develop this exciting new technology, we would most certainly welcome it."

Schmidt noted that she expects testing to continue. "We are currently figuring out the containment field. We know how it works, but, we need to actually see the plasma flow operate in a stable way that will allow the reaction to last long enough to begin generating energy. We still have several theoretical mountains to climb. But we are moving ahead and are greatly bolstered by the resolution of the fuel source question."