Abstract
The breakthrough of the tokamak with the Russian success in overcoming Bohm diffusion and plasma confinement problems, announced at the 1968 Novosibirsk conference, was the second pivotal moment. It ushered in a new optimistic era for fusion, forcing a drastic, but premature change of direction from purely scientific research (understanding how something works) to energy generation (making it work to a useful end). The fundamentals of tokamaks are introduced (design, fundamental parameters, bootstrap current, D-shape plasmas, divertor) in this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Free Exchange of Information, UN Review 5 (1958) 22–27.
- 2.
For the precise figures, see https://aries.ucsd.edu/FPA/OFESbudget.shtml.
- 3.
See Dean (2013) for an extensive discussion of the bickering in US political circles about nuclear fusion.
- 4.
A short film about this mission to Moscow can be viewed at https://go.nature.com/2ykwP5W.
- 5.
The former unit for magnetic field strength was gauss; 1Â T being 10,000 G.
- 6.
Readers who want to know more about (fundamental) plasma parameters may consult the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_parameters and proceed from there.
- 7.
Chen 2011, p. 248ff.
- 8.
Bishop is also the author of the first book on the subject: Project Sherwood: The U.S. Program in Controlled Fusion (Addison-Wesley, 1958).
- 9.
It was not his last wrong prediction, for Hirsch is also one of the authors of the 2005 Hirsch Report (Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, updated in 2007) on peak-oil scenarios, (wrongly) predicting a fall in oil production within five years. The opposite actually happened.
- 10.
Fusion power: an assessment of ultimate potential, Division of Controlled Thermonuclear Research, Atomic Energy Commission (1973).
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Reinders, L.J. (2021). The Tokamak Takes Over. In: The Fairy Tale of Nuclear Fusion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64344-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64344-7_4
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