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Deuterium

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Deuterium is the stable heavy hydrogen isotope that supplies the other half of the deuterium-tritium fuel. Unlike tritium it is abundant and unproblematic: it occurs naturally in water at roughly one part in 6,400 hydrogen atoms and is separated at industrial scale for heavy-water reactors and other uses. Fuel masses are strikingly small — JET's record 69.26 MJ pulse used about 0.2 milligrams of fuel in total. Deuterium is included in this Journey chiefly as a contrast: it is the half of the fuel cycle that is genuinely solved, which sharpens how unsolved the tritium half is. Deuterium-only operation, used by ITER in its early phases and by machines such as EAST and Wendelstein 7-X, produces negligible fusion power and is a way of studying plasma physics without a tritium licence.

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    Assembled narrative · 1

    Assembled from 11 blocks · 2 evidence · 12 related

    1. Story
    2. Deuterium is the stable heavy hydrogen isotope that supplies the other half of the deuterium-tritium fuel. Unlike tritium it is abundant and unproblematic: it occurs naturally in water at roughly one part in 6,400 hydrogen atoms and is separated at industrial scale for heavy-water reactors and other uses. Fuel masses are strikingly small — JET's record 69.26 MJ pulse used about 0.2 milligrams of fuel in total. Deuterium is included in this Journey chiefly as a contrast: it is the half of the fuel cycle that is genuinely solved, which sharpens how unsolved the tritium half is. Deuterium-only operation, used by ITER in its early phases and by machines such as EAST and Wendelstein 7-X, produces negligible fusion power and is a way of studying plasma physics without a tritium licence.
    3. Knowledge
    4. Deuterium
    5. Connections
    6. Tokamak (toroidal magnetic confinement)
    7. NIF achieves target gain greater than unity for the first time
    8. JET sets the single-pulse fusion energy record of 69.26 MJ
    9. Evidence
    10. JET's single-pulse fusion energy record, the DTE2 predecessor figure, and the date and pulse count at which JET operations ended
    11. ITER's current programme targets, the magnitude of slippage against the 2016 reference baseline, and the change of first wall material to tungsten
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    /atlas?object=RESOURCE_DEUTERIUM&experience=RESOURCE_DEUTERIUM