Science Alive! Episode 2: Tokamak Fusion Reactor
Tokamak fusion reactor
Nuclear power without the dangerous radiation. The tantalizing dream of the Tokamak Reactor, on this edition of Science Alive!
To celebrate Talk Energy Week, Dave dives behind the scenes with curator Anna Adamek to discover the electrifying stories behind some of our energy artifacts in the collection.
Transcript
00:22
nuclear power without the dangerous
00:25
radiation the tantalizing dream of the
00:27
tokamak reactor on this edition of
00:29
science alive and it's Anna adamak she's
00:33
a curator of natural resources here at
00:35
Science and Technology museums of Canada
00:36
we're wearing gloves and standing part
00:38
of a dream what's the dream we're in
00:40
front of the dream is the dream of
00:42
nuclear fusion we are in front of
00:45
tokamak Canada's nuclear fusion reactor
00:48
now nuclear fusion that's different than
00:50
what a nuclear reactor is there are two
00:53
types of nuclear reactor nuclear fusion
00:55
reactor which fuses together nuclear
00:58
nuclear okay and nuclear fusion reactors
01:01
which break atoms apart right we are in
01:04
front of the nuclear fusion reactor so
01:06
the dream is it will produce electricity
01:08
differently than what we do now yes it
01:11
would produce huge amounts of clean and
01:14
inexpensive energy so no radiation no
01:18
radiation no radioactive waste very
01:21
little fuel and how old is this dream
01:24
well the dream is goes back to 1940s
01:28
early 1950s but in Canada actually this
01:31
nuclear reactor went online in 1984 now
01:35
this is a great big huge science
01:37
experiment how do you build a tokamak
01:40
tokamak is basically a doughnut shaped
01:42
steel container okay it has to be made
01:45
of very high-quality steel you can see
01:47
how shiny and polished the steel is no
01:49
this is because we have to ensure that
01:51
we achieve vacuum inside this container
01:55
in so inside the tokamak you have
01:59
magnets this magnet allow us to create
02:02
in the vacuum electromagnetic field and
02:05
that field contains very very hot plasma
02:08
and allows it to circulate very fast and
02:11
the plasma so when this thing will be up
02:12
and running would it be glowing and we'd
02:14
be seeing you would see some glow from
02:18
it you would see the plasma quickly
02:20
circulating inside right until it
02:22
achieves fusion and the construction of
02:25
this like each each individual bolt how
02:27
much would that have cost to make duct
02:30
trade this is something that's very
02:31
interest
02:32
for a historian of Technology to look at
02:34
it is this physical artifact and we can
02:38
look at different elements so each of
02:40
those screwed cost about two to three
02:42
hundred dollars each of the windows
02:44
would cost about $500 we can see which
02:49
parts were custom-made which parts were
02:52
ordered from catalogs we can also see
02:55
different notations that peopled left on
02:57
the machine itself so it shows us that
03:00
relationship between scientists and the
03:03
Machine one of the scientists actually
03:05
signed his name signed his name on it
03:07
and what happened here and this doesn't
03:09
look like stainless steel to me so this
03:14
to me is a proof that there was a vacuum
03:15
leak okay in the industry which would be
03:19
a serious problem right and it has been
03:21
quite crudely repelled great now the
03:25
vision of tokamak is to generate clean
03:27
electricity how far away do you think we
03:29
are from this overall global experiment
03:32
ever being finished I think we still had
03:34
a way to go
03:35
we do see that there were we see
03:38
splatter of plasma in inside the tokamak
03:41
so we know that plasma was circulating
03:43
there at a very high speed we also see
03:46
little snowflakes that tell us that
03:48
there was electrical discharge but there
03:51
is no evidence about the occlusion right
03:53
so the experiment continues if the
03:55
experiment continues Anna thank you for
03:57
explaining the talk about touch thank
03:59
you
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