Institute of Physics Touring Lecture for Schools and Colleges www.iop.org
‘Powering the future’ by Dr Melanie Windridge, PhD in plasma physics
On Tuesday November 23rd, forty Year 11 pupils studying Triple Award Science travelled to Bromsgrove School to listen to Dr Windridge speak about her research into nuclear fusion, as a potential energy source for the future. She explained the mechanism of fusion that powers the Sun and how physicists are trying to replicate the reaction in massive experiments at places such as JET, the nuclear fusion experiment at Culham, Oxfordshire. www.jet.efda.org
Dr Windridge said, “Fusion is the ultimate energy source – clean, green and safe with almost unlimited fuels. One kilogram of fusion fuel releases the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel. Fusion has the potential to satisfy all our energy needs without resource problems, greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste”. She recently worked in Oxfordshire on the site of JET, the world’s largest tokamak (a large doughnut-shaped vessel designed to contain and control the incredible amount of power that nuclear fusion generates).
Using a plasma ball, fluorescent lighting and a basketball, Dr Windridge explained why nuclear fusion - which involves fusing different types of hydrogen atoms spinning as plasma around a tokamak at temperatures and energies hotter and more vibrant than the Sun’s - poses one of the greatest scientific and engineering challenges of our age. www.melaniewindridge.co.uk
When the nuclei of deuterium and tritium fuse together, helium and a neutron are formed. The photograph shows Fiona helping to demonstrate with a basketball and tennis ball, that it is the neutron that gains most kinetic energy, after fusion has occurred.
Ellie and Charlotte wrote: “All-in-all, it was a captivating afternoon that increased our thirst for knowledge of physics!”
