Teen builds working nuclear fusion reactor in Memphis home
By Charles Watson | Fox News
02/19/2019
MEMPHIS, Tenn.- Some kids spend their time on social media, other kids spend their time playing video games. When it comes to 14-year-old Jackson Oswalt, his time is spent in a laboratory working on a nuclear fusion reactor.
The Memphis teen finished his reactor and achieved fusion at the age of 13. Hes regarded by experts as the youngest in America maybe even the world to accomplish it. Jackson built a steel machine made up of vacuums, pumps and chambers that is capable of smashing atoms together through force in a smoking hot plasma center that releases a burst of fusion energy. If youve ever wondered how the sun and other stars are powered, the process within Jacksons nuclear fusion reactor is comparable.
He began working on the fusion reactor at 12 years old, after concluding that he didnt want to dedicate his leisure time solely to playing games like Fortnite. He began scouring the Internet for nuclear-related things because thats what he says held his interest. Yes at 12 years old.
During his research, Jackson came across Taylor Wilson, who in 2008 at 14 years old garnered international recognition as the youngest person to achieve fusion after building a nuclear fusion reactor in his parents garage in Texarkana, Ark.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/teen-builds-working-nuclear-fusion-reactor-in-memphis-home
Jackson, like any 12-year-old would, thought he could at least try to beat the record set by Wilson. From there he got to work.
The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors, explained the mild-mannered teen. After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. got those parts off eBay primarily and then often times the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay werent exactly what I needed. So, Id have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project.
Building the nuclear fusion reactor was no game for Jackson. He converted an old playroom in his Memphis home into a functioning lab. With the financial support of his parents he spent between $8,000 and $10,000 over the course of a year collecting the parts he needed to build his nuclear fusion reactor that was apparently the easy part.
Putting the fusion reactor together and testing to see if it worked was the real challenge. Since there isnt exactly a manual on how to build something like that he relied on trial and error and the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, an online forum for amateur physicists, to ensure that he was taking the proper steps toward successfully building a fusion reactor and hopefully achieving fusion.
After a while, it became pretty simple to realize how it all worked together, but at the start it was definitely figuring out one aspect of it, memorizing what that actually meant and then moving on to a different aspect of it, Jackson said. Eventually all those pieces of the puzzle came together to make a good project.
acksons father, Chris Oswalt, had no real understanding of what his son was working on. To make sure Jackson was safe he had experts speak to him about the dangers involved with working on a potentially deadly fusion reactor, like being exposed to high levels of radiation or being electrocuted by the 50,000 volts of electricity he uses to warm the fusion reactors plasma core.
Outside of his safety concerns, Chris Oswalt was astonished at what his son was attempting to do.
Being a parent of someone that was as driven as he was for 12 months was really impressive to see. I mean it was everyday grinding; Everyday learning something different; everyday failing and watching him work through all those things, he said.
Throughout the process, Jackson posted his results to the Open Source Fusor Research Consortium up until the point when he was able to achieve fusion on Jan. 19, 2018 hours before his 13th birthday. In Jacksons case that meant combining two atoms of deuterium gas in the fusion reactors plasma core which ejected a neutron into a device that slowed it down and detected nuclear fusion.
You have to jump through the right hoops, and we have to believe you and see what youve done, said Richard Hull, 72, a verifier with the research consortium and an administrator for its website Fusor.net.
Hull, a retired electronics engineer from Richmond, Va., verified both Jacksons and Wilsons results. He now regards Jackson as the youngest in America possibly the world to achieve fusion.
On a larger scale, scientists have yet to figure out how to produce a nuclear fusion reactor that, like the sun, is able to release more energy than it takes in to power things like homes and buildings.
We are still far away from making a working nuclear fusion reactor to produce electricity so you can think about how challenging it is to make a fusion reactor, said Dr. Jingbiao Cui, professor and chair of the Physics department at the University of Memphis.
With a young mind like Jackson interested in becoming a nuclear engineer working on more projects like this, scientists could work out the kinks of fusion reactors sooner rather than later.
DavidDvorkin
(19,468 posts)MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)It's not clear if it's dead or alive.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)When I was 12, I was running numbers for David Berman and on my way to being a gangster.
MontanaMama
(23,295 posts)What an impressive undertaking for this kiddo. 👍🏼 Colleges will come knocking soon!
Oneironaut
(5,486 posts)mitch96
(13,870 posts)And it's only on Fox and Fox affiliates.. So far Fusion is the holly grail of nuclear power. It would be neat if this could be scaled up...
m
Thats why I used this source. Theyre fine on hard sciences.
Note that this process still uses more energy that it produces. Hot fusion
mitch96
(13,870 posts)That's the problem.. Got to flip it around. More out, less it...
m
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)Keeping the "energy out" under a 100 kilotons is a bit of an issue.
mitch96
(13,870 posts)m
eppur_se_muova
(36,247 posts)ROB-ROX
(767 posts)The detection mode would be a neutron meter. A simple one micro curie Americium 241 source from a smoke detector could make a neutron meter respond. The idea that 50,000 volts can "heat" a plasma is great writing. The experience of purchasing "deuterium gas" would be expensive but "tritium" gas would be much better. I would like to know about the "injection of neutrons" because we all know neutrons are not "magnetic" but maybe it was Am 241 which does release neutrons. This sure was not a "boy scout" project, but it sure was not a Tandem Mirror Experiment (TMX) or Nova Laser Fusion Experiment....I would have thought the garage would have been elected for this amazing experiment?? I think he made a plasma, he had a neutron detector (I did not see the meter connected to the detector, but I did see a vacuum pump next to the detector), a few radiation signs. Nice setup, but did it REALLY happen??? Nice talking teacher, but no video of him at house?? I liked the Laser Fusion video which is where I worked at LLNL.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)Do you think a "net gain" reactor will ever be possible (i.e., one that makes more energy than it uses --- in a controlled fashion, as opposed to a Dr. Strangelove fashion).
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Neither of which is net positive either, but all are pointing in an interesting direction.
Of course, for cheap energy, pretty hard to beat the gigantic fusion reactor that we orbit around.
gristy
(10,667 posts)I certainly didn't know that fusion was so easy now that one of the few remaining challenges is to be the youngest person to build a working fusion reactor.
I'm going to have to rethink getting some solar on my roof and putting some batteries in my garage.
Maybe get me one of those fusion reactors instead.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)In seriousness, it appears fusion is relatively easy, but requires more energy to happen than it produces. Unless one wants an uncontrolled boom that is.