Challenges of Power Generation & Lighting 21^st Century

The 27th National Symposium on Plasma science and technology is jointly organized by the Department of Physics, Pondicherry University and Plasma Science Society of India (PSSI) from 10-13 December, 2012. The scope of this symposium includes showcasing pioneering research & engineering for developing next generation technologies i.e. green technologies based on plasma sciences. The central theme of Plasma-2012 is application of plasma sciences in new technologies for harnessing the energy.

The central theme of Plasma-2012 is application of plasma sciences in new technologies for harnessing the energy.

Power has been recognized as a basic human need and it is the key to the acceleration of economic growth. India’s projected power demand for the period 2021-22 is two Peta-Watts. The challenge is to generate more power than this estimated value and additionally meet the growing requirement by using alternative technology other than fossil fuels. The controlled fusion based power plants are most anticipated alternatives to the existing hydro-carbon based power plants which promise both sustainability (up to 3000 years) & environment friendliness. It has the capacity to produce energy on a large scale, using plentiful fuels, and releasing no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. There are various approaches to achieve nuclear fusion. One among them is based on magnetic confinement of plasma in a tokomak, is at an advanced stage of development. The other promising future technologies for harnessing energy are - use of hydrogen as fuel and solar energy. Plasma science and plasma based technologies play significant roles in these technologies also. Plasma-2012 aims to cover most of research areas relevant to “Challenges of Power Generation & Lighting 21st Century”.

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is an international controlled nuclear fusion research and engineering project, which is currently building the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokomak at Cadarache in the south of France. The ITER project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of magnetic confinement of plasma to achieve fusion to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power plants. The project is funded and run by seven member entities — the European Union (EU), India, Japan, the People's Republic of China, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

The ITER fusion reactor has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power for 50 megawatts of input power, or ten times the amount of energy put in (i.e. Q≥10). The machine is expected to demonstrate the principle of getting more energy out of the fusion process than is used to initiate it, something that has not been achieved with previous fusion reactors. The first commercial demonstration fusion power plant, named DEMO, is proposed to follow on from the ITER project to bring fusion energy to the commercial market. India is actively involved in fusion research and building its own fusion reactor spearheaded by Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, India.