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Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

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Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#21

Post by lordnacho »

mtgx wrote: post #12
exar0815 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, whichever nation builds the first working Fusion power plant wont know where to put all the money.

How long until NSA and China steal those designs, though? Two...maybe three months? I guess whoever builds it will also have the expertise advantage in dealing with those designs, though, which should give them at least a few years of competitive advantage. Also, my guess is neither of these "traditional" approaches will work to create actual fusion power. My guess is someone else's out of left field approach that wi…

It's not like stealing a cookie recipe. Pretty much anything that has even a little bit of complexity can't be "stolen" just by having a blueprint.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#23

Post by adrianN »

jakeogh wrote: post #11

Wendelstein 7-X - from concept to reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA Im Zeitraffer: Zusammenbau von Wendelstein 7-X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpSrqitSMQ (best @ 0.56x) Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437075 More: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAx243-m51RI-k_4lsAqidA/fee...

I find watching the assembly of these ultra-high tech machines to be super inspiring. It gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies to see what we're able to do if we put our mind to it.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#24

Post by furyg3 »

lnkmails wrote: post #13

It doesn't say how many watts of power this machine would produce and what is the cost to produce per watt? It would be interesting to compare numbers and see if this machine would ever see mass production in next few decades.

My understanding is that this reactor is just a test to see if this can contain plasma for longer periods of time (from the current 6.5 minutes to a potential 30 minutes). It will not show a net-gain in energy, as it is not designed to produce energy, just a proof of concept.

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#27

Post by baq »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #6

This is likely to be more important, for much less expenditure, than ITER. Edit: to add some additional context, the main problem with fusion reactors is confinement time and plasma stability. The general idea of a fusion power plant using magnetic confinement is that a gas is turned into plasma, confined magnetically, and heated until it can undergo significant fusion reactions. There are two core problems to creati…

the key difference is ITER is designed to be net-energy-positive, while this will generate precisely 0 W of energy, if it works (which I hope it does!)

Re: Germany is turning on its monster stellarator

#30

Post by illumen »

lucaspiller wrote: post #28

Assuming these experiments work as desired and this reactor can produce more energy than it takes in, how long will it be (roughly) until a power plant becomes operational (i.e. connected to the grid) that uses this technology? Years, a decade, many decades?

Considering that this is 9 years late on the build phase... I have no idea. By that fact alone I'd guess decades. But who knows where resources will flow, and what genius lies around the corner!

Personally, I'd bet on other technologies being more cost effective for power generation in the next 20 years.

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