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China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

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Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#171

Post by grondilu »

motoboi wrote: post #152
kybernetikos wrote: post #84

I would love to see a huge effort towards fusion, on the same (or even greater) scale as the Manhattan project or the Apollo program. I had been disappointed in the way that fusion always seemed to be 30 years away no matter how many years went past, but I just assumed that that was because the science was hard and just the way it had to be. https://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg https://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Article…

> Massively abundant, cheap, clean energy should be one of humanity's top priorities. What about the big fusion reactor in the Sky? Shouldn't we go all in on solar? Why is so difficult to harness that source? Maybe the same obstacles make fusion so difficult to pursue.

I kind of agree. I'm no expert whatsoever but I am under the impression that the energy issues we face are more a problem of storage than production.

If we could store energy cheaply and efficiently, we would not need fusion plants. We would just use solar power. And if we had fusion plants without a cheap and efficient way to store energy, there would still be energy problems like in transportation, wouldn't there? I mean the reason most cars for instance are not electric nowadays is not because we can't generate enough electricity, it's because we can't store enough electric energy in a car.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#172

Post by 27182818284 »

oelmekki wrote: post #93
espadrine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do tend to diminish achievements from Asia historically. They discovered America first (the whole notion of "discovering" first a place where there already are people is absurd), they got printing first, they mastered gunpowder first... and yet most westerners will name Columbus, Gutenberg, and Europe.

For what it's worth, I'm in France and it's common knowledge here that China invented gunpowder. I don't think I've ever heard someone saying Europe did.

It is pretty common in the US too...

The US is a big country, results vary wildly. Taking a straw poll of the office everyone replied "China" as the inventor.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#173

Post by chadgeidel »

Jedd wrote: post #120
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion produces energetic neutrons, and energetic neutrons are a very good way to make things radioactive. So all the popular approaches create waste that is more radioactive than fission waste, and probably comparable in volume. The only up side is that the decay products have a shorter half life. So the waste will only be a problem for a century or so, instead of for millennia. This may be better than fission, but…

> The only up side is that the decay products have a shorter half life. So the waste will only be a problem for a century or so, instead of for millennia. This sounds like a tremendous underestimation of the problem - handling waste. We have people who live 'for a century or so' but we don't even have languages (now!) that have lasted a millenia.

Our current "decay product" of energy generation (carbon) is going to impact our world for a lot longer than a century. I'll take known-quantity, manageable century-long decay products over unknown-quantity, nearly unmanageable (large-scale carbon sequestration is hard) any day.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#174

Post by Reason077 »

valarauca1 wrote: post #160
Cerium wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we already have a clean fusion reactor with wireless power transfer to every location on earth (weaker signal at poles). All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver!

All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver! We did, and we've already hit the quantum limit of how efficient they can be. It isn't enough. Well it is enough, but there isn't an efficient method to store or transmit the captured power. Solar is awesome, but the places it is most available also happens to be where it is least needed, in general, I'm aware of Saudi Arabia. It should also be pointed out that S…

It should also be pointed out that Solar is the most [1] green house gas producing method of green energy.

... but still tiny compared to any form of fossil fuel or biomass!

Presumably the carbon footprint of solar is largely made up of fossil fuel used in the production and installation of PV panels themselves. This would decline over time as the grid, and vehicles, become greener. Eventually, new panels would be produced using energy from existing panels, closing the loop.

Wind, Nuclear, Hydro-Electric, and Tidal are all vastly more carbon efficient.

The difference is pretty small according to the table you posted. They're all much, much better than fossil fuels.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#175

Post by beambot »

motoboi wrote: post #152
kybernetikos wrote: post #84

I would love to see a huge effort towards fusion, on the same (or even greater) scale as the Manhattan project or the Apollo program. I had been disappointed in the way that fusion always seemed to be 30 years away no matter how many years went past, but I just assumed that that was because the science was hard and just the way it had to be. https://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg https://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Article…

> Massively abundant, cheap, clean energy should be one of humanity's top priorities. What about the big fusion reactor in the Sky? Shouldn't we go all in on solar? Why is so difficult to harness that source? Maybe the same obstacles make fusion so difficult to pursue.

That big fusion reactor causes global warming. Shut it down!

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#176

Post by hx87 »

nnq wrote: post #122
sonium wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound a bit like a buzz-kill, but I don't think fusion power is necessarily competitively cheap. I think it will be comparable to nuclear power with a ~ 10 times higher capital investment to build a fusion-plant. Already now solar is said to be cheaper then nuclear. But nevertheless humanity should explore fusion since it is more or less the only significant power source not (indrectly) depending on the su…

NO... humanity should explore fusion because we might desperately need it to survive . To what amount can you scale up solar in a particular region?! Yeah, I know, we're into low-power everything nowadays... but let's say that you end up with a desperate need for smth like 1 TW of power for something like a sea-water desalination plant, massive irrigation needs because climate change fucked you up, or building a huge…

If things are that fucked, any given government will have no qualms building fission plants everywhere. If you aren't super-duper paranoid about safety and radiation, fission is already pretty damn cheap.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#177

Post by hx87 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49
mng2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an incremental step on a long road. To be sure, the ultimate goal is to understand how to control the plasma well enough to support indefinitely long pulses. But incremental improvements add up, or rather they compound like interest.

What is the plan to extract energy from these things? Same old heat exchanger > supercritical steam > steam turbine > alternator? Or is there some way of getting electricity out of the plasma directly?

Fusion-heated gas turbines are certainly possible, so we may see combined cycle fusion power plants.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#178

Post by ebrenes »

djsumdog wrote: post #4

Anyone remember that really old game Outpost? It ran on Windows 3.1; used a CD recording of The Planets as its soundtrack. That's the first time I've heard of Tokamak reactors. What these are trying to achieve is pretty amazing. I hope one day, one of these reactors will be able to sustain a greater output than input. It has the potential to move the planet into a completely different energy age. Imagine if we could…

God, I hated that game; Outpost was my No Man's Sky. It was an overhyped game that did not deliver on the promised features and was peddled by computer magazine shills as the greatest thing.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#179

Post by sulam »

valarauca1 wrote: post #160
Cerium wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we already have a clean fusion reactor with wireless power transfer to every location on earth (weaker signal at poles). All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver!

All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver! We did, and we've already hit the quantum limit of how efficient they can be. It isn't enough. Well it is enough, but there isn't an efficient method to store or transmit the captured power. Solar is awesome, but the places it is most available also happens to be where it is least needed, in general, I'm aware of Saudi Arabia. It should also be pointed out that S…

To save some people the click -- minimum warming potential by a few less-than-randomly selected sources:

Coal: 770 Gas: 410 Rooftop solar: 26 Offshore wind: 8 Nuclear: 3.7

So, the word "vastly" above might be overstating things. Solar certainly isn't the most efficient, but it's pretty damn efficient compared to anything produced by biological processes.

Re: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ achieves fusion breakthrough

#180

Post by sulam »

valarauca1 wrote: post #160
Cerium wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we already have a clean fusion reactor with wireless power transfer to every location on earth (weaker signal at poles). All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver!

All we need to invent is the wireless energy receiver! We did, and we've already hit the quantum limit of how efficient they can be. It isn't enough. Well it is enough, but there isn't an efficient method to store or transmit the captured power. Solar is awesome, but the places it is most available also happens to be where it is least needed, in general, I'm aware of Saudi Arabia. It should also be pointed out that S…

When you say "it isn't enough", what exactly are you referring to? It isn't enough for what?

It doesn't have to do everything. But it's something, and something you can personally choose to do. As opposed to, oh, for example a geothermal facility, which I can't exactly put in my back yard.

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