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Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

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Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#181

Post by TylerE »

daxorid wrote: post #167
fyfy18 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so underfunded? The first country to build one will be taking a big step to reducing their dependence on other countries for energy. I can understand big oil exporters not wanting to push it too much (although it's unlikely to come into fruition for the current generation of politians), but for others isn't it a no brainer?

Because we already have a functioning fusion reactor. Utility-scale PV now costs only $43/MWh. Investing in developing fusion reactors makes very little economic sense compared with capturing the output of the fusion reactor we already have. The research should still be done, of course. It can have benefits to a future interstellar civilization - but until we're interstellar, PV is far, far more compelling.

We have a functioning fusion reactor for some portion of the day. It has a really annoying duty cycle though.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#182

Post by w323898 »

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism.

The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside from uninformed people. As cool as the idea of controlled fusion is, it is and will remain science fiction.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#183

Post by basil-rash »

marcosdumay wrote: post #98
maaaats wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "100M degrees" (Kelvin) Off topic, but this distinction made me laugh. Like the difference between Kelvin and Celsius would throw everything off.

Well, there is almost certainly somebody that read the number and thought about Fahrenheit.

Or read it and think it's some very prolific Chinese university.

Not that I'd be that stupid.

No way.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#184

Post by voxl »

w323898 wrote: post #182

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism. The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside fr…

Oh sorry, we didn't realize that you completely understand all of physics and can qualify, without any possibility of error, that any configuration, period, that utilizes fusion will necessarily be impossible because of this physical restriction.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#185

Post by selectodude »

puranjay wrote: post #168
jcranmer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot about oven temperatures as well.

It took at least two burned dishes before I realized the recipes I was following called for Fahrenheit, not Celsius

What kind of fusion reactor of an oven do you own that goes up to 425 degrees Celsius?

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#186

Post by dbingham »

w323898 wrote: post #182

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism. The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside fr…

I dunno, my buddy who just got a degree in high energy plasma physics working on fusion reactors might disagree with you.

And really, you just sound like every crank ever who thought X technology was totally unfeasible and always would be -- until it wasn't. So currently attempts haven't found a solution to the reaction vessel destruction problem. That does not mean someone in the future couldn't figure that one out.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#187

Post by eutropia »

w323898 wrote: post #182

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism. The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside fr…

Somehow dealing with neutron radiation seems like the lesser problem between it and confining fusing plasma at 100 million K. You make it sound like there's literally nothing to be done about neutron radiation, but something tells me there's probably material scientists interesting in working on that.

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#188

Post by [deleted] »

w323898 wrote: post #182

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism. The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside fr…

[deleted]

Re: Chinese Tokamak reaches over 100M degrees

#190

Post by w323898 »

eutropia wrote: post #187
w323898 wrote: post #182

Fusion was, and for the foreseeable future will be, a boondoggle. In the US it was a cold-war-era arms race program intended to scare the USSR and have them overextend, and now the Chinese are using it for propaganda and scientific Keyensianism. The fact is, fusion generates neutron radiation that destroys the reaction vessel, making it an unviable technology. Nobody takes it seriously as a source of energy, aside fr…

Somehow dealing with neutron radiation seems like the lesser problem between it and confining fusing plasma at 100 million K. You make it sound like there's literally nothing to be done about neutron radiation, but something tells me there's probably material scientists interesting in working on that.

It's literally beyond chemistry, the radiation changes the chemical makeup of the materials.
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