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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#101

Post by actionfromafar »

DrBazza wrote: post #87
dfdz wrote: post #80

> This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997. The experiment produced > 11 megawatts of power and at Jet > two 500 megawatt flywheels are used to run the experiments log_2(2*500/11)*(2022-1997) + 2022 = 2185 At this rate we will have fusion by 2185 I guess?

It's 30 years time. It's always 30 years time. https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusi...

I think it used to be in 20 years time.

https://bigthink.com/videos/fusion-really-is-20-years-away-2...

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#102

Post by AtlasBarfed »

prohobo wrote: post #44
vcdimension wrote: post #35

They're still a very long way from getting a net gain in energy: https://youtu.be/LJ4W1g-6JiY

Sadge. But I think this is the best bet for sustainable and clean energy, so why not put all the enthusiasm we can into it? A breakthrough is a breakthrough, and that's good news.

What? We have the best bet for sustainable and clean energy.

Wind and Solar. They soon will beat natural gas for cheapest unsubsidized LCOE, and considering all fossil fuels are shadow-subsidized, that's huge.

Fusion needs to prove is can be cheaper than old-crappy-pressurized solid rod fission first, which is right now getting killed by alternative energy.

I was a big LFTR stan for a while. But wind/solar has won. Keep investing in fusion and fission, but they are subsidy and research projects right now only.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#104

Post by m_fayer »

twobitshifter wrote: post #91
dfdz wrote: post #80

> This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997. The experiment produced > 11 megawatts of power and at Jet > two 500 megawatt flywheels are used to run the experiments log_2(2*500/11)*(2022-1997) + 2022 = 2185 At this rate we will have fusion by 2185 I guess?

Even if it takes 200 years it is likely still worthwhile. Unfortunately we, as a culture, have a problem seeing and planning across generations. https://longnow.org/

I'm happy to hear someone make this point. Rather than sneering "vaporware" when decades fail to crack a problem, I would prefer us to keep in mind that if we never try multi-generational projects, we will never taste the fruit of multi-generational projects, and those are some sweet fruit indeed.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#107

Post by reacharavindh »

As an uneducated observer to nuclear physics, I could not tell the significance of this achievement. Did we finally learn how to extract more energy from a fusion rector than we supplied to operate it? Could anyone more in the know here explain in simpler and more practical terms please?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#108

Post by andyjohnson0 »

tankenmate wrote: post #99
martopix wrote: post #95

I love how one of the articles on the HN frontpage says "Oxford", the other says "European researchers"

EUROfusion is a consortium of national fusion research institutes located in the European Union, Switzerland and Ukraine. It was established in 2014 to succeed the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) as the umbrella organisation of Europe's fusion research laboratories. The consortium is currently funded by the Euratom Horizon 2020 programme. [0] -- Wikipedia So the reason it is called European is that it wa…

I think the point that your parent commenter was making is that Oxford is in the UK and the UK is no longer a member of the EU or Euratom, although it has various agreements with both.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#109

Post by limaoscarjuliet »

According to Sabine Hossenfelder, published numbers are frequently mis-stated on purpose. When you look at frequently reported Q Plasma (or plasma efficiency) we are not that far from it being > 1. However, we should look at Q Total (total efficiency), which is still way below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

For years, I was hoping fusion is close. After watching Sabine's video, I'm not so optimistic anymore.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#110

Post by twobitshifter »

epistasis wrote: post #66
prohobo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadge. But I think this is the best bet for sustainable and clean energy, so why not put all the enthusiasm we can into it? A breakthrough is a breakthrough, and that's good news.

In what sense do you think this is good for sustainable energy? Do you think it will cost less, or have less environmental impact than, say, newer deep well geothermal? I'm not so optimistic that costs could ever be competitive with geothermal.

The idea is that it would cost less and make energy so cheap and abundant that it would completely change society. Fusion would allow you to get 30x energy out vs energy in and has 10,000x the energy density of coal. If you want to explore space, it’s a good option.
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