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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#151

Post by andruby »

time_to_smile wrote: post #133
twobitshifter wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

We're currently on course for having trouble existing across generations. The path we're on now I don't think meeting fusion goals will be big concern if there's anyone around to even be concerned.

True, but if we can crack fusion energy, we can stop burning fossil fuels and we might even have ample energy to extract CO2 from the atmosphere.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#152

Post by amelius »

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/

> we, as a culture, have a problem seeing and planning across generations

From a political perspective, there is little incentive to plan further ahead than the current administration.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#153

Post by thothamon »

jeffbee wrote: post #139
skrebbel wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK didn't float away or anything. It's still in Europe.

Consensus among geologists is that substantial portions of that island did in fact drift away from what we know as France.

Plate tectonics has everything moving, so although I am an amateur, it seems the fact that the British Isles are moving away from Europe doesn't prove much.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#154

Post by marcyb5st »

numbsafari wrote: post #145
whimsicalism wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabine is overly critical IMO. The distinction she is making is known to anyone who has spent a little bit of time thinking about fusion (hopefully that includes the grant writers) and projects like ITER are explicitly aiming for Q=10, not just "breakeven"

Which Q? Qtotal or Qplasma?

Qplasma. Supposedly, with Qplasma > 20 Qtotal should also be > 1 with current magnet tech.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#155

Post by time_to_smile »

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.

> bet for sustainable and clean energy

The best bet for sustainable and clean energy is to stop using fossil fuels and figure out how to deal with the economic consequences.

I feel this optimism around this far off solutions for decades has been just a detrimental to climate action as out right climate denialism.

Growing up in the 90s I was always told "everything will be fine, since we'll figure it all out with technology". It wasn't until decades later, when I kept hearing this promising but seeing CO2 emissions rise that I looked into the details and realized how incredibly in danger our society is, as well as how nearly impossible to solve this problem is at this point.

The reason we shouldn't put our enthusiasm into it is because it's a distraction from the fact that we may already be past essential limits in our climate system and if we want any chance of survival as a civilization and potentially species we need drastic action now.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#156

Post by ajuc »

cnasc wrote: post #116
formvoltron wrote: post #105

OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless. Isn't that what solar power offers? Nobody wants to deploy solar due to high upfront cost. However, wouldn't the startup on a fusion reactor be much greater?

Imagine you live in a smallish, not-so-sunny country like the UK. How much of your land area do you have to cover with solar panels in order to completely rid the nation of fossil fuels?

Fun fact - solar energy production over a year only differs by a factor of 4 between worst and best reasonably inhabited places.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#157

Post by AniseAbyss »

dangom wrote: post #130
IceHegel wrote: post #120

Not to be an asshole, but I think the fusion crowd could go for more of an under promise, over deliver mentality.

No one will get funded with that mentality in such a high-risk high-reward area like fusion. But indeed after so many headlines I agree with you that no one gets excited about these news anymore.

I'm not really sure about that. The promise of fusion power is so great that it would be idiotic not to throw money at it. The US was spending a billion a week in the Afghanistan war.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#158

Post by andruby »

epistasis wrote: post #143
twobitshifter wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess, why is it thought that it could be cheaper than geothermal, for example? Geothermal doesn't have fuel at all. I don't see how fusion produces energy cheap enough for it to be super abundant. And maybe that's just a failure of my imagination, but there seem to be massive gaps in others' reasoning that nobody has been able to fill me in on. Space travel is an entirely separate type of energy use, and I could s…

Even without fuel, geothermal still has constraints. Where can we build it? What are the build costs and costs to run (maintenance, staffing, etc)?

I doubt we can scale geothermal indefinitely. Fusion might suffer from similar constraints, but afaik, doesn't need "much" space or specific geographic structures.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#159

Post by dharma1 »

derriz wrote: post #140
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure it's Brexit related - but I've noticed more and more that when the UK media uses the expressions Europe or European, they are referring to the European continent as if the UK was not part of it. I've even heard it used in this capacity in a work presentation which caused confusion in the multi-national audience - "in Asia it's X, in Europe it's Y, in the UK it's Z...". I consume quite a bit of UK media s…

Has been like this for a long time before brexit and was surprising to me too when I moved to the UK nearly 20 years ago. “Europe” in colloquial use in the UK usually refers to mainland Europe, not the British isles (or even Ireland)

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#160

Post by nicoburns »

mschuster91 wrote: post #69
nicoburns wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $50b program from 1 country would likely have the same problem (as indeed would a large private program). Injecting a large amount of capital all at once into a project just isn't efficient.

> Injecting a large amount of capital all at once into a project just isn't efficient. SpaceX would beg to disagree here. The reason why they are so cheap, agile and sustainable (=reusable rockets) is precisely because SpaceX got a load of money without the "pork" requirements that were commonplace with ULA & friends. That enabled SpaceX to embrace vertical, on-site integration and go for what was technically the bes…

SpaceX didn't get anything near $50B in investment though. And certainly not committed all at once.
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