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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#391

Post by st3ve445678 »

ajuc wrote: post #137
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?

The problem with solar is unpredictability and A LOT of batteries needed to bridge the mismatch between production peaking at noon and consumption peaking at late evening. Both of these are solved with fusion power. Energy market operates on the assumption that whoever unbalances the network has to pay for balancing it. Providing too much and too little energy is both bad - you have to pay someone else to use more/le…

But if we as a society decided to put a large investment into solar and had that augmenting the grid, you should be able to dramatically reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to produce our daily energy, thus slowing climate change. Imagine if we could cut fossil fuel energy by 40-50% and rely more heavily on solar/wind. Fusion may not be available for another 40 years and who knows what the environment situation will be then so we should probably be looking to leverage any clean sources that are available right now.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#392

Post by seanw444 »

johnzim wrote: post #349
ComputerGuru wrote: post #297

> It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. This made me laugh. How much more British can you get?

It's also quite a helpful metric. Most British people are aware that the national grid used to spend a lot of time making sure they had the power available to draw during the commercial breaks of mass-media TV events (series finales, half time in a cup match etc) purely for the nation boiling water with electric kettles en masse. Great intersection of hard science (energy necessary to boil water + extremely efficient…

Wasn't there a relevant Tom Scott video on the subject?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#393

Post by dylan604 »

1024core wrote: post #372

It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. ... The British and their penchant for tea...

Tell someone how many watts/kWh/etc, and they'll maybe have an inclination of what that means to them. Tell them something in a way they can relate by referencing something they do multiple times in a day, then they can understand.

Doesn't seem like a mystery on why the reference was used.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#394

Post by holoduke »

NoGravitas wrote: post #350
soperj wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From other comment > I mean, start with why his wife is divorcing him (Jeffery Epstein) and why he's no longer on the board at Microsoft(inappropriate relationships with staffers), then go into how he's screwed up public schooling in the US, then Microsoft under him. That's the easy stuff that you can see publicly.

Even ignoring that, his fortune came from anti-competitive business practices in the 80s and 90s, without which, personal computing would have been in a much better place today.

Explain better? So easy said. It sounds a bit silly when you say that.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#396

Post by frabcus »

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/

Yes! As a concrete example, people spent all of the C19 trying to fly, learning lots about aerodynamics along the way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation#19th_centu...). This culminated in the Wright Brothers making the final improvements that made it work. A century or two to get fusion would be quite efficient.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#397

Post by druadh »

dylan604 wrote: post #393
1024core wrote: post #372

It's not a massive energy output - only enough to boil about 60 kettles' worth of water. ... The British and their penchant for tea...

Tell someone how many watts/kWh/etc, and they'll maybe have an inclination of what that means to them. Tell them something in a way they can relate by referencing something they do multiple times in a day, then they can understand. Doesn't seem like a mystery on why the reference was used.

It was a joke

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#398

Post by dylan604 »

kuprel wrote: post #382
moogly wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theory dictates that with stronger magnets, the reactor can be scaled down (with the square/cube, can't remember exactly), and thus cost and time to develop OTOH, in a tokamak, the plasma volume (and potential energy output) scales quadratically with the torus' aspect ratio (ratio of major to minus radius), so I'm not sure that tokamak-based fusion really is particularly suitable to miniaturization.

Wouldn't the aspect ratio remain constant as you scale down?

Unless you forget to hold the shift key as you drag.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#400

Post by renewiltord »

soperj wrote: post #294
ambrozk wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? He dedicates huge amounts of money to worldwide public health, and is giving away the vast majority of his fortune over the course of his life. Why shouldn't I hold such a person in high regard?

From other comment > I mean, start with why his wife is divorcing him (Jeffery Epstein) and why he's no longer on the board at Microsoft(inappropriate relationships with staffers), then go into how he's screwed up public schooling in the US, then Microsoft under him. That's the easy stuff that you can see publicly.

I don’t give a fuck about all that. He can have consensual relationships with whomever he likes.

If I complete my life with as big a positive impact and the worst thing that happens is I have a divorce and sleep consensually with a few women who reported to me I will count it as a huge win.

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