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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#751

Post by rnk »

lumost wrote: post #711
mcv wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to like the idea of fusion energy, but practical application has always seemed to be 40 years in the future, and it's starting to sound more like 60 years now. I hope it will be possible some day, but it's not going to help with out energy needs in our lifetime. (Unless that longevity research is going to pay off, I guess.)

There is a class of problems that I've become accustomed to being forever in the future. - Nuclear Fusion - AGI - Driverless cars - Quantum Gravity - Carbon Nanotubes There appears to either be a problem where these are either convenient money sinks, problems that are missing key break-throughs or missing critical technologies. Nuclear Fusion would be easy if we had 400T magnetic fields and the structures to support…

Used to be on the list: reusable rockets, reasonably priced electric cars with charging infrastructure, rapid development of new vaccines with direct genetic engineering mechanisms.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#752

Post by mschuster91 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #379
mschuster91 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pooling resources makes sense here. Yes, but still - instead of all the components needed being manufactured on or near site, they are shipped from across the world... so parts end up damaged [1], not made according to spec or the spec having errors introduced somewhere among dozens of companies and institutions. With sometimes weeks or months of shipping round-trip times, that is causing a fucking lot of delays. N…

Airbus is an inefficient port project? They build almosy half the world's aircraft. Boeing has 1 boss and what are they better at, defrauding regulators to sell dangerous aircraft? And all other private manufacturers combined are a rounding error?

They could be a lot more efficient if they were not forced to ship parts and airframes around Europe multiple times.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#753

Post by londons_explore »

javajosh wrote: post #565
elihu wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ReBCO tape is the specific high-temperature superconducting material they're using. Another important material is FLiBe, which is a liquid that I think absorbs the energy from the fusion reactor. I don't really understand the properties that make it particularly well suited to the task, but I gather it's important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_barium_copper_oxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLiBe

According to the article, FLiBe has the same heat capacity of water, but a boiling point over 14x higher (1430 °C according to the article). Melting point is 359 °C, 3.5x higher. I will speculate that its basically used as a water coolant with the phase shifts shifted up and out. I bet the heat exchangers are exotic, too, having to operate at such high temps! In fact I'd expect to see a pretty sophisticated cascade o…

Higher temperatures in the coolant loop are normally desirable for efficiency. In a heat engine, the hotter the hot side, and cooler the cold side, the more energy you can extract after all.

I don't really see why it's important for a fusion reactor though, where efficiency isn't really a concern at this point.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#755

Post by willis936 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #742
zerobits wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain these timelines better? Can we throw more money at this and scale much faster? Are safety/regulation considerations the main bottleneck? This has gotta be one of the most important investments for humanity and our planet. Hard to fathom these timeline predictions in the same world where mRNA vaccines and various spacecraft have scaled in <1 year.

This has gotta be one of the most important investments for humanity and our planet. If you think climate change is an existential threat, we should divert fusion research money into immediate construction of traditional nuclear power plants.

Divert a puff of dust? Why not divert the deluge that is fossil fuel subsidies or defense budget?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#756

Post by OJFord »

> There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years.

I bet whoever 'estimated' that said it as a joke. I'm no physicist, but that seems like reporting 'insiders suggested the toroid could be made about as long as a piece of string' to me.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#757

Post by londons_explore »

ppaattrriicckk wrote: post #59

In extension to this news and the press conference, one thing I am super excited about, is the private SPARC project and the MIT-spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). If you don't know about it already, I would highly recommend checking it out (e.g. by searching YouTube for "MIT Sparc Fusion Reactor" for some fairly accessible videos on the theory behind why they should achieve fusion way faster than the current…

Private companies have a big incentive to share the good news and hide the bad news.

What are the chances these guys have a pile of problems they can't solve with their approach, but rather than trying to approach it from another direction like an engineer would, instead they continue development because collecting more investor cash while the investors are unaware of the showstoppers is good employment.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#758

Post by extropy »

TheProbes wrote: post #735
ppaattrriicckk wrote: post #59

In extension to this news and the press conference, one thing I am super excited about, is the private SPARC project and the MIT-spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). If you don't know about it already, I would highly recommend checking it out (e.g. by searching YouTube for "MIT Sparc Fusion Reactor" for some fairly accessible videos on the theory behind why they should achieve fusion way faster than the current…

There's no such thing as a room temperature super-conducting magnet. You are talking about "high temperature" magnets, which are YBCO tape magnets. High temperature, in this case, means about -290 degrees F. The next breakthrough that will come will be YBCO powder-in-tube wires, that will allow much stronger fields than currently. They'll be here within a decade, probably much less, as working prototypes exist now.

Anything that is warmer than liquid nitrogen is room temp for scientists.

It's easy to produce, handling is well understood and cheap.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#759

Post by amelius »

lumost wrote: post #711
mcv wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to like the idea of fusion energy, but practical application has always seemed to be 40 years in the future, and it's starting to sound more like 60 years now. I hope it will be possible some day, but it's not going to help with out energy needs in our lifetime. (Unless that longevity research is going to pay off, I guess.)

There is a class of problems that I've become accustomed to being forever in the future. - Nuclear Fusion - AGI - Driverless cars - Quantum Gravity - Carbon Nanotubes There appears to either be a problem where these are either convenient money sinks, problems that are missing key break-throughs or missing critical technologies. Nuclear Fusion would be easy if we had 400T magnetic fields and the structures to support…

Driverless cars really aren't that useful.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#760

Post by childintime »

TheProbes wrote: post #735
ppaattrriicckk wrote: post #59

In extension to this news and the press conference, one thing I am super excited about, is the private SPARC project and the MIT-spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). If you don't know about it already, I would highly recommend checking it out (e.g. by searching YouTube for "MIT Sparc Fusion Reactor" for some fairly accessible videos on the theory behind why they should achieve fusion way faster than the current…

There's no such thing as a room temperature super-conducting magnet. You are talking about "high temperature" magnets, which are YBCO tape magnets. High temperature, in this case, means about -290 degrees F. The next breakthrough that will come will be YBCO powder-in-tube wires, that will allow much stronger fields than currently. They'll be here within a decade, probably much less, as working prototypes exist now.

> -290 degrees F

-273.15°C == −459.67°F

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