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> We’re still a few years away from having them in actual power plants I admire your optimism. I'd say half a century, if things go well, but I'm not convinced fusion will ever be economically feasible.
It feels like fusion energy is perpetually 50 years away.
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How did you get cold anything from this?!
I dunno I thought hot fusion was a waste of time unless you’re doing it inside of a star. So I just assumed it was about cold fusion.
Just like COVID helped the mRNA/CRISPR technology evolve and come faster and closer to us, with the potential for many more usages in various diseases, I hope that the ongoing/coming energy crisis will help all nuclear fusion technologies tokamak/stellarator become real. We’re still a few years away from having them in actual power plants and a few decades away from solving our energy problems for every, but I hope w…
> We’re still a few years away from having them in actual power plants I admire your optimism. I'd say half a century, if things go well, but I'm not convinced fusion will ever be economically feasible.
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How did you get cold anything from this?!
I dunno I thought hot fusion was a waste of time unless you’re doing it inside of a star. So I just assumed it was about cold fusion.
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From what I've understood from previous discussions (don't know much about plasma physics though): It is a multistep challenge. Step 1: Figure out how to get a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Step 2: figure out how to extract the energy in a useful, safe, non-destructive (to the reactor) way. Doing Step 1 alone is very difficult so the've postponed Step 2 to the future. I may be wrong though.
I would imagine since, combined, we're spending tens of billions of dollars on Fusion research - someone must have some ideas for step 2, right?!
What's the theoretical advantage of the German stellarator over a tokemak? Seems like a complex design but I assume there must be a reason for the complexity.
The complex design of a Stellerator's magnectic coils essentially avoid the need for a transformer as it is being used in a Tokamak. The transformer is the reason why a Tokamak can only be operated in pulsed mode. However, there is ongoing research to achieve continuous operations e.g. by means of high-frequency waves.
Much better explanation here: https://www.ipp.mpg.de/14869/tokamak
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I think that 50 years is a reasonable timeframe to give fusion the possibility of delivering results. But I agree with you, it's pretty much impossible that anything will come out of fusion in the coming 10-15 years, despite the publicity we keep hearing lately.
We've already given it more than 50 years.
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It looks like all the isotopes of LI are very short lived. Is the problem some of the daughters, or perhaps the Fe and C in the steel that are the problem? https://www.thoughtco.com/lithium-isotopes-radioactive-decay...
Yes, the problem is the steel.
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> ongoing/coming energy crisis This has been IMHO inappropriately hyped. We have an expected gas shortfall in Europe due to the mess made by one rogue actor (though Putin hasn't shut the pipes off yet, The existing price shocks are all speculative!). Petroleum production is fine. Gas production outside of Europe is fine. Existing interests in those industries have been exploiting the resulting price shocks (which are…
Nordstream 1 is off.
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By capturing neutrons (which, not being charged, escape the magnetic confinement continuously as the reaction goes on) with a moderator blanket which is then cooled with water/steam. How to keep the blanket from quickly degrading and becoming nuclear waste seems to be an open problem (not too different from what goes on in fission reactors though) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Energy_capture
> How to keep the blanket from quickly degrading and becoming nuclear waste seems to be an open problem Not really. Most reactors plan to also use the neutrons to breed the tritium fuel for the reactor, so the blanket would consist of liquid metallic lithium. The only products from neutrons reacting with lithium nucleii (either 6 or 7) are He-4 and tritium. The open problem is how to safely maintain the reactor-facin…