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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#221

Post by carabiner »

e1g wrote: post #71

Good write-up to temper expectations at https://twitter.com/wilson_ricks/status/1602088153577246721 My TLDR (from a layman): * The output is greater than the energy *in the lasers*, but the lasers deliver 1% of the energy required to power them. Need 100x improvement to break even. * Converting the generated energy into electricity would cut the output in half. We need a further 2x improvement here, so it's ~200x to…

Probably 5-10 years if this turns out to be the key unlocking it. If it is, the floodgates will open for funding, public and private, and we'll see a race to build the first reactor. Similar to how the first COVID vaccine was predicted to take 2-3 years and it took 8 months instead because it was a priority.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#222

Post by _ea1k »

coldpie wrote: post #196
_ea1k wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To keep warm, I'm estimating 2,628 kwh for a month for a home for a family of 3. In our magical Minnesota where everyone lives in houses with 3 people and only electric heat pumps, we'd have 1,900,000. This means, we'd need 4,993,200,000 kwh in the coldest month (4.993 Twh). 500,000 kilowatt of panels would produce ~33 gwh in the worst month (January). So, we'd need 151 times that many to have a good chance of doing…

Nice. I just looked up last February's bill for my ~1700sqft detached SFH in Saint Paul. It was apparently 6.8 therms/day (12 deg F average temp for the month). That maths out to about 5916 kWh for the coldest month (6.8 therms * 29 kwh/therm * 30 days), or a little more than double your estimate. March was 5.9 therms/day and Jan was 5.4 therms/day. So I think your costs are on the conservative side of things... or p…

Yes, I pulled the estimate for really efficient heat pumps. To convert to all electric heat like that estimate, we'd have to replace a lot of gas heat with electric. Might as well go for the most efficient thing.

Compared to the nearly $200B in infra investment that I was estimating, that looks easy, lol.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#223

Post by _ea1k »

_ea1k wrote: post #165
elurg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to cover the worst case with 100% renewables? The goal is to reduce emissions so it would be great even if we can just stop burning coal in the summer.

We don't need to do that. But the media focuses on things like that and turns everything into some sort of weird argument that renewables are literally going to freeze gramma to death. Its overwhelmingly about emotion. Its the same as what we see with EVs, tbh. Oh noes, what if you get caught in a snowstorm!? Imagine if 80% of the cars were EVs and they got stuck and there were... no chargers! Picture yourself freezi…

This site has changed a lot in the past year. Its been strange to watch.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#225

Post by [deleted] »

Robotbeat wrote: post #124
VaxWithSex wrote: post #112

The net energy gain is very slim and has to be converted to electricity to power the lasers – in doing so, there's so much loss, it is again NEGATIVE. It's always the same…

This isn’t the same; this hasn’t been done before. New things are hard. Nothing truly worthwhile is easy.

[deleted]

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#226

Post by chaps »

“The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory experiment shows that scientists can get more energy out than put in by the laser itself. This is great progress indeed, but still more is needed: first we need to get much more out that is put in so to account for losses in generating the laser light etc (although the technology for creating efficient lasers has also leapt forward in recent years). Secondly, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory could in principle produce this sort of result about once a day – a fusion power plant would need to do it ten times per second. However, the important takeaway point is that the basic science is now clearly well understood, and this should spur further investment. It is encouraging to see that the private sector is starting to wake up to the possibilities, although still long term, of these important emerging technologies.”

emphasis, etc

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#227

Post by hannob »

Usual caveat about all fusion "got more energy out than we put in" stories: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nucle...

From a quick skimming it seems only one of the experts quoted here even mentions that (Tony Roulstone).

(Update: i wrote this comment in response to another story and the comment got moved here, so it lost a bit of context https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33958678&ref=upstract.c... - the press release indeed does mention this caveat, but many news stories missed it)

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#228

Post by chiefalchemist »

giarc wrote: post #92
chiefalchemist wrote: post #48

I live near Princeton NJ. Approx 4+ years ago years ago I bumped into a friend one evening at a local restaurant / bar. As it turned out, her date was a top guy at the Princeton Plasma Labs. Long to short, Gates assured me (paraphrasing), "We're close. It's doable. All we need is more funding." I hope he's right. p.s. I know PPPL might not be directly involved in this announcement. I was sharing context on the topic.…

I'd take all of that with a grain of salt. First he was probably trying to impress the girl, and second, every scientist says their work is possible, they just "need more funding". If they didn't think it was possible, they wouldn't be working on it.

No post body was provided.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#229

Post by fanf2 »

Someone wrote: post #140
eganist wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still decades off but as I understand it, this was the hardest nut to crack. They got what, 2.5 megajoules out of 2.1 in? I might be in the opposite camp as you but this is very much a "where were you when—" moment for me. I'm sure someone will pop in to disappoint me but I think the point is it's no longer a hypothetical exercise.

Electricity in, heat out, I think. Getting that heat back to electricity will cost some, I expect more than that 0.4

The efficiency of a thermal power plant is around 40%, depending on the temperature of the steam it can produce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_power_station#Thermal_...
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