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Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

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Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#21

Post by ThePhysicist »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #9

Most interesting fact from the article. At the system level it took 300 million Joules to produce 3 Million a 1% return - so still a very long way to go! With this kind of approach I can’t see how fusion can ever be cheap, the capital costs are enormous. Better to focus on standardised production lines for small fission reactors.

Well, early transistors were 3-5 orders of magnitude larger, slower and more dissipative than those we have today. So by the same argument, the computer revolution would have seemed impossible just 50 years ago.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#22

Post by albertopv »

Real Engineering published a video about Helion Energy company. I don't have the tools to filter out commercial BS, still it seems to me to be most promising effort. The idea to get electricity directly from magnetic fields instead of boiling water is very intriguing.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#23

Post by subradios »

LatteLazy wrote: post #8

The title doesn't match the contents. There is no actual justification of why this is a breakthrough. IMHO it's a milestone, not a breakthrough. This is because it is only a marginal improvement on previous results and it is very unlikely to significantly change the state of either the science or industrial products without further work.

This specific marker is a breakthrough. We did not know until three weeks ago if laser ignited fusion reactions could be created that released more energy than was transmitted into the fuel.

Now we know it is possible, it has been done.

The next question is, can we create enough industrial efficiency to create a working motor generator set.

A hard problem to be sure, but proving that it is a problem that we have is itself a breakthrough.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#24

Post by mirekrusin »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #9

Most interesting fact from the article. At the system level it took 300 million Joules to produce 3 Million a 1% return - so still a very long way to go! With this kind of approach I can’t see how fusion can ever be cheap, the capital costs are enormous. Better to focus on standardised production lines for small fission reactors.

Ignition doesn't have to be net positive.

It just needs to enter into state of self sustained reaction that is net positive.

Ignition itself can be horribly inefficient.

Nobody is designing fussion where ignition's output is directly used for the whole system to reignite again.

It would be equivalent to moving hand with match that fires a match, where energy from ignition is used to trigger another hand to move another match.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#25

Post by graderjs »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #7
graderjs wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

> produce enough food to feed everyone? The soil crisis and the phosphorus crisis.... Are all ultimately problems of energy being too scarce (and therefore too expensive).

I don't think so. You can be doing the wrong (unsustainable thing), even if you could afford to do the right thing.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#26

Post by graderjs »

voldacar wrote: post #16
graderjs wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

Energy is the ability to transform matter from one state to another. Food is a particular form of matter. Therefore...

Brilliant! YOur semantics have solved the wolrd food crisis. Advance to next stagel

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#27

Post by graderjs »

onion2k wrote: post #10
graderjs wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

Suggesting that energy should remain too expensive for billions of people until other problems are solved seems a bit mean.

Strawman. Not what I'm suggesting. Next!

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#29

Post by subradios »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #9

Most interesting fact from the article. At the system level it took 300 million Joules to produce 3 Million a 1% return - so still a very long way to go! With this kind of approach I can’t see how fusion can ever be cheap, the capital costs are enormous. Better to focus on standardised production lines for small fission reactors.

Energy production has always been an enormously capital intensive venture.

R&D labs aren't known for their industrial optimization unless that's their research goal. They proved this from the perspective of the fuel pellet - now they have to increase energy yield (larger fuel?) , reduce total system power, etc.

That said, they doubled energy yield in less than a year. The early exponential function on emerging technologies is always fun.

Re: Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough

#30

Post by graderjs »

d4mi3n wrote: post #6
graderjs wrote: post #5

Quoted post unavailable.

Cheap power enables a lot of things, like synthesis of fertilizers or the ability to cheaply desalinate water. It won’t fix these crisis directly, but it would reduce or remove a lot of the contributing factors.

Sure, it's complex interaction. But where should our focus priorities be, what task should we do first...what should we publish most about??? Maybe my priorities are wrong...what are you saying?
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