Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

Post by worik » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 12:22 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #152

aeyes wrote: post #65

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Chile is an outlier, the plants are in remote locations in the Atacama desert where you have two compelling reasons to build solar plants: There is a lot of space where nobody lives and the sun is always shining. There are mountains but there are also lots of places which are flat for as far as the eye can see, an example would be the Cerro Dominador plant which probably didn't require any ground preparation. On http…

Chile is cheaper, and in a solar-powered world energy intensive industries will move to such places. If (say) Sweden wants to try to preserve industries by building nuclear power plants, they'll find the expensive power from nukes competing against the dirt cheap power from Chilean (or Namibian, or Australian, or Saudi Arabian) solar.

Post by KyleBerezin » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 12:46 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #148

colordrops wrote: post #131

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Are real life superconductors ideal, i.e. they truly would store a charge forever (at least until the material disintegrated)? Or is there some sort of loss, albeit much less than typical resistance?

1. Something “in a superconducting state” has zero resistance, but the transition to superconducting states is not sudden, and there are various things which disrupt that state like magnetic fields. 2. Alternating currents will dissipate even with zero resistance, because the circuit will emit EM waves.

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 12:53 AM UTC

themagician wrote: post #63

KyleBerezin wrote: post #3

Ahh, Wendelstein is that stellerator reactor. The stellerator is really cool, and an alternative to a tokamak reactor. Tokamak is the doughnut shaped reactor, and it has a problem where the plasma near the outer circumference has less magnetic confinement. The stellerator is similar, but confines the plasma to a ribbon and folds it over on itself in a mobius-like arrangement. I used to be really interested in this, b…

I find the geometry of things like this fascinating. We typically think in such simple shapes. I feel like my brain can do triangle, rectangle and maybe hexagons and that's about it. I remember when I finally understood radians enough to really understand circles and waveforms—I felt so enlightened. Like I actually remember the moment when it clicked. For years I was just "doing the work" without actually understandi…

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 12:57 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #91

themagician wrote: post #63

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I find the geometry of things like this fascinating. We typically think in such simple shapes. I feel like my brain can do triangle, rectangle and maybe hexagons and that's about it. I remember when I finally understood radians enough to really understand circles and waveforms—I felt so enlightened. Like I actually remember the moment when it clicked. For years I was just "doing the work" without actually understandi…

I can't really think in (visualize) 3d shapes, so I depend a lot on 3D geometry programs when I design things like for my microscope. A fair number of people I've talked to can visualize complex shapes in their head, rotate them around, do interference checking, etc.

Post by dylan604 » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 12:59 AM UTC

KyleBerezin wrote: post #25

gabereiser wrote: post #12

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Seconded. This is fascinating stuff and reminds me of some crazy rant some guy was telling me about anti-gravity and how electromagnetic “ribbons” could propel you. Obviously the guy was nuts, right? How would one go about learning more about electromagnetic plasma containment folding?

Haha, no I am just some random guy who reads too many Wikipedia articles. "Electromagnetic plasma containment folding" does sound like something a crazy person at a bus station would rant about. My explanation was definitely over simplified, but I'm not knowledgable enough to go into detail on the topic. I can't even point you towards something to read on the topic since everything I read about it is like 15 years ol…