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MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

news.mit.edu

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Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#11

Post by stormbrew »

shmageggy wrote: post #7

These university press releases are always very positively framed. This one makes the new magnet seem incredibly promising and fusion seem like almost an inevitability now, but decades of failure have us conditioned for skepticism. What's the catch this time?

I'm not sure it's possible for "lay people" (of which I am one) to recognize the difference between a very slow success and "decades of failure".

Very little is invested into fusion power as a project, overall. So advancements seem to come when outside influences cause breakthroughs.

I wonder how different the world would have been if it had for whatever reason been easier to produce fusion power than a fusion bomb. Military investment into the bomb would have probably pushed things forward a lot quicker. As is, the US military built thermonuclear bombs very quickly and then the appetite for advancement just dried up.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#12

Post by phkahler »

shmageggy wrote: post #7

These university press releases are always very positively framed. This one makes the new magnet seem incredibly promising and fusion seem like almost an inevitability now, but decades of failure have us conditioned for skepticism. What's the catch this time?

>> What's the catch this time?

There are a bunch of issues still to be resolved. Higher magnet strength is/was just one of many.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#13

Post by azalemeth »

shmageggy wrote: post #7

These university press releases are always very positively framed. This one makes the new magnet seem incredibly promising and fusion seem like almost an inevitability now, but decades of failure have us conditioned for skepticism. What's the catch this time?

Agreed. Whilst it may well be the largest, highest-field "only" high Tc superconductor design in the world, it's definitely not the highest-field high Tc superconducting magnet -- I believe that honour belongs to another bit of MIT with a 1.3 GHz NMR machine [1] (but I do remember something about Bruker collaborating with the US's National Magnet Lab and building a 30T machine -- I can't easily find a link).

I really wish that press release would put the link to the paper at the top -- I found it very hard to work out what was actually new!

[1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6926794

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#14

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

stormbrew wrote: post #11
shmageggy wrote: post #7

These university press releases are always very positively framed. This one makes the new magnet seem incredibly promising and fusion seem like almost an inevitability now, but decades of failure have us conditioned for skepticism. What's the catch this time?

I'm not sure it's possible for "lay people" (of which I am one) to recognize the difference between a very slow success and "decades of failure". Very little is invested into fusion power as a project, overall. So advancements seem to come when outside influences cause breakthroughs. I wonder how different the world would have been if it had for whatever reason been easier to produce fusion power than a fusion bomb.…

You could say that military investment into fusion and fission bombs was groundwork for everything done since. On the other hand, the fact that nuclear power started with bombs probably contributed to it falling out of favor and being regulated to irrelevance (even though hydrocarbons have been responsible for a lot more deaths and environmental damage).

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#15

Post by Seanambers »

If anyone have not seen it i recommend this video as a primer for fusion technology, it's from MIT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk

The video thouches upon magnetic fields and its relevance at this time mark ; https://youtu.be/L0KuAx1COEk?t=2880

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#17

Post by anonuser123456 »

shmageggy wrote: post #7

These university press releases are always very positively framed. This one makes the new magnet seem incredibly promising and fusion seem like almost an inevitability now, but decades of failure have us conditioned for skepticism. What's the catch this time?

> What's the catch this time?

This is D-T fusion. Which means you have to have T. Which currently comes from fission reactor and has a half life of 15 years.

So the plan is to use a molten salt blanket with Be to breed T. But Be isn’t scalable for consumption, so maybe lead eventually. That’s probably do-able, it just slows down the rate new reactors can come online since Pb is not as good a neutron multiplier.

Once they breed extra T, they have to capture and refine it. Hydrogen is very corrosive and hard to work with… and T is radioactive hydrogen. Again, probably doable. But guess what? Refining spent nuclear waste in fission reactors is also do-able. It’s also super expensive.

And they still need a containment vessel that will withstand the wear and tear from sitting next to a mini hydrogen bomb all day.

These challenges are likely all surmountable. But are they surmountable AND cheaper than existing nuclear or other energy sources? Meh?

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#18

Post by nielsbot »

sdeyerle wrote: post #10

In the original proposal for the ARC reactor, they were proposing making the magnet separable so the top and bottom of the reactor could be separated and the vacuum vessel removed. (See pg. 5 of https://library.psfc.mit.edu/catalog/reports/2010/15ja/15ja0... ) It doesn't look like they are targeting that here. Does anyone know if that is ARC (not SPARC) specific, or if that has been abandoned?

The article says this is from an "MIT-CFS collaboration" which is "on track to build the world’s first fusion device that can create and confine a plasma that produces more energy than it consumes. That demonstration device, called SPARC, is targeted for completion in 2025."

So, sounds like it's for SPARC.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#19

Post by [deleted] »

sdeyerle wrote: post #10

In the original proposal for the ARC reactor, they were proposing making the magnet separable so the top and bottom of the reactor could be separated and the vacuum vessel removed. (See pg. 5 of https://library.psfc.mit.edu/catalog/reports/2010/15ja/15ja0... ) It doesn't look like they are targeting that here. Does anyone know if that is ARC (not SPARC) specific, or if that has been abandoned?

[deleted]
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