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Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

nature.com

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Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#151

Post by [deleted] »

tsimionescu wrote: post #145
DennisP wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should really stop using ITER as the reference. SPARC uses the same plasma physics with newer superconductors, and is expecting ITER-level performance in 2025. Most fusion scientists agree with that assessment. SPARC won't have a turbine either, but with a construction time of four years, it brings us a lot closer to the next reactor which will.

ITER is still the biggest and best funded project. If SPARC shows anything impressive, we'll see, but so far I'd still bet on the bigger project.

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#152

Post by gmueckl »

ambrozk wrote: post #141
pclmulqdq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really great achievement for a fusion reactor, and actually is a breakthrough that makes me think that it might be on its way to serious commercialization. Unfortunately, a lot of other fusion news is not similarly fundamental, though, so it can get tiring to see "we made a few extra watts but the reactor still went unstable."

A lot of research into plasma confinement is completely empirical. No theory at all. The scientists try new settings, see how they work, and draw a line on a graph extrapolating from them to higher power settings. That's why you need all these small experiments, which have no hope of generating net energy: because you're trying to solve plasma confinement by tinkering, without much of a map to guide you.

Confined plasmas have complex behaviors that are really, really hard to model computationally. Experimentation definitely beats computation in this field.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#153

Post by gmueckl »

pfdietz wrote: post #100
_0w8t wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe after the last autumn when for months there were little wind and cloudy sky there is a realization that energy based purely on renewables will require much bigger storage and much more solar or at least significantly more expensive solar that works under clouds. Doable, but cost is non-trivial. So if any of fusion startups can make operating plant within the next 20 years, it can be used. But if that takes…

Long term darkness/calm is solved with hydrogen. Europe has plenty of underground geology suitable for mass hydrogen storage (it's just like natural gas is stored.) Most of the energy still would go directly from solar/wind to the grid, or through efficient batteries, so the low round trip efficiency of power to gas to power doesn't matter much.

If hydrogen is produced from electricity at scale, it won't be used for energy storage. It'll get sold to chemical plants first. They'll pay good prices.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#154

Post by somat »

cstross wrote: post #108
Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

Nope, this is good news. JET is a 1980s research project into how to contain a plasma and squish it enough to achieve fusion at all, not a practical generator. It doesn't have superconducting magnets, it runs on big lumps of copper, with limited cooling and no way of recovering output power. In the latest run, they achieved fusion and kept it running until JET ran out of power for its magnets . The plasma didn't touc…

For what its worth, the strongest magnets in the world are not superconducting but copper. My understanding is that the high magnetic field interferes with the superconducting mode.

https://nationalmaglab.org/user-facilities/dc-field/instrume...

Not that it has anything to do with plasma research, I just thought it an interesting fact.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#155

Post by pfdietz »

gmueckl wrote: post #153
pfdietz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term darkness/calm is solved with hydrogen. Europe has plenty of underground geology suitable for mass hydrogen storage (it's just like natural gas is stored.) Most of the energy still would go directly from solar/wind to the grid, or through efficient batteries, so the low round trip efficiency of power to gas to power doesn't matter much.

If hydrogen is produced from electricity at scale, it won't be used for energy storage. It'll get sold to chemical plants first. They'll pay good prices.

Yes, surely that will be a major market. It just makes the case easier for renewables, as that's a major source of dispatchable demand that can smooth variation in renewable output without having to pay a cost for turning it back to electric power later.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#156

Post by dreamcompiler »

ncmncm wrote: post #38
Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides. But it is always a con. If they ever do get Q high enough to make energy production conceivable -- it will need Q > 100, when said and done -- a Tokamak reactor will cost 10x much as the equal-grade fission reactor, and cost >10x as much to operate. As fission reactors are today no…

> solar and wind are wholly up to the task, and just need building out.

This. Every time I read a fusion "breakthrough" story I imagine the history books of the year 3000: "Back in the early 21st century, they spent billions trying to build a star on Earth, when there was a perfectly good one in the sky that produced 1000W per square meter that they could have used for free."

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#157

Post by Angostura »

ncmncm wrote: post #38
Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides. But it is always a con. If they ever do get Q high enough to make energy production conceivable -- it will need Q > 100, when said and done -- a Tokamak reactor will cost 10x much as the equal-grade fission reactor, and cost >10x as much to operate. As fission reactors are today no…

> But it is always a con.

I think you should rephrase that, because it's pretty insulting to researchers who have been working incredibly hard on taking steps towards Fusion.

I think the phrase you were grasping for is: "I doubt it will ever be economically viable".

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#158

Post by sinuhe69 »

Before reading the article, I had hoped the power ratio would be something close to 0.7-0.8 but was disappointed that it was only 0.33

Even with ITER it should be a very long way until we will get a ratio of 1:1, not to mention of greater than 1.

Will the AI controlling method would help to a breakthrough?

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#159

Post by pontifier »

Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

It's an easy article to write, and it's easy because so many others have written the same thing.

It's like articles about Facebook and how their value fluctuates and this or that privacy issue is going to be fixed soon. People have heard about the big players, so big players get the attention.

I'm trying to do some fusion research myself, but it's extremely difficult to get anyone to take what I'm doing seriously.

I've got a completely new design, and it still needs to be tested. Do you know how difficult that is when nobody will even look at it, and I have to do everything myself?

I don't even know why I talk about it at all.

I've got some info about it at http://www.DDproFusion.com

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#160

Post by garyrob »

ncmncm wrote: post #38
Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides. But it is always a con. If they ever do get Q high enough to make energy production conceivable -- it will need Q > 100, when said and done -- a Tokamak reactor will cost 10x much as the equal-grade fission reactor, and cost >10x as much to operate. As fission reactors are today no…

"They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides."

Hacker News comment in late 19th century: "They are forever making flying machines have a little more lift, on the verge of break-even, on track to enabling free flight without nasty immediate crashes. But it is always a con.... The only reliable product of flying machine research is dishonesty."

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