31–40 of 112 posts
Does it kill the idea of a tokamak as an energy production device? As in a stellarator proving the much more promising design...
So it might end up being cheaper to construct a larger tokamak.
This article has zero quantifiable information in it aside from the duration... which has no context. Who's recordkeeping this stuff? What are the other results so far? What is the tipping point where it is net positive? how long does it need to sustain a net positive fusion reaction to produce sufficient power for grid consumption? Are there other losses (thermal generation inefficiencies) that make the target even…
In any future fusion power plant, a plasma with a high triple product must be maintained for long periods. I love vague terms like "long periods". Long compared to the Planck length? Geological time? Is the advertised 43 seconds almost there or "off by 17 orders of magnitude?"
Looking at the picture, I wonder if complexity of these devices will significantly be reduced once it finally works. I assume a lot of the bells and whistles are needed to find the way, but once it's found..
Your question reminds me of the image showing how SpaceX raptor motors evolved https://imgur.com/a/4w3q3lS
Does it kill the idea of a tokamak as an energy production device? As in a stellarator proving the much more promising design...
I've always been somewhat partial to the stellarator design, I mean a big plasma donut is cool and all, but what if we twisted it around a whole bunch first!?
Gotta think big!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The nice thing about fusion reactors is that they don’t blow up but just don’t work anymore.
they have fission reactors that have done that since the 60s (CANDU Reactor). They just don't help you produce nuclear bombs...
Looking at the picture, I wonder if complexity of these devices will significantly be reduced once it finally works. I assume a lot of the bells and whistles are needed to find the way, but once it's found..
The real problem with fusion power is that even if they figure it out, it still won't be cost competitive with solar and wind. Economically all the cost of building a "boil some water and turn some turbines" plant is _already_ in the "boiling some water and turning some turbines" part of the generation, and even if the heat part of it was _free_, the rest of it would be too expensive to bother building a plant for it…
And there are efforts to make building out transmission and interconnecting with the grid more streamlined, so maybe some of those problems will be gone by the time fusion’s ready.
Someone said recently that it’s nicer to have bad laws and good tech than a bad tech and good laws, solar+storage seems like it’s in the former now, and if we can clear the bureaucratic hurdles, we’ll see it boom here like we’ve seen elsewhere.
Does it kill the idea of a tokamak as an energy production device? As in a stellarator proving the much more promising design...
There are 2 podcast episodes with the guys who run Wendelstein here: http://www.alternativlos.org/51/ (it's German tho)