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US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

energy.gov

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Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#601

Post by hgsgm »

b33j0r wrote: post #298
eklitzke wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related, but I think this is an interesting fact, all the atoms in our universe/galaxy/solar system with a mass up to that of iron are formed in the core of stars in stellar fusion. Hydrogen fuses into helium, and as a star nears the end of its lifetime you get heavier elements like lithium, carbon, and so on. Under normal stellar fusion no elements heavier than iron will be produced, and iron is only el…

It’s funny that alchemy was kinda onto something, but underestimated the energy requirements by orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude

No post body was provided.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#602

Post by syngrog66 »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #103
jkelleyrtp wrote: post #33

> LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE) Yesterday, everyone was complaining about the 2.2:2.0 ratio, but now we're working with 3.15:2.05. With modern lasers, that'd be a total Q of 0.375 assuming 100% ef…

This is a stupid question but I don't know anything about fusion: How is it possible for X energy to create X+Y energy in output? Doesn't that violate some fundamental law of physics?

E = mc^2

the "extra" comes from the mass

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#603

Post by heavyset_go »

galangalalgol wrote: post #581
short_sells_poo wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always fascinated by the sheer and unfathomable amounts of energy that is thrown around in these events. Just thinking about the fact that a single spoonful of neutron star matter contains more mass than Mount Everest fills me with wonder about the world we live in.

What happens whena tablespoon of neutron soup gets thrown out of the well of a neutron star? Does it suddenly expand to the size of everest? Where do the electrons come from?

I'd imagine some of the energy and degenerate matter consisting of neutrons would convert to protons and electrons, and nucleosynthesis would take place to form elements.

I have no idea, though, but I'm pretty sure I watched a video about this.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#604

Post by panick21_ »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #282
gene-h wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[0] provides economic analysis for this type of power plant. They conclude it would not be unreasonable to get levelized cost of energy could get as low as $25/MWh. For this one really needs a high gain of 1000, although gains of 400 are a bit more reasonable, and a gain of around 100 may be economically competitive in some cases. While the gain NIF achieved was about 1.5, there is good reason to expect it can be sca…

I think capital costs & construction times are going to be extremely important. I think the biggest reason nuclear energy stopped being built is it takes too long to get political wins. NuScale and other SMNRs might be able to help with that. However, the capital costs & construction time for Fusion Energy should theoretically be much lower than nuclear reactors. But are we too far away from it being a reality that a…

> However, the capital costs & construction time for Fusion Energy should theoretically be much lower than nuclear reactors.

Maybe then current Gen3+ reactors.

But there is no way they will win economically against GenIV Fission reactors. That are already solving most of the issues with Gen3+ reactors.

They already are much smaller, and therefore much lower CapX. Fuel cost are even cheaper because of better utilization of the fuel. Modern plants operating cost are also less because they are even more automated and need to be refueled less.

There is no practical way fusion can compete in my opinion.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#605

Post by padjo »

typon wrote: post #138

This makes me feel America is back. This is a big achievement and should not be underplayed whatsoever. Whichever country achieves practical fusion is going to be dominant in the next century.

I’m pretty sure this heavily politicised press release is designed to make you think America is back.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#606

Post by unnouinceput »

BizarroLand wrote: post #404
b33j0r wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny that alchemy was kinda onto something, but underestimated the energy requirements by orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude

True, all you need to turn lead into gold is a moderately powerful collider and some hydrogen. The conversion is also very slow. And expensive. To make it this way it would cost a Quadrillion dollars an ounce. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-l...

Quadrillion now, but costs will drive down and once is turned to gold, it stays gold. In the far future where all gold was mined this will be the only process left to get more. Or explode stars and capture gold from them.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#607

Post by andrepd »

tomdekan wrote: post #555
steam_raven wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names" Nikita Gill

I find this poem inaccurate.

?

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#608

Post by dsign »

HN people has three orders of magnitude more technical background and education than politicians, yet when it's about fusion, fision, renewables and climate warming, we only manage to output a miserable 0.01 % consensus and the rest dissipates in waste argument.

It comes to reason, the politicians are going to produce only 0.00001% of consensus.

Conclusion: things are looking rather bad. We are not going to achieve Civilization Survival, much less Singularity Ignition.

My suggestion: highly educated Homo Sapiens may not be the right course. There is a proven way of saving the planet which, by virtue of its remarkably sustainable intellect, we should be investing more on: koalas.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#609

Post by Mistletoe »

clavalle wrote: post #492
Mistletoe wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good Lord the universe is old. To think of how rare all that must be and how it had to have time to somehow get here to our planet.

If they weren't here, we wouldn't be able to talk about it. I'd be interested to know if we're in an element rich vein of the wider universe or if all the good stuff is more or less evenly distributed?

I'm not sure but this has some interesting info such as-

>Some whole galaxies have average metallicities only 1/10 of the Sun's. Some new stars in our galaxy have more metals in them than the original solar nebula that birthed the Sun and the planets did. So the amount of "metals" like oxygen and carbon can vary by a few orders of magnitude from star to star, depending upon it's age and history.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9tujxn/are_the_...

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#610

Post by panick21_ »

devmor wrote: post #315
panosfilianos wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a ton for that! $25/MWh is great but not the 10x economic impact I expected. Especially since [1] we see PV at $50/MWh currently. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

The economic impact doesn't just come from the fuel to energy ratio. One of the biggest differences is also in the space required. Nuclear fusion reactors could eventually end up being very small - like smaller than an SUV. Imagine the cost savings in miniaturizing electrical grids.

Yeah but are you beating fission, something like:

https://www.moltexflex.com/flex-reactor/

A small fission reactor can do almost everything a fusion reactor can. Fusion fuel is higher density, but fission density is already not an issue.

Fusion still needs to heat water, that's where much of the cost comes from.

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