This is a huge deal, but not as big as it is being made out to be. This is only a fractional output, there is still significant work required to make this feasible for use outside the lab.
US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
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Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#842Earlier quoted context omitted.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff”. – Carl Sagan
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
Oh wait I can play this game:
You and I are complicated but we're made of elements Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are
- They Might Be Giants
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#843Earlier quoted context omitted.
No you can't because solar isn't a continious source and fusion is. No amount of investment into solar power can make the sun magically shine 24 hours a day.
Of course you can invest enough and make solar equivalent to continuous power. Solar + reverse hydropower, solar + synthetic fuel manufacture, solar + appropriate sized batteries, solar cranes-with-weights, etc. Solar is so cheap that all those are plausible. Fusion is still far from ready.
I suggest we do not lay all of our eggs in one basket. Climate change can be best countered if we use the sweet spot of all current available and anticipated technologies, including photovoltaic, long & short term storage solutions, and fusion. There is no need to bet on one technology at this stage.
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#844Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX is not Tesla. It's disingenuous to call SpaceX a "company that makes trucks". Just like NASA, they also make precision scientific instruments. They're the first privately funded mission to the ISS and run a massive satellite constellation. They may not have the same accomplishments as NASA, but they're far from a "company that makes trucks".
> Just like NASA, they also make precision scientific instruments. Which scientific instruments does SpaceX make? I have never heard of a single one. In contrast, curiosity rover has dozens. https://youtu.be/GUQ91fdYbP4
You think their satellite fleet has absolutely no precise equipment for knowing and maintaining its position? Or for communicating with terminals and each other?
Like, come on. I get shitting on Musk is the cool new thing, but this is genuinely the case where SpaceX is doing cool things in space, and at an extremely fast pace. Get over yourself if you can’t see through your Musk hate and only see them as “a company that builds trucks”.
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#845Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess we should take this as a lesson in communications. The "breakeven" thing is a red-herring that should have been have been left out of the message, or at least only mentioned as a footnote. The critical ELI5 message that should have been presented is that they used a laser to create some tiny amount of fusion. But we have been able to do that for a while now. The important thing is that they were then able to…
> [...], or the ginormous fusion of the sun. The sun actually has very little fusion per cubic metre or per kg. Per volume the core of the sun produces only a quarter of the heat of the human body (and per kg it's even less, owing to high density). That's why our fusion reactors can't just mimic stars, they have to far surpass them to be useful to us.
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Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#846Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they do, since they started with research done by the Smithsonian Institution.
Yeah but the Wrights were following research from all over the world, including England and Germany. You might as well say that the Wrights were also funded by the British government.
Yes, that's how research works. What's your point?
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#847Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Who are our modern J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, John Von Neumann, and Stanislaw Ulam? they're working on getting you to click on an ad
They can't exist any more for structural reason. This generation was classically educated, without TV or social media in their childhood. They spent the time we're wasting on HN reading _books_ and following the discipline their elders learned in WWI. They had plenty of occasions to tinker. I claim the brains of those generation was structurally different from ours, and we're talking about the best minds of this gene…
Webshits are not working on ads
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#848Another good time to remind everyone that the inventor of the maser (which led to the laser), Charles Townes, was discouraged by his department chair (allegedly): "Look, you should stop the work you are doing. It isn't going to work. You know it's not going to work, we know it's not going to work. You're wasting money, Just stop!" A few months later, it worked. [1] [1] https://www.theregister.com/2015/01/29/charles_t…
> He later explained that he was able to refuse to stop his research because he had tenure, so there was nothing they could really do to stop him.
Not having to chase your next meal can make a big difference
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#849I like how over 60 years after the nuclear boom, it somehow just happened to happen today. Just when the world is ready to transition to electric vehicles on a global scale, just when oil companies aren't able to make as much money from oil as they used to, just when one of the major suppliers of fossil fuels (Russia) is at war with the West, it has somehow magically happened. What a coinky-dink. Throw lots of money…
Is that you, Lyndon?
Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved
#850Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the bottleneck for fusion money though?
There are like 20 designs of various fusion reactors on the drawing board that need to be built and tested. Scientists also don't work for free. They arent mushrooms that grow by themselves
Beginner question, why is it hard(not possible) to calculate the gain without actually building a reactor?
Surely if you have a non-satisfactory yield you shouldn't be building it. And that should be possible to estimate before we spend billions on it?