Comment on China’s ‘artificial sun’ breaks nuclear fusion limit thought to be impossible
Deceptichum@quokk.au 1 day agoJust a few years ago US labs were the first to generate more power than they put into a fusion reactor , it was one of the most important breakthroughs to date in fusion.
Even under the shitheap Trump, the US is continuing to research into fusion and building stellarators such as Infinity 1 in Tennessee.
Europe likewise is leading breakthroughs such as with Wendelstein 7-X in Germany lasting for 43 seconds . This is being improved with the new Proxima Alpha stellarator being built.
China’s EAST reactor had a breakthrough when they achieved 1,000 seconds last year.. While Europes recent ITER tokamak should be achieving its first plasma in the coming years.
Fusion is a global effort, and scientists are benefiting from the works being put in elsewhere. Stellarators and Tokamak are both breaking new grounds each year, and each has their own pros and cons.
Don’t fall for any propaganda trying to claim anyone is “winning”.
While we maybe researching and contributing into Fusion we are not at all looking into making use for the energy grid. At most just if it can be used for the Data Centers
(Which is yes we could but I think providing free energy for homes is a better use you ask me.)
it was one of the most important breakthroughs to date in fusion
What ? It was not really. Here’s a physicist discussing why.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/fusion-foolery/
In the end, the NIF fusion accomplishment might be called a stunt. Stunts explore what we can do (often after an insane amount of preparation, practice, and failure), rather than what’s practical. Stunts hide the pains and present an appearance of ease and grace, but it’s a show.
The “more energy out than laser energy in” equation masks several fundamental problems. NIF’s doped glass lasers have an efficiency of about 0.5 percent, meaning that they would have sucked in roughly 400 megajoules of energy from the grid in order to produce the 2.1 megajoules of light energy…
To be fair the hype machine was from the press not the scientists
Let’s pause to say: well done! Honestly. No sarcasm. What they did was ridiculously hard, and it finally worked after more than a decade of trying. They actually produced a significant number of fusion events! There’s no faking that, and I’d like to see you try. So let’s be clear that I’m not knocking the accomplishment in itself. My major beef is how we interpret the implications for society.
Stunts also draw attention to stuff. Its yet to be seen if its a net positive but it did help me get up to speed on the current state of fusion technology.
These comment sections can be a place of puerility and defeatism. Thanks for being the difference.
It’s still decades to never from being practical.
It always will be until the day it isn’t. Breakthrough’s cannot be timelined or predicted.
Thanks for your positive and refreshing comment ❤️
I’m assuming the sole reason the Orange cunt hasn’t destroyed the US’s fusion research is because he wants to give exclusive rights to build and use it to Vault-Tech the tech broligarchs who bribe him.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
oil, coal and nuclear are clearly not winning.
we could solve the worlds energy problems today but they’d never be applied simply because oil exists. its literally why the US just attacked venezuela. They could have built another reactor or windmills or whatever the fuck else they feel they need if energy was the reason. but energy has nothing to do with energy and all to do with being a natural monopoly that’s making a small group of people quite wealthy.
scarabic@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
We killed a lot of people to ensure that oil is bought and sold with dollars around the world. No way we’re going to let that currency crutch just go away.
green_red_black@slrpnk.net 3 hours ago
Erm pretty sure Nuclear Fusion is a thing. Meaning Fusion research involves nuclear material
Deceptichum@quokk.au 1 day ago
Yes but those are not fusion. Fusion is the ‘holy-grail’ of energy technology. It is a long term goal that we must work towards. It’s a problem of science.
For now renewables are the cheapest, quickest, and best method we have. They should be receiving all the money wasted on those 3 methods you’ve mentioned above. That’s a problem of politics.
We easily have the means to achieve both, we are hamstrung by shortsighted corporate interests and yes this applies to China as well.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
It doesn’t matter if the people with the war machines are the ones who control the grids,lines,pipes,etc.
The ‘holy grail’ will most likely result in further top down dominance. As god king tyrants demonstrate their continued uselessness to humanity by creating more powerful and destructive weapons and hoarding the infinite power supply for their own.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I gotta be honest, as amazing as the promise of limitless fusion energy is, I’m really not optimistic that it’ll be a major or even an important technology for the energy sector, at least for the next 200 or so years.
The thing is, we already have fission power and we’re struggling to use it right now. And fusion has almost all the same strengths and drawbacks, but bigger. I do believe we will achieve sustainable fusion, probably soon. But I’m certain that while it will “work”, it will also prove to be the most expensive form of power generation with the largest upfront costs that the world has ever seen. And I don’t expect those prices to come down for a very long time.
Personally, I think anyone who expects fusion to be some kind of miracle technology is kidding themselves. And if people really want a miracle technology in the energy sector, look at geothermal, that’s the only tech I see that has any potential to become cheap, limitless, and constant.
I do think fusion will have good applications, but it will likely remain niche for a while. I definitely look forward to seeing spacecraft propelled by ion drives and powered by fusion, it would be amazing to be able to get to Jupiter and back in on tank of (xenon) gas.
Potatar@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Fission has the “long (1+ centuries) term storage solution of the byproducts” problem (output is dirty and long lasting). Fusion has no such big problem (output is dirty and short lasting).
I like hyperboles so here: If everyone did fission in their backyard, we’d have a big and long lasting problem. If everyone did fusion in their backyard, we’d have a medium and short lasting problem.
BoJackHorseman@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Nuclear is different from oil and coal.
They’re not solving the world’s problems not because oil exists, but because big powerful private oil companies exist who lobby the government and publish propaganda to manipulate the public. And big oil companies exist because of capitalism. But at this point, you start spewing all the anti communism propaganda you’ve been fed since your birth.
chocrates@piefed.world 22 hours ago
God, I wonder if we could fund a next gen fission plant with what we already spent on Venezuela
nforminvasion@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Why you attacking nuclear? It’s an amazing technology
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
With US being the leading oil producer and stealing all of Venezuela’s’s oil, we’re positioning ourselves to control the world’s supply …… as they yawn and continue moving to the future
sibachian@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
the US is more likely to invade and destroy any country that make fusion viable than to let it compete on the energy market.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
Not that easy, considering the major candidates to succeed is China and the EU.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 21 hours ago
Passenger vehicles and homes and most businesses could be owed by solar and wind, but oil will still be used for quite a while for cargo shipping and commercial trucks and things like tires. We could use a lot less, but oil is going to hang around for quite a while. Passenger vehicles account for about 25% of oil used.