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I have more hope in the German fusion reactor that was constructed in 2015. It would provide continus energy output and not the 50 minutes or so outburst of ene

by baldfat 10y ago

I have more hope in the German fusion reactor that was constructed in 2015. It would provide continus energy output and not the 50 minutes or so outburst of energy of the ITER reactor. http://newswise.com/articles/pppl-and-max-planck-physicists-confirm-the-precision-of-magnetic-fields-in-the-most-advanced-stellarator-in-the-world http://newswise.com/articles/pppl-and-max-planck-physicists-... "Stellarators confine the hot, charged gas, otherwise known as plasma, that fuels fusion reactions in twisty -- or 3D -- magnetic fields, compared with the symmetrical -- or 2D --fields that the more widely used tokamaks create. The twisty configuration enables stellarators to control the plasma with no need for the current that tokamaks must induce in the gas to complete the magnetic field. Stellarator plasmas thus run little risk of disrupting, as can happen in tokamaks, causing the internal current to abruptly halt and fusion reactions to shut down."

dogma1138 10y ago
None of them are self sustaining or energy positive as of yet. Fusion works but stellar fusion is effectively powered by gravity, no one knows yet if it will be viable on smaller scales hence why while a lot of process has been made no one has a made sufficient progress to claim they have a working reactor. You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a small margin is what we haven't really managed to break.
- baldfat 10y ago
  > You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a small margin is what we haven't really managed to break That is WORLD changing right there. No we don't have fusion, but the sustaining part has come down to possibly just needing Lithium. Now if you look at where we have come from we are getting closer to where we actually will get more energy out and that will be a game changer.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Lithium is for Aneutronic fusion, while this is being researched it's a completely different fusion mechanism than the hydrogen plasma these reactors fuse. I made a few comments about this in a previous thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466
    - drjesusphd 10y ago
      Lithium is used to breed tritium, which is a neutronic reaction.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Tritium breeding isn't a primary fusion reaction, Deuterium-Li(6) -> Helium(4) is.
    - DennisP 10y ago
      You're thinking of boron.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        No, I'm thinking of Lithium.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  >no one knows yet if it will be viable on smaller scales If? I never thought there was any doubt that it can be made viable with sufficient research. The problems are related to when/if we actually do that research.
  - NikolaeVarius 10y ago
    There is MASSIVE amounts of doubt. We don't know. That's why ITER is being made in the first place. And the cost and build time has been staggering for a test platform.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      We've done the reactions, we 'just' need to hold them together for longer. Why is that in doubt? Can you link something by an expert that doesn't think it's guaranteed to be possible?
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        Because we haven't gotten an energy positive reaction and because the reaction efficiency actually goes down the longer it's going because of how the magnetic flux works in these types of reactors. There is a huge doubt that this type of fusion can be energy positive at small scales, which is why other types of fusion are being investigated primary aneutronic and ICF based ones. Aneutronic is pretty interesting because it produces almost no radiation that is directly harmful to living organisms, and ICF (almost has to be at this time) can be scaled down to very small scales, even molecular levels. Thermonuclear fusion on the other hand isn't a given, it's just the most studied form because it's piss easy to trigger you can build a thermonuclear reactor in your home and produce neutrons which means that fusion is going on, but there is a lot of doubt if it can be scaled to a controlled and energy positive reaction. The only forms we know of that work is a star which is effectively powered by the force of gravity so it's not necessarily an energy positive reaction in the classical sense or an H-Bomb which requires an energy source that is a not an especially small nuclear fission bomb. If I would have to make a bet It would be that Beam/ICF fusion and possibly aneutronic fusion when we'll have better hold over nanotechnology will be the energy sources of the future I'm actually somewhat skeptical that thermonuclear fusion will ever become an energy source in the future, even if we figure out that it can be energy positive under controllable circumstances.
drjesusphd 10y ago
Wendelstein 7X is not technically a fusion reactor.
- DennisP 10y ago
  Sure it is. Put deuterium in the reactor and some of it will fuse, and they plan to do that. You can fuse deuterium on a home-built device in your garage, and that's technically a fusion reactor. It won't be a net energy producing reactor, but neither are any of the other devices we've built. We still call them fusion reactors, because fusion reactions happen in them. It'd be silly not to put deuterium in the 7X, because you get a lot of information by observing the neutrons.

by baldfat 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago

None of them are self sustaining or energy positive as of yet. Fusion works but stellar fusion is effectively powered by gravity, no one knows yet if it will be viable on smaller scales hence why while a lot of process has been made no one has a made sufficient progress to claim they have a working reactor. You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a small margin is what we haven't really managed to break.

baldfat 10y ago
> You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a small margin is what we haven't really managed to break That is WORLD changing right there. No we don't have fusion, but the sustaining part has come down to possibly just needing Lithium. Now if you look at where we have come from we are getting closer to where we actually will get more energy out and that will be a game changer.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Lithium is for Aneutronic fusion, while this is being researched it's a completely different fusion mechanism than the hydrogen plasma these reactors fuse. I made a few comments about this in a previous thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466
  - drjesusphd 10y ago
    Lithium is used to breed tritium, which is a neutronic reaction.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Tritium breeding isn't a primary fusion reaction, Deuterium-Li(6) -> Helium(4) is.
  - DennisP 10y ago
    You're thinking of boron.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      No, I'm thinking of Lithium.
Dylan16807 10y ago
>no one knows yet if it will be viable on smaller scales If? I never thought there was any doubt that it can be made viable with sufficient research. The problems are related to when/if we actually do that research.
- NikolaeVarius 10y ago
  There is MASSIVE amounts of doubt. We don't know. That's why ITER is being made in the first place. And the cost and build time has been staggering for a test platform.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    We've done the reactions, we 'just' need to hold them together for longer. Why is that in doubt? Can you link something by an expert that doesn't think it's guaranteed to be possible?
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Because we haven't gotten an energy positive reaction and because the reaction efficiency actually goes down the longer it's going because of how the magnetic flux works in these types of reactors. There is a huge doubt that this type of fusion can be energy positive at small scales, which is why other types of fusion are being investigated primary aneutronic and ICF based ones. Aneutronic is pretty interesting because it produces almost no radiation that is directly harmful to living organisms, and ICF (almost has to be at this time) can be scaled down to very small scales, even molecular levels. Thermonuclear fusion on the other hand isn't a given, it's just the most studied form because it's piss easy to trigger you can build a thermonuclear reactor in your home and produce neutrons which means that fusion is going on, but there is a lot of doubt if it can be scaled to a controlled and energy positive reaction. The only forms we know of that work is a star which is effectively powered by the force of gravity so it's not necessarily an energy positive reaction in the classical sense or an H-Bomb which requires an energy source that is a not an especially small nuclear fission bomb. If I would have to make a bet It would be that Beam/ICF fusion and possibly aneutronic fusion when we'll have better hold over nanotechnology will be the energy sources of the future I'm actually somewhat skeptical that thermonuclear fusion will ever become an energy source in the future, even if we figure out that it can be energy positive under controllable circumstances.

drjesusphd 10y ago

Wendelstein 7X is not technically a fusion reactor.

DennisP 10y ago
Sure it is. Put deuterium in the reactor and some of it will fuse, and they plan to do that. You can fuse deuterium on a home-built device in your garage, and that's technically a fusion reactor. It won't be a net energy producing reactor, but neither are any of the other devices we've built. We still call them fusion reactors, because fusion reactions happen in them. It'd be silly not to put deuterium in the 7X, because you get a lot of information by observing the neutrons.