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ITER will never produce electric energy but they plan to achieve Q=5, ie, output 5 times more energy than put in. The more important work on ITER is work aroun
by zaarn 8y ago
ITER will never produce electric energy but they plan to achieve Q=5, ie, output 5 times more energy than put in.
The more important work on ITER is work around enabling actual power stations using Q=5 and developing the tech to maintain operating fusion reactors (remote robots, etc.)
- therein 8y agoAt that point can't you just store the output current in supercapacitors for later use anyway? You can even feed it into the machine itself. Supercapacitors easily have better than 20% efficiency for each cycle.
- zaarn 8y agoNo, ITER doesn't have any planned way to make electricity, the power it outputs will be largely thermal and radiative. Engineers will likely put up a cooling system to measure the thermal output, especially after putting up the various ways to turn the major neutron radiation into heat (which is a fun way to produce energy with rare materials as a byproduct). DEMO, to my knowledge, will then include an actual electric generator to be hooked up to the fusion core.