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Modern super conducting magnets are amazing. It’s the next generation of miniaturization. We could see fusion in the home by the end of our lifetimes.

by dexwiz 6y ago

elil17 6y ago
>Fusion in the home Why would you possibly want to make reactors that small when we already have such extensive electric grids?
- DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
  Spaceflight
- justicezyx 6y ago
  Because it is cool? Seriously, having such thing on a car is a god send. And a lot of people are looking for live off-grid nowadays; plus US power grid does not look like will sustain without a lot of capital.
  - elihu 6y ago
    I'm now imagining an implausible scenario with a SPARC reactor loaded onto a trailer and being used to power Jay Leno's steam powered car.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  All I want is truck-size fusion reactors. That would open up the Solar System the way the steam engine opened up the oceans. Ideally you'd have a custom design for rocket engines, where the reactor is semi-open: you feed in fuel through one end, and have the nozzle generating thrust at the other end. Even better if you could optionally close that, when you need only electricity but no thrust.
  - dovin 6y ago
    I see why you might make the analogy. Steam ships opened up trade routes that were impractical for sail power, but the way you phrased it is odd as the oceans seemed pretty open to sail already. I think fusion rockets would be a lot more revolutionary actually.
    - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
      SpaceX's Starship is the "age of sail" in space. For the "age of steam" we need nuclear power.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    DT fusion reactors have no advantage over fission reactors in space; in fact they are inferior. Putative space fusion reactors would have to use advanced fuels.
- dexwiz 6y ago
  Honestly I think the grid will change over coming years. The cities will remain similar but rural towns and remote homes will be switched to local power or limited connectivity. It’s too expensive to maintain a modern grid. Connecting power used to be closely related to phone, but this is less the case with cell and satellite service. Also building utilities can be amortized in a way that assumes the entire population in a region are captured customers. But as individual homes start generating power instead of consuming it, those methods of paying for the grid no longer make sense.
  - nradov 6y ago
    The modern grid is very affordable. What you describe is not an actual problem that we have.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  I am doubtful that is something I will see in my lifetime, but there are loads of reasons why people would want it. For a start in New Zealand we pay a lot more to the grid operators than I pay to generators for power most of the time, the only exceptions being large spikes in power prices due to shortages.
- danans 6y ago
  Obviously, to power DeLorean time machines https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion
amluto 6y ago
That would take a different sort of breakthrough. Fission, unlike fusion, does not produce actinides or fission products. But it does produce neutrons, and neutrons produce activation products, and I don’t want neutrons or activation products in my house in any quantity. And reactor designs using lovely materials like FLiBe involve having those materials around. I also don’t want them in my house. To be clear, I would be okay with a neighborhood fusion plant so long as the safety measures were well designed. There would be no risk of massive catastrophe along the lines of a fission plant, but I would want the risks of an activation product release or a release of non-radioactive but still nasty substances to be appropriately mitigated.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tsimionescu 6y ago
That is definitely impossible. Fusion is a highly radioactive process, a large part of the fusion energy is emitted as high speed neutrons, which interact with any material they find and turn it brittle and radioactive. Even if they are relatively easy to shield from, the shield will pretty quickly become highly radioactive. Not to mention, these things will leak tritium - radioactive gas that is impossible to contain. It won't be in huge quantities, so it's not expected to be a major problem for power plants, but if it's running 24/7 a few meters away from you, that will likely change. Not to mention that a failure in the magnetic confinement could still spew plasma, which would definitelybe hot enough to kill or maim anyone close by.

Modern super conducting magnets are amazing. It’s the next generation of miniaturization. We could see fusion in the home by the end of our lifetimes.

by dexwiz 6y ago

Modern super conducting magnets are amazing. It’s the next generation of miniaturization. We could see fusion in the home by the end of our lifetimes.

elil17 6y ago

>Fusion in the home Why would you possibly want to make reactors that small when we already have such extensive electric grids?

DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
Spaceflight
justicezyx 6y ago
Because it is cool? Seriously, having such thing on a car is a god send. And a lot of people are looking for live off-grid nowadays; plus US power grid does not look like will sustain without a lot of capital.
- elihu 6y ago
  I'm now imagining an implausible scenario with a SPARC reactor loaded onto a trailer and being used to power Jay Leno's steam powered car.
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
All I want is truck-size fusion reactors. That would open up the Solar System the way the steam engine opened up the oceans. Ideally you'd have a custom design for rocket engines, where the reactor is semi-open: you feed in fuel through one end, and have the nozzle generating thrust at the other end. Even better if you could optionally close that, when you need only electricity but no thrust.
- dovin 6y ago
  I see why you might make the analogy. Steam ships opened up trade routes that were impractical for sail power, but the way you phrased it is odd as the oceans seemed pretty open to sail already. I think fusion rockets would be a lot more revolutionary actually.
  - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
    SpaceX's Starship is the "age of sail" in space. For the "age of steam" we need nuclear power.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  DT fusion reactors have no advantage over fission reactors in space; in fact they are inferior. Putative space fusion reactors would have to use advanced fuels.
dexwiz 6y ago
Honestly I think the grid will change over coming years. The cities will remain similar but rural towns and remote homes will be switched to local power or limited connectivity. It’s too expensive to maintain a modern grid. Connecting power used to be closely related to phone, but this is less the case with cell and satellite service. Also building utilities can be amortized in a way that assumes the entire population in a region are captured customers. But as individual homes start generating power instead of consuming it, those methods of paying for the grid no longer make sense.
- nradov 6y ago
  The modern grid is very affordable. What you describe is not an actual problem that we have.
teruakohatu 6y ago
I am doubtful that is something I will see in my lifetime, but there are loads of reasons why people would want it. For a start in New Zealand we pay a lot more to the grid operators than I pay to generators for power most of the time, the only exceptions being large spikes in power prices due to shortages.
danans 6y ago
Obviously, to power DeLorean time machines https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion

amluto 6y ago

That would take a different sort of breakthrough. Fission, unlike fusion, does not produce actinides or fission products. But it does produce neutrons, and neutrons produce activation products, and I don’t want neutrons or activation products in my house in any quantity. And reactor designs using lovely materials like FLiBe involve having those materials around. I also don’t want them in my house. To be clear, I would be okay with a neighborhood fusion plant so long as the safety measures were well designed. There would be no risk of massive catastrophe along the lines of a fission plant, but I would want the risks of an activation product release or a release of non-radioactive but still nasty substances to be appropriately mitigated.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

tsimionescu 6y ago

That is definitely impossible. Fusion is a highly radioactive process, a large part of the fusion energy is emitted as high speed neutrons, which interact with any material they find and turn it brittle and radioactive. Even if they are relatively easy to shield from, the shield will pretty quickly become highly radioactive. Not to mention, these things will leak tritium - radioactive gas that is impossible to contain. It won't be in huge quantities, so it's not expected to be a major problem for power plants, but if it's running 24/7 a few meters away from you, that will likely change. Not to mention that a failure in the magnetic confinement could still spew plasma, which would definitelybe hot enough to kill or maim anyone close by.