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Don't let the "BreakThrough" keyword fool you, it's being used as clickbaitly. Reality is that Nuclear Fusion is maturing quite quickly and we might see applica

Don't let the "BreakThrough" keyword fool you, it's being used as clickbaitly. Reality is that Nuclear Fusion is maturing quite quickly and we might see application this decade.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
What has changed?
- showerst 5y ago
  Not OP, but a couple of things: 1. For magnetic confinement -- Affordable, extremely high powered magnets called ReBCO magnets have hit the market in recent years. 2. Increases in computing power have made doing the modeling for a new design into a task that can be done in a cloud cluster, instead of requiring a dedicated supercomputer 3. VC's have funded a number of companies to actually start building prototypes. I'm not qualified to say if it's "for real" this time, but there's definitely new excitement in area.
  - EthanHeilman 5y ago
    CFS's SPARC started construction this year (2021) and should come online and produce net energy by 2025. That is, some of the best plasma physics scientists in the world are predicting net energy in four years. If they pull this off we will see a gold rush towards commercial fusion. I expect to be using fusion power in my house by 2032. Find me in 2032 and tell me if I'm wrong.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
Which will come first fusion or the James Webb Telescope? ...
- Pompidou 5y ago
  France ITER will come first.
  - bondant 5y ago
    It is in France, but it's not especially French, it's the International thermonuclear experimental reactor.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Honestly the luck that JWT has had kind of makes me think it'll just detonate on the launchpad just to prove maybe God does play dice after all
- Threeve303 5y ago
  When pigs fly, frozen hell, Half-Life 3, etc...
joncrane 5y ago
So has "Fusion is always 30 years away"[1] turned into "Fusion is always 10 years away?" 1 https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusion-is-always-30-years-away https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusi...
- dmckeon 5y ago
  Meanwhile, gravitic containment is working now, and the results are only eight minutes in the future.
  - maxcan 5y ago
    yeah, but it fries anything that comes close. tough to scale down to a controllable level. AFAIK, the most efficient direct energy capture of gravitic confinement fusion are solar panels placed about 90 million miles from the fusion source. Huge loss of energy there.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  No, it is still 30+ years away. Emphasis on "+" But ITER was never even promised to be ready to fire up before 2050, and there has never been any intention expressed to generate power with it, commercial or otherwise. The promise was that after ITER work is done, they might be ready to spend $100B-300B on a commercial plant to be completed around 2100. No commercial power will ever be generated by Tokamak. Its sole reason for still being pursued is as a jobs program for hot-neutron physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for occasional weapons work, although the large dollar amounts involved are a convenient channel to funnel public money to select private pockets. Of course, by 2100 we will have overwhelmingly better choices available than this massive boondoggle. Even fission is more viable. Even orbital solar is more viable. More likely, terrestrial solar and wind will have long since crushed all competition except, maybe, geothermal. In the meantime, every cent spent on Tokamak is stolen from work on actually viable ways to counter global climate disruption. Has been for decades. There is one small boon from Tokamak work. Besides the hot-neutron scam, they are training up a generation of plasma physicists, which will have important, thus far unknown benefits if we don't blow all the opportunities.

Don't let the "BreakThrough" keyword fool you, it's being used as clickbaitly. Reality is that Nuclear Fusion is maturing quite quickly and we might see application this decade.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

What has changed?

showerst 5y ago
Not OP, but a couple of things: 1. For magnetic confinement -- Affordable, extremely high powered magnets called ReBCO magnets have hit the market in recent years. 2. Increases in computing power have made doing the modeling for a new design into a task that can be done in a cloud cluster, instead of requiring a dedicated supercomputer 3. VC's have funded a number of companies to actually start building prototypes. I'm not qualified to say if it's "for real" this time, but there's definitely new excitement in area.
- EthanHeilman 5y ago
  CFS's SPARC started construction this year (2021) and should come online and produce net energy by 2025. That is, some of the best plasma physics scientists in the world are predicting net energy in four years. If they pull this off we will see a gold rush towards commercial fusion. I expect to be using fusion power in my house by 2032. Find me in 2032 and tell me if I'm wrong.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

Which will come first fusion or the James Webb Telescope? ...

Pompidou 5y ago
France ITER will come first.
- bondant 5y ago
  It is in France, but it's not especially French, it's the International thermonuclear experimental reactor.
mhh__ 5y ago
Honestly the luck that JWT has had kind of makes me think it'll just detonate on the launchpad just to prove maybe God does play dice after all
Threeve303 5y ago
When pigs fly, frozen hell, Half-Life 3, etc...

joncrane 5y ago

So has "Fusion is always 30 years away"[1] turned into "Fusion is always 10 years away?" 1 https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusion-is-always-30-years-away https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusi...

dmckeon 5y ago
Meanwhile, gravitic containment is working now, and the results are only eight minutes in the future.
- maxcan 5y ago
  yeah, but it fries anything that comes close. tough to scale down to a controllable level. AFAIK, the most efficient direct energy capture of gravitic confinement fusion are solar panels placed about 90 million miles from the fusion source. Huge loss of energy there.
ncmncm 5y ago
No, it is still 30+ years away. Emphasis on "+" But ITER was never even promised to be ready to fire up before 2050, and there has never been any intention expressed to generate power with it, commercial or otherwise. The promise was that after ITER work is done, they might be ready to spend $100B-300B on a commercial plant to be completed around 2100. No commercial power will ever be generated by Tokamak. Its sole reason for still being pursued is as a jobs program for hot-neutron physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for occasional weapons work, although the large dollar amounts involved are a convenient channel to funnel public money to select private pockets. Of course, by 2100 we will have overwhelmingly better choices available than this massive boondoggle. Even fission is more viable. Even orbital solar is more viable. More likely, terrestrial solar and wind will have long since crushed all competition except, maybe, geothermal. In the meantime, every cent spent on Tokamak is stolen from work on actually viable ways to counter global climate disruption. Has been for decades. There is one small boon from Tokamak work. Besides the hot-neutron scam, they are training up a generation of plasma physicists, which will have important, thus far unknown benefits if we don't blow all the opportunities.