4 ms·
Everything is still either magnetic- or inertial confinement-based, right? And within those there are the variety of designs. I hate to say it, but a tiny par
by ethbr0 5y ago
Everything is still either magnetic- or inertial confinement-based, right?
And within those there are the variety of designs.
I hate to say it, but a tiny part of me doesn't discount the possibility of energy majors subtley killing small-scale fusion approaches and pushing internation-scale huge projects (i.e. ones unlikely to be delivered quickly).
- OneTimePetes 5y agoHow else? Soundwaves or Lightpressure confinement? Diamond Anvil hammered?
- jacquesm 5y agoMost of the fusion energy we are consuming uses gravity for containment.
- ethbr0 5y agoIt's a proven method, but I have concerns about its scalability.
- jacquesm 5y agoIt scales just fine in the 'up' direction.
- omnicognate 5y agoUp to a point. Such reactors hit a size threshold above which they violently explode, leaving a dense, radioactive core that cannot be disposed of.
- gpm 5y agoI mean, that's just a failure in the EOL decommissioning mechanism of large instances, in terms of making them bigger, there becomes a point where it becomes difficult (or even impossible) to add more fuel [1], but they don't violently explode until the decommissioning phase. [1] https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/328/is-there-a-theoretical-maximum-size-limit-for-a-star https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/328/is-there-a...
- jacquesm 5y agoI think we can safely leave that to the next generation to clean up, like with all those other contaminated zones.
- ethbr0 5y agoWith all the extra energy, I'm sure we'd be able to find and budget for an EOL solution. After all, I'd be insanity to consume massive amounts of energy without accounting for its future costs.
- apendleton 5y ago> Everything is still either magnetic- or inertial confinement-based, right? Pretty much, but there are some that are kinda-sorta both (General Fusion's approach is "magneto-inertial"), and also a lot of variety within each bucket. Like, Zap Energy's approach is magnetic, but involves no external magnets, whereas developing the fancy magnets is a key operational challenge for CFS.
- hobscoop 5y agoThere's some interesting arguments in favor of the combination of magnetic and interial approaches. This is broadly known as 'magneto-inertial fusion', and there's a continuum of ideas between 'mostly inertial' and 'mostly magnetic'. I'd put Helion's approach far toward the magnetic side.