4 ms·
Probably because Wendelstein 7-X is making progress at a far faster rate than the ITER model has the current goal, without accounting for delays, for a 2050+ de
by Fordec 5y ago
Probably because Wendelstein 7-X is making progress at a far faster rate than the ITER model has the current goal, without accounting for delays, for a 2050+ delivery time for the PROTO reactor.
- LegitShady 5y ago>for a 2050+ delivery time for the PROTO reactor when a scientist tells you 2050+ it means they don't know and everything is being made up as they go along. It means 'outside the realm of any realistic estimate, but close enough to feel tempting so you don't immediately remove funding'.
- wolverine876 5y agoImagine you have a software need that two contractors are working on. One says it will take 2 years. The other says 2 months, and says they are writing code faster.
- Fordec 5y agoExcept they aren't "writing code faster" but started 8 years later and the industry now has these things like source control, GPUs and cloud computing and a new project is moving far faster with the new tools than the competing, existing project stuck in development hell that is still running in a server down the hall entirely composed Itanium 2 processors of and written in PHP 4. One project started in 2007 planning activation in 2025 and planning reactions in 2035. The other started in 2015, activated 2017 and steady state reactions have been delayed from the original Sept 2021 plan to 2022. It's not even close the results so far.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoWendelstein is only a plasma experiment not a full reactor.
- pfdietz 5y agoStellarators face the same fundamental engineering showstoppers tokamaks do. They don't suffer from disruptions, but their beta is also very low, and their size will be far too large for them to be economically competitive sources of heat.