3 ms·
Except for the dozens of machines made on time and on budget that have established empirical scaling laws of triple product performance. Suddenly those scaling
by willis936 5y ago
Except for the dozens of machines made on time and on budget that have established empirical scaling laws of triple product performance.
Suddenly those scaling laws are invalid because someone on the internet who has no idea how to make an MCF machine implicitly thinks they are incorrect. You'll pardon my skepticism.
- ncmncm 5y agoEach one of those dozens was expected to work. Instead, each one turned out to be ... educational. All the best people don't know how to make an MCF machine. It is an honor to be placed among them. I will welcome any skepticism you can muster.
- willis936 5y agoEvery single one of them did work. Notice how none of them used nuclear fuel. Did you miss that? Do you think every MCF device made has been a reactor attempt? You're making yourself look foolish.
- ncmncm 5y agoIf you define "work", for a magnetic-confinement fusion device, as producing sustained fusion, no, they did not work. We aren't even talking about useful output; they reliably failed to confine hot plasma. Before you can even start talking about fusion as a technology to produce energy, you need to achieve confinement of (1) a useful mass of plasma at (2) a useful temperature for (3) a useful period. Without, you have at best a physics experiment. After you get all of 1, 2, and 3, you are ready to begin actual work on turning emitted neutrons into electrical power in an economically viable way. We have not had occasion to begin such work. If begun, it will predictably fail, for relentlessly practical economic reasons.