5 ms·

The triple product performance increase needed to go from Qplasma = 10 and infinity is the same as Qplasma = 1 and 10 for DT stellarators.

ncmncm 5y ago
Qplasma = infinity just means that you have transferred the burden from just getting your plasma fusing reliably to the problem of converting the energy coming out into useful form. That second burden is one nobody has even started on. All indications are that it cannot match the economic value, even, of fission, at any Q.
- willis936 5y ago
  260 GW electrical power is being generated from fission neutrons right now. The fact that a fusion test reactor hasn't done this yet is a flimsy point. A burning plasma test machine hasn't even been made. How would you propose blankets and shields be demonstrated if not in a burning plasma machine?
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    > 260 GW electrical power is being generated from fission neutrons right now. At enormous cost. Nobody even has a plan for a way to operate a fusion plant at anything close to matching fission's cost, and fission itself gets less economically competitive with each passing day. If a fusion plant could be operated competitively, surely running the same energy collection system wrapped around a fission pile would do just as well, and thus better than existing fission plants? Try it and see!
    - willis936 5y ago
      This notion of cost is misguided. Fossil fuels are not charged for their externalities. Mankind collectively pays for it decades later. And what of renewables? We couldn't run our society on wind and solar while still feeding everyone with the land we have without displacing millions. Even if we did, the total effort (cost) to society to build and replace terra scale machine arrays would be incredible. Fission offers a much more dense path. But what of the proliferation and accident concerns? If you set aside quarterly profits just for a moment you might see a path for humanity to stay on its current industrial path if it takes its medicine and solves its energy crisis.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        As has been explained to you numerous times in this space, the amount of land needed for enough solar panels for all our energy needs is less than the space currently devoted to fossil fuel extraction. Furthermore, there is never any need to devote space exclusively to solar panels. They coexist well with buildings, where their shade extends the life of roofing material, with parking lots, where they protect cars from damaging sun, with canals and reservoirs, where they reduce evaporation, and with pasture and crop land, where they increase yield by reducing heat stress, and cut irrigation demand by reducing evaporation. I hope you will choose in the future not to propagate falsehoods you have already been corrected on. It has also been explained that energy from renewables is radically cheaper than from nukes. So, if building out solar were too expensive, building the nukes for the same output would be overwhelmingly moreso. But in fact cost for renewables and for storage is still in free-fall, so nukes of any sort get less competitive every day.

ncmncm 5y ago

Qplasma = infinity just means that you have transferred the burden from just getting your plasma fusing reliably to the problem of converting the energy coming out into useful form. That second burden is one nobody has even started on. All indications are that it cannot match the economic value, even, of fission, at any Q.

willis936 5y ago
260 GW electrical power is being generated from fission neutrons right now. The fact that a fusion test reactor hasn't done this yet is a flimsy point. A burning plasma test machine hasn't even been made. How would you propose blankets and shields be demonstrated if not in a burning plasma machine?
- ncmncm 5y ago
  > 260 GW electrical power is being generated from fission neutrons right now. At enormous cost. Nobody even has a plan for a way to operate a fusion plant at anything close to matching fission's cost, and fission itself gets less economically competitive with each passing day. If a fusion plant could be operated competitively, surely running the same energy collection system wrapped around a fission pile would do just as well, and thus better than existing fission plants? Try it and see!
  - willis936 5y ago
    This notion of cost is misguided. Fossil fuels are not charged for their externalities. Mankind collectively pays for it decades later. And what of renewables? We couldn't run our society on wind and solar while still feeding everyone with the land we have without displacing millions. Even if we did, the total effort (cost) to society to build and replace terra scale machine arrays would be incredible. Fission offers a much more dense path. But what of the proliferation and accident concerns? If you set aside quarterly profits just for a moment you might see a path for humanity to stay on its current industrial path if it takes its medicine and solves its energy crisis.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      As has been explained to you numerous times in this space, the amount of land needed for enough solar panels for all our energy needs is less than the space currently devoted to fossil fuel extraction. Furthermore, there is never any need to devote space exclusively to solar panels. They coexist well with buildings, where their shade extends the life of roofing material, with parking lots, where they protect cars from damaging sun, with canals and reservoirs, where they reduce evaporation, and with pasture and crop land, where they increase yield by reducing heat stress, and cut irrigation demand by reducing evaporation. I hope you will choose in the future not to propagate falsehoods you have already been corrected on. It has also been explained that energy from renewables is radically cheaper than from nukes. So, if building out solar were too expensive, building the nukes for the same output would be overwhelmingly moreso. But in fact cost for renewables and for storage is still in free-fall, so nukes of any sort get less competitive every day.