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Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fusion shot
- nyokodo 4y agoThis is an article regarding the scientific papers published about the ignition reported on in 2021.
- pinewurst 4y agoWhich seemingly they can’t reproduce. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02022-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02022-1
- Jaruzel 4y agoThat's unfair, they may not have reproduced the 1.3Mj result, but they are consistantly hitting the 100s of Kj range, which the article addresses. This is still an important step forward, and shouldn't be dismissed frivously.
- dghughes 4y ago>That's unfair, they may not have reproduced the 1.3Mj result Fair or not isn't that the very definition of science? To reproduce a result. No matter who tries.
- switchbak 4y agoExactly. The fervor around reproducibility seems more to do with managerial level politics. They've proven they can do something impressive, that's a huge leap. Understanding the underpinnings better so you can do it reliably: that's a matter of research effort and engineering. But they've already done the hard part, let them do their work.
- pfdietz 4y agoIt has to do with the crisis of quality, and indeed outright fraud, that seems to be affecting science these days. https://retractionwatch.com/ https://retractionwatch.com/
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> They've proven they can do something impressive If what they claim can't be reproduced, then what's the basis for asserting anything was proven?
- vlovich123 4y agoThey’ve analyzed the data from the experiment to prove that they achieved it (i.e. ruling out all possible other explanations). Assuming there’s been no fraud, then it’s likely they did achieve it. They’re trying to figure out what the problems are that make reproducibility difficult & I think there’s a new reactor being built that addresses the challenges with reproducing in the current design. It’s an early signal indicating that we may have line of sight to someone demonstrating working fusion within the next 5 years. Is that not impressive?
- Retric 4y agoWithout reproducing the result it can be extremely difficult to prove something wasn’t a measurement error of some kind.
- tsimionescu 4y agoThat do you mean by "working fusion"? This is a weapons research program wearing a very thin figleaf as a kinda sorta maybe possible power generation option. And fusion weapons have existed for decades - so nothing that nivel here.
- DennisP 4y agoIt's a bit odd how people think nuclear weapons research needs a fig leaf in the US, where overt nuclear weapons funding is about a hundred times more than the government's fusion energy funding. It seems more likely that scientists used the weapons angle to dip into that massive flow of military money for their energy program.
- pinewurst 4y agoI’m reminded of the so-called Zeta fiasco. https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/2905 https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/2905
- photochemsyn 4y agoI like how they don't even try to pretend that this is a route to practical power generation, it's all about research into the fundamental physics of fusion - which is a worthy goal in itself. > The record shot was a major scientific advance in fusion research, which establishes that fusion ignition in the lab is possible at NIF,” said Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for LLNL’s inertial confinement fusion program. “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma."
- citizenpaul 4y agoI feel like the pendulum has swung too far the other direction these days. It used to be we'll have cold fusion in 20 years which was hopelessly over optimistic. Nowdays its. We are spending 10 years on a myopic proof of concept that has no practical uses and never will.
- seedless-sensat 4y agoThe private fusion companies still have ambitious (and most likely unrealistic) goals
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoSo did the Moller Air Car. Moller at least had a brief prototype that hovered. There are probably real scientists, engineers, and approaches, but it's probably about fleecing dumb investors at a fundamental level.
- readthenotes1 4y agoOne of my elderly relatives commented last week that he has been hearing that the new experimental results will promise reliable fusion plants in less than a decade ... Since 1960 (He used to be one of those guys inside an ICBM silo during the Cold war)
- 4y ago
- ThrowawayTestr 4y agoIt kills me that more people don't know about General Fusion. They have a practical design for a fusion reactor and are currently building a test reactor in the UK.
- deepspace 4y agoI believe that General Fusion has been in business for over 10 years and that they have yet to actually demonstrate fusion. Definitely not fusion with net energy gain. It's all smoke and mirrors. Their press releases read like they were written by business majors, not scientists. What is the "test reactor" going to test?
- ThrowawayTestr 4y agoThey're building a small scale reactor to test the design. And are you really criticizing a private company for taking just 10 years to get to working reactor? Their approach to fusion can't work in small scale tests.
- ncmncm 4y agoIt has worked perfectly thus far, at separating investors' money from the investors. Most private fusion projects operate on similar principles. We are starting to see similar projects in the renewables space, most notably Energy Vault (NRGV). Their stuff does not work, and cannot work, but it does not matter because the customer is the investors, not the utilities, and what the investors buy is pipe dreams.
- vlovich123 4y agoInvestors make a speculative bet that the people involved will make things work. They also generally understand the risks associated with it and are willing to do it despite that because they think there’s a meaningful non-0 chance of success. I think with fusion investors would be thinking about generational ROI (20-40 years) instead of 5-10 years. What I don’t understand is why there isn’t a similar push to really shake things up with fission. Our current power mix will take a century or so to replace. Fission should be a MUCH faster path.
- tarr11 4y agoCan someone explain to a lay person what they accomplished and what it means for nuclear fusion as an energy source?
- Tuna-Fish 4y agoIt's easy to trigger some fusion in a D-T mix. As in, an enterprising high school student can do it on his tabletop with parts mostly scavenged from tube televisions. The problem is that the fuel mass that undergoes fusion has a lot of mechanisms for energy loss, which mean that you need to continously apply a lot of energy into the system to keep it going. "Ignition" refers to achieving conditions where the energy output of fusion matches the energy loss from the hot spot. In this situation, it is no longer necessary to feed in energy to keep the reaction going, so long as there is sufficient fuel.
- acidburnNSA 4y agoNuclear engineer here, I can try. Before you get cosmic energy out of nuclear fusion fuel (usually isotopes of hydrogen), you have to put a bunch of energy into the fuel to get it into fusion conditions. Namely, you have to heat it up and compress it so the nuclei get close enough to fuse (after which they'll release energy). There are a few milestones along the way to commercial fusion energy: * Get more energy out of a fusion fuel than you put into it * Get more energy out of fusion fuel that it took you to make the energy you put into it * Build a way to capture the net gain energy and convert it into electricity * Demonstrate the integrated power plant as a prototype system * Build and operate the first commercial power plant * Assuming good economic and technical performance, start building a fleet * Deal with fleet scaling issues * Profit! This is a celebration of the first bullet.
- zikero 4y ago> * Get more energy out of fusion fuel that it took you to make the energy you put into it What does that mean if the cost of energy is 0 ? (e.g renewables)
- aaronblohowiak 4y ago
- Kukumber 4y agoAnother proof that innovation doesn't come from capitalism Capitalism will make sure the tech is locked down behind patents ;)
- imperial_march 4y agoCapitalism is why it was done in the first place, instead of people waiting in lines outside stores.
- Kukumber 4y agoCapitalism is why we still don't have it Capitalism is why we still burn coal and use gas Capitalism is why china is already ahead I can continue with many more examples :) They all waiting in line to get government funding Capitalism is why there is no chip fab in the US Intel is waiting in line for government funding
- anonuser123456 4y agoIn a free market, socialists could create a lot for profit collective fusion power coop. Funny how that never happens.
- Kukumber 4y agoIt did quickstart the Nuclear revolution after the WW2, look whos still burning coal nowadays ;)
- kortilla 4y ago> Capitalism is why china is already ahead Yes, adopting capitalism is why China got so far so fast. > Capitalism is why there is no chip fab in the US https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-breaks-ground-20-bln-arizona-plants-us-chip-factory-race-heats-up-2021-09-24/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-breaks-ground-20-bl...
- 4y ago
- dabber21 4y agoLots of things happening in this area, Wendelstein 7-X was recently completed in Germany to research nuclear fusion
- the8472 4y agoW7X is a bit like the LHC. It already was operational in 2015 and got incremental updates since then.
- dabber21 4y agoyes, but the recent changes have been significant, they will now be able to run it for 30 minutes instead of just 100 seconds. I guess within the next 3 years we will have more results
- arnaudsm 4y agoWe should require every fusion breakthrough article to state Q in the title
- JohnHaugeland 4y agoq is more of the fan way to look at it than the engineer way to look at it people throw it around like "you need q=1.35 to be economical" but that's kind of nonsense
- arnaudsm 4y agoWhat are the other relevant numbers to summarize the progress? $/kWh?
- tinco 4y agoNo, that's just a different way of writing Q. There is not a continuous gradient along which nuclear fusion research progresses. It will have a negative $/kWh ratio until the first commercial plant is built. Until then it's milestones that show possibilities.
- JohnHaugeland 4y agoThat's like claiming that gas mileage is the only way to evaluate a car, and when hearing someone say "only a fan would think you can make a decision like this from a single number," asking what you would use instead of gas mileage You can't even evaluate if a good choice for location 1 is still a good choice for a different location without knowing what the other location is There is no easy number for a casual to try to make these decisions with
- mlindner 4y agoThe undue focus on Q caused by the likes of Sabine Hossenfelder is itself a problem.
- rcgorton 4y ago
- mkl95 4y ago> While the repeat attempts have not reached the same level of fusion yield as the August 2021 experiment, all of them demonstrated capsule gain greater than unity with yields in the 430-700 kJ range, significantly higher than the previous highest yield of 170 kJ from February 2021. That looks like some steady progress. How long should it take to consistently yield one more order of magnitude? Are they expecting to hit a plateau at some point?
- teknopaul 4y agoWhile the repeat attempts have not reached the same level of "fusion yield as the August 2021 experiment, all of them demonstrated capsule gain greater than unity with yields in the 430-700 kJ range, significantly higher than the previous highest yield of 170 kJ from February 2021. " Does this mean they are producing energy? 10,000 kilo watt hours is not to be sniffed at
- iso1631 4y ago10,000 kWh is 36 million kilojoules 170kJ is 1/20th of a kilowatt hour - on the order of 1 cents worth of electricity. 700kJ would be 1/5th of a kWh
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> 430-700 kJ range That's approximately as much energy as you'd get from burning one fast food hamburger.
- awinter-py 4y agohow many teakettles
- leephillips 4y agoThe failure to replicate the alleged ignition of a fusion target one year ago suggests that the event was an accident, in the sense that we still don’t understand how to create the conditions leading to ignition in an indirect-drive laser experiment. Even if we could predictably ignite such a target, that would be almost completely irrelevant for commercial power generation. The total system gain is still << 10%. Fusion is not an attractive or desirable approach: https://progressive.org/op-eds/let-cut-our-losses-on-fusion-energy-180313/ https://progressive.org/op-eds/let-cut-our-losses-on-fusion-...
- formvoltron 4y agosolar power here today & for way less money & anywhere in the world can have it. You expect Namibia to have a fusion reactor? Solar will the primary power source of the future.
- oakwhiz 4y agoLots of respect for the people who build the hohlraums (gold target cylinders) since it's such a frustrating task with low yields. It paid off and achieved something.