4 ms·

We were also shown a graph of how many orders of magnitude away from ignition (for want of the correct word) by date See p.4-5 of [1] for more recent plots. It

by cygx 4y ago

We were also shown a graph of how many orders of magnitude away from ignition (for want of the correct word) by date See p.4-5 of [1] for more recent plots. It includes earlier runs of both KSTAR (the experiment under discussion) and EAST (the Chinese one mentioned in another comment), but not their most recent ones. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10954 https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10954

zamadatix 4y ago
For those wanting a quick in browser glance: https://i.imgur.com/z7MRk5X.png https://i.imgur.com/z7MRk5X.png
- gerdesj 4y ago
  That looks like a canonical "how we are doing" for the trade. You may find it surprising that us civilians find that chart a bit tricky to understand. The graph I was shown was more of a "lies to children" job (a Sir Terry Pratchett term for simplification of a concept to enable teaching to happen). It looked more like a somewhat lumpy y=a/log(bt) where a and b are not 1. I'm just a simple IT bod what studied a fair bit of engineering and a smattering of science back in the day. That graph looks like it forgot to put it's bloody knickers on. The one in the paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10954.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10954.pdf is a bit closer to what I remember. I do feel that we can relax the 25 year rule a bit these days. I think we can quite confidently allow 20 years and I'm quite cautiously going to suggest 15 instead.
  - kortex 4y ago
    SimCity says humanity unlocks fusion power plants by 2050, and I always thought that was as reasonable an estimate as any. Based on page 5, it looks like we should have reliable fusion in the lab by 2040, and give that 5-10 years to scale up to production plants widely available. Hopefully Will Wright turns out to be pessimistic and we break through before then!
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Ah wonderful, it looks like we’re very close to Q=10 and not far off from Q=infinity, heh.

by cygx 4y ago

zamadatix 4y ago

For those wanting a quick in browser glance: https://i.imgur.com/z7MRk5X.png https://i.imgur.com/z7MRk5X.png

gerdesj 4y ago
That looks like a canonical "how we are doing" for the trade. You may find it surprising that us civilians find that chart a bit tricky to understand. The graph I was shown was more of a "lies to children" job (a Sir Terry Pratchett term for simplification of a concept to enable teaching to happen). It looked more like a somewhat lumpy y=a/log(bt) where a and b are not 1. I'm just a simple IT bod what studied a fair bit of engineering and a smattering of science back in the day. That graph looks like it forgot to put it's bloody knickers on. The one in the paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10954.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10954.pdf is a bit closer to what I remember. I do feel that we can relax the 25 year rule a bit these days. I think we can quite confidently allow 20 years and I'm quite cautiously going to suggest 15 instead.
- kortex 4y ago
  SimCity says humanity unlocks fusion power plants by 2050, and I always thought that was as reasonable an estimate as any. Based on page 5, it looks like we should have reliable fusion in the lab by 2040, and give that 5-10 years to scale up to production plants widely available. Hopefully Will Wright turns out to be pessimistic and we break through before then!
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Ah wonderful, it looks like we’re very close to Q=10 and not far off from Q=infinity, heh.