7 ms·

AFAIK this is the proof that engineering has figured it out to have real stellarator fusion energy become a reality. Stuff works. It can keep plasma going for m

AFAIK this is the proof that engineering has figured it out to have real stellarator fusion energy become a reality. Stuff works. It can keep plasma going for minutes as you wish. Now its the task of scaling I guess? I have hope that fusion energy is indeed only a few years away now, not always some decades. It would be just in time so to speak. Can we throw like 1/10 of the US military budget against this tech and have it solved?

WJW 4y ago
Keeping plasma going and actually having fusion are two different things. This is an important step to be sure but the Wendelstein is very much an experimental reactor. It's not meant to be something that will ever make large amounts of electricity. Also note that the Wendelstein 7-X project started planning in 1980 and assembly took from 2005 until 2014. A US reactor experiment (the NCSX) was cancelled in 2009 because they couldn't get the required mechanical precision even in a lab setting. Even if we manage to solve the remaining technical challenges to sustained fusion in only five years (ie WAY ahead of the experimental schedule), building a power plant sized version would definitely take a decade or two including all the planning and actual construction. More budget will probably help speed up the timeline somewhat but probably not that much. If you truly had 1/10th of the military budget to spend you could probably get a much bigger bang for your buck if you spend it on solar panels, batteries and on shoring up coastal defences/stormwater systems/building insulation/etc etc etc. The boring stuff, rather than the "silver bullet" projects like fusion power plants.
shaqbert 4y ago
This was a plasma physics experiment to prove continous operation. Apparently going from 8 min to much larger timespans is less of a leap now. Next stop in research: divertor design. Right now the divertor is still a challenge, as it heats up too much when the plasma gets hotter. You can see it in the video, the area that gets really bright in IR. After the divertor is figured out, the blanket comes next. Neutron embrittlement of the structure is another issue. So power generation is still way out there. Still, a great day for plasma physicists over the world. Decades of hard work went into this. Congrats!
adrianN 4y ago
It's not clear yet that fusion is a desirable source of energy. It sounds quite expensive: You need a high tech gizmo running a plasma and steam turbines to turn the heat into electricity. I'm doubtful that this can be cost-competitive with renewables+storage.
- anonyfox 4y ago
  well to be fair, _large scale_ storage is also far from being a solved problem. Renewables are already exceptionally good to create energy and even getting more efficient… but the „on-demand“ part is the difficult one. Fusion might just be the clean „baseline“ supply we need
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Hydrogen is a proven, scalable technology for storing large amounts of energy. Power sources with high capex like nuclear and (presumably) fusion are incompatible with variable generation like renewables. Running them only makes economic sense when you run them at 100% all the time.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Depends on the fusion process and reactor. There are ones which omit the steam step by directly using the charged particles, turning them into electricity. In theory, OFC.
- candiodari 4y ago
  You forget the applications this would have. Every fusion reactor we have, even ITER, would easily fit into an aircraft carrier. The W7-X can fit in a super-yacht sized vessel, and give it enough power to fly to the moon (not in a convenient/usable form, but certainly enough). And yeah, so can a nuclear reactor of course, but if it manages to blow up halfway it would poison half the earth. Yet fusion reactors are safe. What if we told NASA engineers they can use a gigawatt of power to drive ion engines? The applications of this kind of power go far beyond keeping apartments warm.

WJW 4y ago

Keeping plasma going and actually having fusion are two different things. This is an important step to be sure but the Wendelstein is very much an experimental reactor. It's not meant to be something that will ever make large amounts of electricity. Also note that the Wendelstein 7-X project started planning in 1980 and assembly took from 2005 until 2014. A US reactor experiment (the NCSX) was cancelled in 2009 because they couldn't get the required mechanical precision even in a lab setting. Even if we manage to solve the remaining technical challenges to sustained fusion in only five years (ie WAY ahead of the experimental schedule), building a power plant sized version would definitely take a decade or two including all the planning and actual construction. More budget will probably help speed up the timeline somewhat but probably not that much. If you truly had 1/10th of the military budget to spend you could probably get a much bigger bang for your buck if you spend it on solar panels, batteries and on shoring up coastal defences/stormwater systems/building insulation/etc etc etc. The boring stuff, rather than the "silver bullet" projects like fusion power plants.

shaqbert 4y ago

This was a plasma physics experiment to prove continous operation. Apparently going from 8 min to much larger timespans is less of a leap now. Next stop in research: divertor design. Right now the divertor is still a challenge, as it heats up too much when the plasma gets hotter. You can see it in the video, the area that gets really bright in IR. After the divertor is figured out, the blanket comes next. Neutron embrittlement of the structure is another issue. So power generation is still way out there. Still, a great day for plasma physicists over the world. Decades of hard work went into this. Congrats!

adrianN 4y ago

It's not clear yet that fusion is a desirable source of energy. It sounds quite expensive: You need a high tech gizmo running a plasma and steam turbines to turn the heat into electricity. I'm doubtful that this can be cost-competitive with renewables+storage.

anonyfox 4y ago
well to be fair, _large scale_ storage is also far from being a solved problem. Renewables are already exceptionally good to create energy and even getting more efficient… but the „on-demand“ part is the difficult one. Fusion might just be the clean „baseline“ supply we need
- adrianN 4y ago
  Hydrogen is a proven, scalable technology for storing large amounts of energy. Power sources with high capex like nuclear and (presumably) fusion are incompatible with variable generation like renewables. Running them only makes economic sense when you run them at 100% all the time.
LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Depends on the fusion process and reactor. There are ones which omit the steam step by directly using the charged particles, turning them into electricity. In theory, OFC.
candiodari 4y ago
You forget the applications this would have. Every fusion reactor we have, even ITER, would easily fit into an aircraft carrier. The W7-X can fit in a super-yacht sized vessel, and give it enough power to fly to the moon (not in a convenient/usable form, but certainly enough). And yeah, so can a nuclear reactor of course, but if it manages to blow up halfway it would poison half the earth. Yet fusion reactors are safe. What if we told NASA engineers they can use a gigawatt of power to drive ion engines? The applications of this kind of power go far beyond keeping apartments warm.