3 ms·

...in thirty years.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
refulgentis 3y ago
People have been saying this for 5 years on every Commonwealth Fusion article as they hit every milestone exactly on time. It's happening this time, people rushing to make fusion jokes are getting downvoted because it's apparent you're just keyword-matching fusion then snarking.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The problem I have can be see by going back to the original ARC paper. That reactor was much smaller than ITER, and had 10x power density, but was still the mass of several WW2 destroyers (for net 190 MW(e)). Its volumetric power density is still 40x worse than an existing commercial PWR.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I think they're getting downvoted because the joke is getting really worn out and endlessly dismissive cynicism is just annoying.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- gerdesj 3y ago
  I went to Abingdon School, which is quite close to Culham labs (JET) in Oxfordshire, in the mid 1980s. One of my A levels was Physics. We had some boffins from JET pop on over and do a presentation to us about what they were up to. I was one of the thickies. Some of my (then) compatriots are now dons and even proper scientists! I only managed a random walk into IT. I dimly recall a graph showing progress on how they were able to fire up the thing and the energy out compared to energy in. That graph had quite a decay on it initially but a really long tail. That long tail is where the always 25 years off meme comes from. Nuclear fusion as an energy source is a massively complicated beast. You might like to note, say, that building for Hinkley Point C (a fission plant, Somerset, UK - just up the road from here) was started late 2018 and was due to be commissioned in 2023 and now is due in 2030. You might also note that aircraft and the like tend to take 20+ years to go from concept to service. A nuclear fusion plant will take quite a while to commission once a concept has been thrashed out. Perhaps CF have got it sorted but there is a damn good reason for the always 25 years off "joke" - I was told it over 30 years ago by physicists working and already long time served at the coal face.
  - lawrenceyan 3y ago
    Trust me, this time is different.
- cubefox 3y ago
  > People have been saying this for 5 years on every Commonwealth Fusion article as they hit every milestone exactly on time. Interesting, so what is their timeline for commercial fusion?
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    ~2030 IIRC, unfortunately Google results are drowned out by N copies of this piece. Ah, found this: - https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/commonwealth-fusion-systems-closes-1-8-billion-series-b-round https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/commonwealth-fusion-system... from broader context I remember, the 2025 "commercially relevant net energy" means "net positive, and not trivially so, i.e. not for 2 femtonanopicofemtoseconds for 1 of 30 trials if we had a better laser"

...in thirty years.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

People have been saying this for 5 years on every Commonwealth Fusion article as they hit every milestone exactly on time. It's happening this time, people rushing to make fusion jokes are getting downvoted because it's apparent you're just keyword-matching fusion then snarking.

pfdietz 3y ago
The problem I have can be see by going back to the original ARC paper. That reactor was much smaller than ITER, and had 10x power density, but was still the mass of several WW2 destroyers (for net 190 MW(e)). Its volumetric power density is still 40x worse than an existing commercial PWR.
dotnet00 3y ago
I think they're getting downvoted because the joke is getting really worn out and endlessly dismissive cynicism is just annoying.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gerdesj 3y ago
I went to Abingdon School, which is quite close to Culham labs (JET) in Oxfordshire, in the mid 1980s. One of my A levels was Physics. We had some boffins from JET pop on over and do a presentation to us about what they were up to. I was one of the thickies. Some of my (then) compatriots are now dons and even proper scientists! I only managed a random walk into IT. I dimly recall a graph showing progress on how they were able to fire up the thing and the energy out compared to energy in. That graph had quite a decay on it initially but a really long tail. That long tail is where the always 25 years off meme comes from. Nuclear fusion as an energy source is a massively complicated beast. You might like to note, say, that building for Hinkley Point C (a fission plant, Somerset, UK - just up the road from here) was started late 2018 and was due to be commissioned in 2023 and now is due in 2030. You might also note that aircraft and the like tend to take 20+ years to go from concept to service. A nuclear fusion plant will take quite a while to commission once a concept has been thrashed out. Perhaps CF have got it sorted but there is a damn good reason for the always 25 years off "joke" - I was told it over 30 years ago by physicists working and already long time served at the coal face.
- lawrenceyan 3y ago
  Trust me, this time is different.
cubefox 3y ago
> People have been saying this for 5 years on every Commonwealth Fusion article as they hit every milestone exactly on time. Interesting, so what is their timeline for commercial fusion?
- refulgentis 3y ago
  ~2030 IIRC, unfortunately Google results are drowned out by N copies of this piece. Ah, found this: - https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/commonwealth-fusion-systems-closes-1-8-billion-series-b-round https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/commonwealth-fusion-system... from broader context I remember, the 2025 "commercially relevant net energy" means "net positive, and not trivially so, i.e. not for 2 femtonanopicofemtoseconds for 1 of 30 trials if we had a better laser"