25 ms·
Nuclear fusion: WEST beats the world record for plasma duration
- poincaredisk 2y ago>1,337 seconds: that was how long WEST, a tokamak run from the CEA Cadarache site in southern France and one of the EUROfusion consortium medium size Is this a joke and reference to internet culture or a coincidence? Probably the latter, but i found it entertaining.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- battleof-fusion 2y agoThe last record was 1066 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings
- littlestymaar 2y agoWould it make any sense for the Chinese to choose such a date?
- Y_Y 2y agoIt was the year of Halley's Comet.
- littlestymaar 2y agoDoes it have a signifiance in Chinese's culture?
- pinoy420 2y agoThey turned it off specifically then. Just like the previous one at 1066. We used to do stuff like this in our labs as a joke. Or try and stop timers exactly on :00
- pezezin 2y agoI work for the IFMIF project, an ITER-adjacent project with the goal of researching new materials suitable for future fusion reactors. Trust me, we are all massive geeks, including my colleagues from CEA. There is a non-small chance that the result is deliberate.
- aaronbrethorst 2y ago“1,337 seconds.” Nice.
- number6 2y agoWEST beat EAST... what a bunch of nerds :)
- dgan 2y agoErm. Why?
- leca 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet
- magicalhippo 2y agoClassic MegaTokyo strip[1] for illustration purposes. [1]: https://megatokyo.com/strip/9 https://megatokyo.com/strip/9
- panzagl 2y agot00 l4m3 4 U
- akkad33 2y ago
- brianbest101 2y ago[dead]
- kamma4434 2y agoTo eat the plasma? Hope they are missing an H
- microtherion 2y agoYou have to imagine the press release being read in a French accent.
- moffkalast 2y agoIf you lean your ear to the reactor you can faintly hear a "Om nom nom nom nom"
- MisterTea 2y agoIt's pretty tasty actually though you can only taste it once :-/
- westurner 2y ago> 1337 seconds AFAIU, no existing tokamaks can handle sustained plasma for any significant period of time because they'll burn down. Did this destroy the facility? What duration of sustained fusion plasma can tokamaks like EAST, WEST, and ITER withstand? What will need to change for continuous fusion energy to be net gained from a tokamak or a stellerator fusion reactor?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zitterbewegung 2y agoIf this destroyed the facility that would be the headline this news article.... WEST highest is 22 minutes (it's in the title) and you could google EAST and ITER but the title tells you it is less than 22 minutes. WEST is a testing ground for ITER. The fact that you can have sustained fusion for only 22 minutes is the biggest problem since you need to boil water continuously because all power sources rely on taking cold water and making it warm constantly so that it makes a turbine move.
- westurner 2y agoTo rephrase the question: what is the limit to the duration of sustained inertial confinement fusion plasma in the EAST, WEST, and ITER tokamaks, and why is the limit that amount of time? Don't those materials melt if exposed to temperatures hotter than the sun for sufficient or excessive periods of time? For what sustained plasma duration will EAST, WEST, and ITER need to be redesigned? 1 hour, 24 hours?
- Y_Y 2y agoEAST, WEST, URNER
- westurner 2y ago[LLNL] "US scientists achieve net energy gain for second time in nuclear fusion reaction" (2023-08) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/us-scientists-achieve-net-energy-gain-second-time-fusion-reaction https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/us-scien... But IDK if they've seen recent thing about water 100X'ing proton laser plasma beams from SLAC published this year/month; From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088886 : > "Innovative target design leads to surprising discovery in laser-plasma acceleration" (2025-02) https://phys.org/news/2025-02-discovery-laser-plasma.html https://phys.org/news/2025-02-discovery-laser-plasma.html >> Compared to similar experiments with solid targets, the water sheet reduced the proton beam's divergence by an order of magnitude and increased the beam's efficiency by a factor of 100 "Stable laser-acceleration of high-flux proton beams with plasma collimation" (2025) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56248-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56248-4 Timeline of nuclear fusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion
- RecentlyThawed 2y ago1337 seconds... nice
- llm_nerd 2y agoFor people more aware of the fusion industry, what is it that stopped the plasma at 22 minutes (or lower times in alternate tests)? Did they just stop injecting power to maintain the heat as they achieved their benchmark? Is this something where it's on the precipice and small tweaks bridges from 22 minutes to basically indefinitely?
- willis936 2y agoTokamaks need the central solenoid to have a current ramp, so at some point you run out of voltage. You can turn that way down, but you get less plasma performance. You're traditionally limited by heat rejection capabilities of the vacuum vessel. These are science machines to learn about plasma and increase performance of future machines. A real reactor involves a lot of engineering to handle the heat rejection problem (and turn it into a revenue stream if you're clever). In terms of the pulsed nature: not really a problem if you keep the duty cycle high enough and maintain sufficient buffers in your coolant to keep the turbines happily turning away.
- HPsquared 2y agoDoes that mean it's impossible to have steady-state operation? (And are stellarators different here?)
- sounds 2y agoThe current ramp in the central solenoid is used to set the plasma rotation direction. Theoretically this is more like Alternating Current, since there is not a fundamental reason the central solenoid couldn't ramp back down (and then proceed to ramp up in the opposite polarization). The existing plasma would need to be cooled and removed first, or some similar mechanism of stabilizing the torus again in the opposite direction. I look at it as a large optimization problem at this point. Each part of the machine is workable but not yet sufficiently optimized to achieve profitable operation.
- igiveup 2y agoImpossible with just the basic inductive principle of tokamaks, yes. Some years back I learned that you can keep the current going with microwaves, not sure about recent progress. You can also approximate steady state by reversing polarity of the warp - ehm - magnetic field regularly. Yes, stellarators are different.
- xbmcuser 2y agonice to see the competition between the east and west as this records was broken just a few weeks back https://physicsworld.com/a/chinas-experimental-advanced-superconducting-tokamak-smashes-fusion-confinement-record/ https://physicsworld.com/a/chinas-experimental-advanced-supe...
- rozap 2y agoI had no idea that Commonwealth fusion was already well into their construction of a grid connected plant. Apparently it might finally be happening? I'm not sure how this works, how are they confident enough that they can make it produce net power?
- sebsebmc 2y agoThe location they have that's "well into construction" is SPARC, which is not intended to be a net power production facility. It will host their net gain demonstrator that they intend to have first plasma in next year and target a net gain demonstration in 2027. ARC which they announced siting for and is intended to be their first grid-attached net power provider only just had the location selected so I don't believe its got much construction going on yet. The goal for that plant to be producing power is "early 2030s".
- rozap 2y agoAh, maybe not well into construction. But a friend of mine works with exotic materials and they are purchasing lots of things for ARC. Though I imagine these materials have a long lead time.
- bufferoverflow 2y ago"The company plans to produce its first plasma in 2026" They haven't even gotten to Q>1, let alone building a real power plant.
- legitster 2y agoThis is pretty cool, but it's a good reminder that commercially viable fusion electricity still remains a looooong way off.
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y agoWe don't know what innovation will bring or when. The important thing is trying and the direction of travel.
- pinoy420 2y agoNo it’s pointless doing it because some guy on HN said it’s a long way off and therefore you are not allowed to be excited or enthusiastic about it.
- mrtesthah 2y agoWhat's pointless for anyone who cares about fusion is commenting on it from the peanut gallery (i.e., any form of social media) rather than participating in R&D in any way whatsoever. The same goes for online outrage: https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10095997 https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10095997 This entire site is nothing more than a sales and marketing tool and otherwise exists to waste peoples' time.
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y agoWhat's funny is that AI has been failing to be achieved for much longer than fusion energy yet so many here are convinced we're on the cusp of an AI apocalypse.
- HelloUsername 2y agoRelated? Nuclear fusion: New record set at Chinese reactor EAST https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917662 03-feb-2025 China's artificial sun burns for 1000 secs, creates record in fusion research https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854306 28-jan-2025
- HPsquared 2y agoI wonder how much of an effect this kind of truly international (not in the same 'bloc') competition will have on budgets and speed of progress. Cold war tech race, etc. It should be a good time to be an engineer.
- dkkergoog 2y agoIt's always a good time to be an engineer. These public comps are more recruitment and training. It's not like new discoveries are made during these events. It's partly a party for the industry.
- belter 2y agoStill 50 years away...
- belter 2y agoOk this was a terse comment, but so is a downvote. Please explain why is not 50 years away from first real industrial use. I am waiting.... https://youtu.be/RbZ-XYy0k10 https://youtu.be/RbZ-XYy0k10
- Gud 2y agohttps://news.mit.edu/2024/commonwealth-fusion-systems-unveils-worlds-first-fusion-power-plant-1217 https://news.mit.edu/2024/commonwealth-fusion-systems-unveil... So according to the industry leaders, we will have the first 400MW plant within 10 years.
- typon 2y agoImagine if the world's engineering talent was focused on this rather than making AI to generate slop?
- cdirkx 2y agoAs a secondary effect it kind of is; the general assumption still is that the slop-generating AI will need a lot of power to train, so there is surprisingly a lot more private investment into fusion and fission innovation in recent years.
- phtrivier 2y agoWell, AI also has something else for it : at this point, no one is expecting any ROI soon, but they all imagine that it's going to be huuuuge, so the "expected" (as in, "wished for") ROI might as well be infinite. As soon as AI investors start demanding dividends, then the ROI of investing in AI will be compared to the ROI of investing in electricity production "for production sake". Even if we shut down chatgpt, people who still switch light on. If we only keep enough fusion reactors to run LLM inferences, but no one can afford lights, well...
- krystofee 2y agoMaybe the AI trained by the best engineers will help other people get into physics and then study nuclear fusion.
- mhandley 2y agoThere's a good chance this is not an either/or question, but that AI will get us to viable fusion power much earlier. For example: https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/23/doe_fusion_ai/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/23/doe_fusion_ai/ https://openai.com/index/strengthening-americas-ai-leadership-with-the-us-national-laboratories/ https://openai.com/index/strengthening-americas-ai-leadershi...
- bongodongobob 2y agoWhy would comp sci majors be working on plasma? Prob want physicists working on that stuff.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoI do enjoy sharing this kind of news with all the fusion haters online. Fusion tech is legitimately cracking away on their "perpetually X-years away" stigma. That perpetual barrier can very reasonably be viewed as a normal technology barrier now.
- sightbroke 2y agoAt the risk of coming off as a nay-sayer, let's say engineering hurtles related to fusion power generation is overcome. How is the presumably high upfront capital costs going to compare with the ROI? That is, it would seem likely that fusion power would be costly to build. It would also seem apparent that if it were to fulfil its promise then the power it generates is sold at or less than the current amount. That would then seem to imply a lengthily time to make a return on the initial investment. Or am I missing something else with this equation?
- jl6 2y agoEven if fusion is an expensive power source, it may still be desirable in areas which aren’t well suited to wind or solar.
- ponty_rick 2y agoIf we figure it out, it might end up being cheaper than fission eventually.
- epistasis 2y agoCompared to fission? It's still quite unclear that fusion will provide improvements over fission.
- colechristensen 2y agoPeople won't be afraid of fusion, fusion plants can't be used to make bombs, fusion plants could maybe explode, but they won't poison the nearby land (or the whole planet) for decades-eons.
- dyauspitr 2y agoWEST vs EAST? Did both sides agree on the naming scheme or something?
- hangonhn 2y agoI was wondering about that too. I think it's deliberate and friendly because they're both technology testbeds for ITER. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Advanced_Superconducting_Tokamak#Physics_objectives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Advanced_Supercon...
- VeejayRampay 2y agowell done on the french achieving yet another extraordinary feat of engineering and research while still bearing the stigma of being shit at everything for some reason I hope this international race ends up bearing fruit in a few decades, we need it
- legohead 2y agoHas any fusion reactor produced usable electricity, if only as a proof of concept?
- pbmonster 2y agoNo, none of the dozens of reactors constructed so far have gone through the trouble of building a steam system with a turbine and a generator. Which is understandable, since this is the easy part (not very different than the setup in a fission or coal plant), and there's absolutely no reason to do so until we have seen ignition.
- legohead 2y agoI'd just assume that temperature would be an important factor in the reactor. With the millions of degrees being involved, seems a little more than "not very different" than a fission reactor. But would like to hear how this is supposed to work.
- pbmonster 2y agoThe temperatures are far beyond anything matter can stand, so its very important that the magnetic confinement keeps the plasma from touching anything. But one end product of the fusion process is neutrons. Neutrons are unaffected by the magnetic confinement, they pass right through and hit the jacket of the reactor, where they are absorbed. This heats up the material, which is why you can run cooling water through the jacket which turns into steam. This steam spins a turbine. There's some engineering challenges (neutron bombardment turns steel and concrete brittle, and later radioactive), but in the end its very similar to a normal fission reactor.
- djyaz1200 2y agoI wonder if many of the stars in the sky are from groups that almost nailed containment and stability on their Tokamak.
- drdeca 2y agoSeems implausible. The fusion presumably wouldn’t keep going if it breached the walls. Also, to be bright enough that we would see it from here as a star, I imagine it would require enough material that one might as well just let gravity do the job rather that use a Tokamak? Maybe there are efficiency gains that are large enough that it wouldn’t actually require as much material as a star? I wouldn’t guess so though.
- zamadatix 2y agoThe Sun consumes a mass equivalent of a mount Everest worth of hydrogen via fusion to shine for just an hour (or thereabouts, if I did my math right :)). For perspective, this amount of energy is more than enough to power the Earth's current electrical usage for over a billion years. That's all before getting into how a containment failure doesn't imply "and then everything nearby just started a self sustaining fusion reaction". The confinement itself is a key part of what enables the conditions for the fusion to continue.
- bezmiran 2y agoI am a plasma researcher, though not in the fusion field. Containment and stability are required on tokamaks to keep a plasma burning. Losing either of these will quench the reaction. The best way to control a plasma - magnetic fields, also causes significant instabilities, which is why fusion is so difficult.
- janalsncm 2y ago> This was a 25% improvement on the previous record time achieved with EAST, in China, a few weeks previously I applaud this nuclear arms race. 22 minutes is really impressive for a technology that’s always been “20 years away”. I think I will do a deep dive on the technical challenges of fusion.
- thrance 2y agoNot to downplay it, but it's still only half as hot as would be required of a commercial reactor. Also this reactor had no mechanisms to recover energy or neutrons to breed tritium. Still impressive and encouraging.
- XorNot 2y agoRight but that's what ITER is for. This type of research is to validate control systems which can be transferred to that project (i.e. prove you can do it, then prove its not machine-dependent).
- nixonpjoshua 2y agogood one haha, the properly scary part of the other nuclear arms race is fusion too even!
- api 2y agoThe “20 years away” meme is stupid. There really are technologies that are possible but incredibly hard and require decades of sustained effort. Cracking natural language comprehension with digital computers is an example from our field and it’s here.
- anonzzzies 2y ago>Cracking natural language comprehension with digital computers is an example from our field and it’s here. Exactly, there are experts in the field less than a decade a way who said 50+ years easily. And there we are.
- palata 2y ago
- drdeca 2y agoOne issue I see for applying prediction markets to things like “there is a commercially successful fusion power plant before the year 2070” is the long time until resolution. Now, of course, one can hope to sell your shares in “yes” or “no” 5 years from now, but there may not be enough liquidity? Suppose we had one prediction market M_1 for “On January 1st 2070, resolves ‘yes’ if there has been a commercially successful nuclear fusion power plant, and otherwise resolves ‘no’”, and then another market M_2 that, maybe it resolves in 5 years as ‘yes’ if the price of M_1’s ‘yes’ is greater than 30%? Or… hm, that seems problematic because people could just buy a bunch of M_1’s “yes” right before M_2 resolves? Or maybe that’s a self-correcting problem because people could… no, still seems like a problem.. Well, what if instead of a prediction market about the future value of another prediction market, it was futures contracts for the shares in a prediction market? Like, the right to buy or sell shares in “yes” or “no” at a particular price? So like, if you’re confident that the prediction market will assign probability p or higher on a particular day 5 years from now, then if you bought futures which, on that day each of the futures could be used to sell a share in “no” at the price (1-p), then… well, if the probability assigned to “yes” on that day is indeed p or higher, then the price of “no” would be (1-p) or lower, so one buy a share in “no” at a price less than (1-p) and then sell it at (1-p).. Hm, issue there is one still needs to buy the “no” in order to sell it, so that doesn’t seem to really fix the “what if there is no liquidity in 5 years?” issue? I guess one could spend 1 to create a share of “yes” and a share of “no”, and then sell the “no”, and be left with the share in “yes” which is ostensibly worth at least p, and then like, sell it a bit later when there’s more liquidity or something? I probably don’t know what I’m talking about about this.
- merillecuz56 2y ago[flagged]
- adamredwoods 2y agoGood technical intro to H-mode (high-confinement mode) for fusion reactions to work: https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/science-close-developing-cookbook-efficient-fusion-energy https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/science-close-develo... >> In the H-mode, a calm edge without turbulence reduces how much heat and how many charged particles the plasma loses. This leads to a sharp increase in pressure across the entire volume of the plasma, including the core where the conditions that can lead to fusion occur. The reduced energy and particle losses also minimize damage to the material surfaces surrounding the plasma.
- MobiusHorizons 2y agoWouldn’t that make energy recovery from the plasma much more difficult?
- philipkglass 2y agoNeutrons and photons pass through magnetic fields, so they always escape the plasma and provide heat that can be turned into steam. Keeping the plasma ions better confined doesn't impair energy recovery.
- Olshansky 2y agoI keep track of nuclear related news. An easier (more fun) version of this with some context is here: https://x.com/olshansky/status/1892069988707729614 https://x.com/olshansky/status/1892069988707729614
- blakehawkins 2y ago> x.com I'm not clicking that shit
- fmbb 2y agohttps://twitter.com/olshansky/status/1892069988707729614 https://twitter.com/olshansky/status/1892069988707729614
- holoduke 2y ago[flagged]
- moi2388 2y agoAs somebody from Europe.. it is. The media is extremely biased and left-oriented. As soon as something is slightly more right leaning it immediately gets labelled as extreme-right here.
- fnordsensei 2y agoWildly untrue, European media is very diverse, and where it sits on average from an American point of view varies from country to country. It may turn out to be not right-leaning enough for your personal tastes, but that doesn't mean it isn't from the PoV of that particular country.
- AxelLuktarGott 2y agoAs someone from Europe.. it is not true. There are lots of media outlets with different angles. Certainly lots of Murdoch funded garbage here.
- 2y ago
- cratermoon 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurplDfPi3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurplDfPi3U
- niemandhier 2y agoTriple product (efficiency ) has increased faster than moors law for the last 50 years. Still people make jokes about fusion research, some things just take time. I recommend this excellent review of the even more excellent book „The future of fusion energy“ https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-future-of-fusion https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-future...
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Triple product (efficiency ) has increased faster than moors law for the last 50 years Fusion research progress is underappreciated. But Moore's Law is for an existing industry. Prior to that, it took 10 ^ 6+ improvements in various technologies to make computing possible.
- Retric 2y agoNot sure what you mean by that. There was a bunch of computing technology long before photolithography or even transistors. And mores law was coined in 1965 when individual chips had far less than 10^6 transistors while the first one was made by hand.
- darkhorse222 2y agoIndeed, I often think if I were transported to the past I would use rivers and dams to make logic gates.
- tombert 2y agoSimilarly, I would like to think that if I had been born a hundred years earlier, I would have invented something like MONIAC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Machine
- jjk166 2y agoIf you were transported to the past with the knowledge you currently possess as a result of the work already done, sure. Developing it from scratch is a whole other matter.
- alkonaut 2y agoIf we do the fusion in zero g then we have solved the confinement issue. The problem is creating conditions for fusion in zero g. The simplest way would probably be aggregating enough material to a single spot that gravity itself creates conditions for fusion. But then the power plant becomes too energetic for earth so it has to be at an enormous distance away to be safe. And with that of course you have the problem of transmitting the power back to earth. But I think photons could be gathered at a safe distance from this fusion, to harvest it without having to be so close.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoIf you only have one of them then the photons would only be available on that side of the earth at any given time and the other side wouldn't have power, but two of them would confuse the animals and disrupt everyone's circadian rhythm and then you'd have to deal with the three-body problem. Even the reactor-facing side would also have issues with the photons not getting through when it's cloudy.
- alkonaut 2y agoThe photons will also create heat and that heat can be used for useful work at any time, even when there are no photons hitting that side of the earth. For example it will evaporate water which will later condense into rivers, where you can put turbines. So it's a kind of fusion power, but less direct. Pure science fiction, of course.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThe energy density of gravity-based storage is very low, so it could work in places where you have mountainous terrain and a lot of cheap land, but what do you do after the sites suitable for it are already in use? To make that work you'd need a scalable storage technology with a low enough cost per kWh of capacity to economically scale to multiple TWh of storage in case it's cloudy for an extended period of time. For example, if you could make batteries at a price of $115/kWh, the cost for enough capacity to sustain the US power grid for a week would be around 24 trillion dollars, and that's just for the batteries and not any of the associated electronics or the land or the photon collectors themselves. It seems like to make your plan work you'd need a scalable storage technology with a significantly lower cost per kWh of capacity.
- kragen 2y agoSpecifically they were able to maintain a tokamak plasma (presumably at fusion temperatures) for 1337 seconds, using two megawatts of heating. 1337 is not a joke; presumably the "leet" reading is coincidental.
- Swannie 2y agoI assumed it was their target, and indeed a semi-private joke... but you make the case for coincidental. I prefer to believe it was by design :D
- ReptileMan 2y agoWith China spying around, you probably don't want to reveal the full potential of your technologies before you are sure that you will have permanent lead.
- lanstin 2y agoThat is not how science works best.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoUnfortunately that is how capitalism works; whoever "cracks" nuclear fusion and can productize it will win multi-billion projects.
- buzzm 2y agoAgreed. Multi-multi billion. It is a fundamental change in the global energy dynamic -- including the fact that D-T reactors are still use heat exchange which means heat is also a useful output product for industrial purposes. MSRs are really good for this but of course are fission not fusion reactors. It borders on a national security issue.
- kragen 2y agoThis is a scientific project at a state-funded lab, not a capitalist project.
- a0-prw 2y agoAccording to the linked article this was achieved at 50 million degrees. The Chinese record was achieved at 100 million degrees. I have also read that achieving productive fusion will require temperatures above 100 million degrees. Most of my sources are pop-sci, so correct me if I'm wrong.
- indigoabstract 2y ago1337 seconds is a pretty meaningful result. If you're a programmer, that is. Could mean something else in physics, right?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI can't find any significance for physics, unfortunately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1337_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1337_(disambiguation)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- countrypao 2y agoChallenges persist, notably in developing materials that can endure prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures and neutron radiation within fusion reactors. Addressing these material durability issues is essential for the realization of continuous, commercially viable fusion power.
- andrewstuart 2y agoSounds like its getting close!
- panick21_ 2y agoFusion will not be commercial ever at least not for power generation. Fission has potential for far cheaper fuel cost and can be done with less capital cost. We are spending a crazy amount of money researching fusion while we have only explored like 1% of the potential of fission. If only part of this money was invested in fission we could have a competition for multiple advanced fission reactors.
- beeforpork 2y agoI fail to find this info: how much energy did they get out? How much did they pump in? How long does it have to burn until there's energy in-out equilibrium?
- hx8 2y ago* No energy was 'captured'. * They pumped in "2 MW of heating power". * This expirement wasn't about energy in-out, it was about plasma control. Specifically stopping at 1337 seconds is a way of announcing "and we could have gone longer, but we liked this number"
- ziddoap 2y agoRelated: PBS Space Time just did a neat episode on plasma, focusing on what the requirements are for confinement, called "The Final Barrier to (Nearly) Infinite Energy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAJN1CrJsVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAJN1CrJsVE
- archermarks 2y agoPBS Spacetime is great. Excellent, accessible explanations of advanced topics without feeling dumbed down or overhyped.
- fieldcny 2y agoWhy hasn’t the US announced anything like this?
- tiberius_p 2y agoIt still eludes me how we are going to be able to reproduce the same temperature and pressure as in the core of a star considering the humongous amount of mass (hence energy) required to create those conditions.
- ufo 2y agoBasically, electromagnetic force is much stronger than the sun's gravitational force. (But it's also more difficult to get it to eork just right)
- igiveup 2y agoWhile temperature may be in the stellar ballpark, pressure should be much lower. That is fine because we are not trying to do proton-proton fusion (that one is very slow even in a star) but a much easier deuterium-tritium fusion.
- deepspace 2y agoSo, deuterium needs to be obtained from sea water through distillation and electrolysis - both energy intensive operations. And tritium comes from nuclear reactors. I have always wondered - assuming that the confinement problem is solved, how does the cost of the fuel compare to fission (or other generation methods?
- pfdietz 2y agoThe energy needed to separate deuterium is many orders of magnitude less than the energy liberated by fusion of the deuterium. The fuel cost is small compared to fission, but note that even with fission fuel is a small fraction of the total cost, so this doesn't save much.
- jjk166 2y agoThe energy cost to extract deuterium from seawater is about 1/238000th (0.00004%) the energy released from fusing that deuterium. Nuclear fusion breeds its own tritium from lithium. Running a 1 GW thermal fusion reactor for a year would consume $483,000 of deuterium and $1300 of lithium. At 40% conversion efficiency and 5 cents per kwh, the fusion reactor would produce $175 million of electricity in that same year. For comparison, fuel is about 5% of the cost of electricity from fission, and about 50% the cost from coal.
- cytocync 2y agoThat's impressive, but what's the real-world application? * Fusion's potential is enormous. * Health software, like fusion, needs breakthroughs. * Are we ready for the data deluge? * Can we build it fast enough?
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago1337 seconds. How https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet