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Related? Nuclear fusion: New record set at Chinese reactor EAST https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917662 03-

Related? 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 ago
I 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 ago
  It'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 ago
Still 50 years away...
- belter 2y ago
  Ok 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 ago
    https://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.
    - andriesm 2y ago
      How can they build something commercial/grid-scale when not a single research-level reactor truly generates net energy out, and none can do it anywhere near continously enough to be of any practical use? This news is either based on misleading the public, or I am about to be updated with where Fusion is?
      - cladopa 2y ago
        Because they are more or less certain (because of their magnets) they will get the necessary temperatures for ignition, giving more energy that it consumes. If they get ignitions, all the other problems will be solved very fast, because there will be an enormous rush from investors wanting to invest billions.
        nradov 2y ago
        I hope they succeed, but throwing more money at problems like this doesn't necessarily accelerate progress. There is still basic research needed. Building large, high-precision devices can't be rushed.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > throwing more money at problems like this doesn't necessarily accelerate progress "Necessarily" being your Zeno's Arrow. Necessary to what threshold? I can literally argue against anything to an arbitrary level of necessity. (Breathing doesn't necessarily ensure living.)
        Gud 2y ago
        Also, is living really necessary?
        Gud 2y ago
        They are doing the “basic research” and are actually world leading nuclear fusion engineers… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJvdWdoIGluIG51Y2xlYXIgZnVzaW9uIGRlbm5pcyB3aHl0ZQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJ...
  - garyrob 2y ago
    "I am waiting..." was unnecessary.
    - belter 2y ago
      True...But I am still waiting for the scientific and technical arguments to prove me wrong.
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years. Besides, the point is "we won't really know a good estimate for when until it's already about to hit us in the face" not "we should just assume 50 years is a more correct guess than other ones". As for the comments about votes, they aren't a measure of terseness either. The point is to bubble comments likely to result in curious and thoughtful conversation to the top while comments which will distract from that kind of conversation (combative, vague, distractly offtopic, or whatever else the reason may be) tend to get hidden away. Whether a comment is totally on the money or absolutely incorrect, how you present the conversation starter has a far bigger drive on what types follow-on conversation will appear. Here, that also strongly implies what types of votes will appear too.
    - ashoeafoot 2y ago
      And how about a honest discussion about whether 30 years away for fusion research may boil down to never ? We are in a contraction already,people voting for decomplexification of society because that is just a natural felt trade off- feed my family now with less tax and forget about leechers promising free energy since almost a 100 years.Its not reasonable , its not historically backed up (science saved the day multiple times ) but this window of research opportunities is closing rapidly and its time to find alternatives to finance such endeavours besides state and oligarchy conglomerate investment scams.
      - zamadatix 2y ago
        Sustained fusion is already a thing in the universe but while we can't undiscover what powers the sun we could certainly give up replicating it on Earth if we'd like. That would be less an estimate of how long it'd take and more a measure of what we want to invest our limited resources in though. I think everyone would agree we should find ways of investing that aren't scams. The hard part is who agrees on what is a scam. I don't mind more purely private investment myself though, which has seemed to be a trend in recent years.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      > As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years. When a prediction is at a timescale where the person making the prediction will be retired by the time the prediction applies, you can safely ignore the prediction. That person has no reputational skin in the game.
- dark-star 2y ago
  our physics teacher at school (late 90s) already joked that "usable fusion power is only 30 years away, for 30 years in a row now"
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    A relative of mine told me that in 1960s they were saying fusion was only 10 years away
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      From people hearing about fission bombs (1945) to full scale commercial fission power plant (1957) was barely more than 10 years so fusion power plants must have already felt late in the mid 60s!
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      It was an era of optimism, I see.
adfm 2y ago
From the announcement, "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 Tokamak facilities, was able to maintain a plasma for on 12 February. This was a 25% improvement on the previous record time achieved with EAST, in China, a few weeks previously." 1,337-second burn.
- theultdev 2y ago
  how many more seconds did they push it to hit 133t xD
  - adfm 2y ago
    Considering it's fusion we're talking about, 1,337 seconds is about as arbitrary as 1,000 seconds. On a 24-hour clock, 13:37 is 1:37pm. 137 is the fine-structure constant or α. Who knows what they're actually capable of. A second more at this point would be pointless.
- ThePhysicist 2y ago
  Lots of leet scientists there, in all seriousness. CEA is my alma mater, though I worked on quantum computing, not fusion.

HPsquared 2y ago

I 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 ago
It'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 ago

Still 50 years away...

belter 2y ago
Ok 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 ago
  https://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.
  - andriesm 2y ago
    How can they build something commercial/grid-scale when not a single research-level reactor truly generates net energy out, and none can do it anywhere near continously enough to be of any practical use? This news is either based on misleading the public, or I am about to be updated with where Fusion is?
    - cladopa 2y ago
      Because they are more or less certain (because of their magnets) they will get the necessary temperatures for ignition, giving more energy that it consumes. If they get ignitions, all the other problems will be solved very fast, because there will be an enormous rush from investors wanting to invest billions.
      - nradov 2y ago
        I hope they succeed, but throwing more money at problems like this doesn't necessarily accelerate progress. There is still basic research needed. Building large, high-precision devices can't be rushed.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > throwing more money at problems like this doesn't necessarily accelerate progress "Necessarily" being your Zeno's Arrow. Necessary to what threshold? I can literally argue against anything to an arbitrary level of necessity. (Breathing doesn't necessarily ensure living.)
        Gud 2y ago
        Also, is living really necessary?
        Gud 2y ago
        They are doing the “basic research” and are actually world leading nuclear fusion engineers… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJvdWdoIGluIG51Y2xlYXIgZnVzaW9uIGRlbm5pcyB3aHl0ZQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJ...
- garyrob 2y ago
  "I am waiting..." was unnecessary.
  - belter 2y ago
    True...But I am still waiting for the scientific and technical arguments to prove me wrong.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years. Besides, the point is "we won't really know a good estimate for when until it's already about to hit us in the face" not "we should just assume 50 years is a more correct guess than other ones". As for the comments about votes, they aren't a measure of terseness either. The point is to bubble comments likely to result in curious and thoughtful conversation to the top while comments which will distract from that kind of conversation (combative, vague, distractly offtopic, or whatever else the reason may be) tend to get hidden away. Whether a comment is totally on the money or absolutely incorrect, how you present the conversation starter has a far bigger drive on what types follow-on conversation will appear. Here, that also strongly implies what types of votes will appear too.
  - ashoeafoot 2y ago
    And how about a honest discussion about whether 30 years away for fusion research may boil down to never ? We are in a contraction already,people voting for decomplexification of society because that is just a natural felt trade off- feed my family now with less tax and forget about leechers promising free energy since almost a 100 years.Its not reasonable , its not historically backed up (science saved the day multiple times ) but this window of research opportunities is closing rapidly and its time to find alternatives to finance such endeavours besides state and oligarchy conglomerate investment scams.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Sustained fusion is already a thing in the universe but while we can't undiscover what powers the sun we could certainly give up replicating it on Earth if we'd like. That would be less an estimate of how long it'd take and more a measure of what we want to invest our limited resources in though. I think everyone would agree we should find ways of investing that aren't scams. The hard part is who agrees on what is a scam. I don't mind more purely private investment myself though, which has seemed to be a trend in recent years.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    > As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years. When a prediction is at a timescale where the person making the prediction will be retired by the time the prediction applies, you can safely ignore the prediction. That person has no reputational skin in the game.
dark-star 2y ago
our physics teacher at school (late 90s) already joked that "usable fusion power is only 30 years away, for 30 years in a row now"
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  A relative of mine told me that in 1960s they were saying fusion was only 10 years away
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    From people hearing about fission bombs (1945) to full scale commercial fission power plant (1957) was barely more than 10 years so fusion power plants must have already felt late in the mid 60s!
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    It was an era of optimism, I see.

adfm 2y ago

From the announcement, "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 Tokamak facilities, was able to maintain a plasma for on 12 February. This was a 25% improvement on the previous record time achieved with EAST, in China, a few weeks previously." 1,337-second burn.

theultdev 2y ago
how many more seconds did they push it to hit 133t xD
- adfm 2y ago
  Considering it's fusion we're talking about, 1,337 seconds is about as arbitrary as 1,000 seconds. On a 24-hour clock, 13:37 is 1:37pm. 137 is the fine-structure constant or α. Who knows what they're actually capable of. A second more at this point would be pointless.
ThePhysicist 2y ago
Lots of leet scientists there, in all seriousness. CEA is my alma mater, though I worked on quantum computing, not fusion.