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Calling what the 19 year old Taylor Wilson built at age 14 a "fusion plant" is somewhat misleading. For me, a "fusion plant" is a device that generates power. H
by maho 13y ago
Calling what the 19 year old Taylor Wilson built at age 14 a "fusion plant" is somewhat misleading. For me, a "fusion plant" is a device that generates power. His machine, a Farnsworth fusor, should more appropriately be called a "reactor", because it can only sustain a fusion reaction, but it cannot generate power. Building Farnsworth fusors is not too hard, given access to the right tools.
Building fusion reactors that can be used as power plants, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. The design is a lot more complex, because plasmas don't scale well and tend to get unstable as they get bigger.
For comparison:
A Farnsworth fusor can be built for around 1000 Euros, but it's Q-value (=output_power/input_power) is so low that I have trouble even estimating it. Based on a quote of "multiple hundreds of thousands of neutrons per seconds" for describing a "dangerous design", the fusion power is somewhere between a nanowatt and a microwatt, which makes the Q-value something like 10^-10.
For more complex fusion reactor designs based on magnetic confinement, the best Q-value that has been achieved so far was a value of 0.7 at the JET facility in the UK, 1997. A new reactor is currently being built in southern France. It is called "ITER", and it is hoped that it can reach a Q-value of around 10. This is the type of Q-value that you need for a fusion power plant. ITER is projected to cost around 16 billion euros.
- arethuza 13y agoEven ITER won't actually generate usable electrical power - the heat generated by the reactor will simply be used to warm up water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER#Cooling_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER#Cooling_systems Actual power generation will have to wait until the follow up DEMO project, which should actually have fusion powered electrical power generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO
- kaybe 13y agoOne of the reasons why the timeline is so long is that a reactor will have to be connected to a system that can exchange the tritium (and deuterium). Now, since both are hydrogen isotopes they can diffuse like crazy. Leaks of tritium are bad because it is radioactive (alpha radiation, which is not so bad unless incorporated, but it's a gas, so yeah). Also, some processing like isotope sorting will have to be in the circle. Right now, all these new technologies are being developed, which takes a lot of work, money, time and PhD students.
- st0neage 13y agoThank you. In the video they make it sound like he invented it.
- logicallee 13y agoImagine taking the title at face value (teen builds fusion reactor), then listening to the hilarious intro: "Most of us are unable to build our very own fusion reactor, at least in our teenage years - who has the space? You're about to meet Taylor Wilson, who has already achieved that milestone, and is looking at a better-than-average future in the world of science." Tough crowd!
- basyt 13y agoI think there is a lot of sensationalization, because teens aren't really expected to do much while they are teens and you do something like this - then catch words like wizkid and wonder boy or whatever get thrown around - "he certainly has shown the stupid scientists spending billions of dollars building a fusion reactor!" fact of the matter is - today there is just so much information available on the net that you can pretty much build a 3d-printer or a cat scanner or whatever else you fancy at your home. the bar for being a genius has significantly lowered since the 90s.
- bpicolo 13y agoIf you watched the video, it's pretty clear that the kid is actually a genius. He's done a heck of a lot since what he did at 14.
- rthomas6 13y agoMinor nitpick, but I don't like this characterization of genius. He has not accomplished a lot through just being a genius; he accomplished a lot through discipline and extreme effort. Genius probably made it all easier, but I feel that ascribing one's accomplishments to one's intelligence ignores the hours upon hours of hard work that goes into them.
- blisterpeanuts 13y agoStill... He was only 14. I'm impressed.
- jortsguy 13y ago... he was 14.
- nawitus 13y agoA 14-year-old who didn't build a fusion plant.
- snarfy 13y agoI expect no less than misleading from the mainstream media.