Fusion - breakthrough or another false dawn
Discussion
Good that they got more energy out than they put in - but the energy in was very "useful" electricity, and what they got out was less useful heat.
AFAIK the only practical way to use that heat commercially would be to boil water (directly or indirectly) to spin a turbine to turn a generator set to make electricity. Conventional power stations are at best 60% efficient so I'm guessing you'll need at least 60% more energy out as heat than you put in as electricity to power the lasers.
AFAIK the only practical way to use that heat commercially would be to boil water (directly or indirectly) to spin a turbine to turn a generator set to make electricity. Conventional power stations are at best 60% efficient so I'm guessing you'll need at least 60% more energy out as heat than you put in as electricity to power the lasers.
Nimby said:
Good that they got more energy out than they put in - but the energy in was very "useful" electricity, and what they got out was less useful heat.
AFAIK the only practical way to use that heat commercially would be to boil water (directly or indirectly) to spin a turbine to turn a generator set to make electricity. Conventional power stations are at best 60% efficient so I'm guessing you'll need at least 60% more energy out as heat than you put in as electricity to power the lasers.
They're not even measuring the energy of the electricity they used. If they were, they're at something like 1%, not unity. This is not a criticism of the experiment at all. But the reporting is consistently leading people to think they are above unity for all of the input energy versus the energy released, and they are absolutely nowhere near that and they weren't trying to achieve that either.AFAIK the only practical way to use that heat commercially would be to boil water (directly or indirectly) to spin a turbine to turn a generator set to make electricity. Conventional power stations are at best 60% efficient so I'm guessing you'll need at least 60% more energy out as heat than you put in as electricity to power the lasers.
Wayoftheflower said:
Cool stuff but it's interesting to speculate who is actually going to make use of fusion reactors in the end.
I think fusion has missed the boat for general power generation as storage, interconnection and renewables are scaleable and currently on an impressively steep curve in production cost. Of course this is based on the assumption (makes an ass of u and me) that some technological breakthrough doesn't enable rapid industrialisation and production of fusion reactors. Such a breakthrough is of course impossible to forecast.
The obvious user of high cost high density independant power is the military. I could well imagine the USN has pencilled in fusion powered carriers and subs for ~2050 to meet the needs of fully electric boats with all the fancy directed energy and magnetic driven toys in the grim dimness of the near future.
Speculatively fusion power could compete with fission reactors by being truly able to be shut down (quiet state) while having huge maximum capacity. There's also potentially far greater public appetite for "clean" driven fusion boats (and especially anything autonomous) when compared to fission.
And it follows that if the military want it, then funding will never dry up.
Although it's far nicer to imagine fusion powering people out to Europa one day.
Sufficient renewables is not a bad thing, in an ideal world we wouldn't be adding energy to Earth's atmosphere/oceans.I think fusion has missed the boat for general power generation as storage, interconnection and renewables are scaleable and currently on an impressively steep curve in production cost. Of course this is based on the assumption (makes an ass of u and me) that some technological breakthrough doesn't enable rapid industrialisation and production of fusion reactors. Such a breakthrough is of course impossible to forecast.
The obvious user of high cost high density independant power is the military. I could well imagine the USN has pencilled in fusion powered carriers and subs for ~2050 to meet the needs of fully electric boats with all the fancy directed energy and magnetic driven toys in the grim dimness of the near future.
Speculatively fusion power could compete with fission reactors by being truly able to be shut down (quiet state) while having huge maximum capacity. There's also potentially far greater public appetite for "clean" driven fusion boats (and especially anything autonomous) when compared to fission.
And it follows that if the military want it, then funding will never dry up.
Although it's far nicer to imagine fusion powering people out to Europa one day.
As we should all be well aware, currently renewables are not dependable enough.
Also they're usually not very portable.
For large transport, aircraft and spacecraft, if we can make something small and powerful enough, then that would be a significant improvement.
Unlike fission, if fusion reactor using the most common strategies (magnetic confinement) it should be more efficient in a smaller package. Assuming it can be made to work at this scale.
annodomini2 said:
Sufficient renewables is not a bad thing, in an ideal world we wouldn't be adding energy to Earth's atmosphere/oceans.
As we should all be well aware, currently renewables are not dependable enough.
Also they're usually not very portable.
For large transport, aircraft and spacecraft, if we can make something small and powerful enough, then that would be a significant improvement.
Unlike fission, if fusion reactor using the most common strategies (magnetic confinement) it should be more efficient in a smaller package. Assuming it can be made to work at this scale.
None of the publicly funded fusion research programmes hold out much hope for compact or portable power; ITER etc will result in power stations similar in size to current fission plants.As we should all be well aware, currently renewables are not dependable enough.
Also they're usually not very portable.
For large transport, aircraft and spacecraft, if we can make something small and powerful enough, then that would be a significant improvement.
Unlike fission, if fusion reactor using the most common strategies (magnetic confinement) it should be more efficient in a smaller package. Assuming it can be made to work at this scale.
Good thread by Scott Manley giving some context to the announcement.
https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/16027024812045762...
https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/16027024812045762...
annodomini2 said:
Sufficient renewables is not a bad thing, in an ideal world we wouldn't be adding energy to Earth's atmosphere/oceans.
I had a uni professor decades ago who was worried about excessive thermal load from civilisation.But as the solar radiation hitting the earth is roughly 3x10^7 greater than our current energy production I think we can kick that can a little ways down the road.
Wayoftheflower said:
Good Timing for this video from the Real Engineering channel.
https://youtu.be/BzK0ydOF0oU
Will be fascinting to see what the Helion design does.
Helion video is out, very interesting and completely different approach to fusion power generation.https://youtu.be/BzK0ydOF0oU
Will be fascinting to see what the Helion design does.
https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
Very interesting interview done by Lex Fridman with Dr Whyte who's a nuclear scientist at MIT and they talk at length about Fusion. As someone who doesn't know much about how it all works, he put it in a simple way to understand and I found it a fascinating listen 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJoRMFWn2Jk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJoRMFWn2Jk
Wayoftheflower said:
Wayoftheflower said:
Good Timing for this video from the Real Engineering channel.
https://youtu.be/BzK0ydOF0oU
Will be fascinting to see what the Helion design does.
Helion video is out, very interesting and completely different approach to fusion power generation.https://youtu.be/BzK0ydOF0oU
Will be fascinting to see what the Helion design does.
https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
https://archive.ph/5G6ty
I could think of easier ways of spaffing money up the wall than dumping quarter of a billion on a fusion start-up. Did I miss the 1/4/23 press release telling of stable net output from JET?Mr Whippy said:
"AI" processing will require bucket loads of power...
Where I work there are AI-tasked 6U rack servers that consume 12kW per server. You can't put many of them in a rack because of the power and cooling demands. Power-dense doesn't fully cover it. They have thermals akin to a nuclear reactor.It genuinely won't be long before they start compounding them (using the heat output to generate power that is fed back into the system).
Mr Whippy said:
It's a good hedge really.
"AI" processing will require bucket loads of power...
If AI takes off and fusion takes off, they'll have pretty much a free to provide product they can charge a fortune for. The ROI will be massive.
"If" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, for fusion at any rate. Quarter of a billion on SMRs might actually get a return."AI" processing will require bucket loads of power...
If AI takes off and fusion takes off, they'll have pretty much a free to provide product they can charge a fortune for. The ROI will be massive.
hidetheelephants said:
Mr Whippy said:
It's a good hedge really.
"AI" processing will require bucket loads of power...
If AI takes off and fusion takes off, they'll have pretty much a free to provide product they can charge a fortune for. The ROI will be massive.
"If" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, for fusion at any rate. Quarter of a billion on SMRs might actually get a return."AI" processing will require bucket loads of power...
If AI takes off and fusion takes off, they'll have pretty much a free to provide product they can charge a fortune for. The ROI will be massive.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/12/us/fusion-energ...
2 megajoules in, 3.15 megajoules out. Ran for 20 billionths of a second.
It works. It’s a start.
2 megajoules in, 3.15 megajoules out. Ran for 20 billionths of a second.
It works. It’s a start.
BlackWidow13 said:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/12/us/fusion-energ...
2 megajoules in, 3.15 megajoules out. Ran for 20 billionths of a second.
It works. It’s a start.
Q-Fusion, not Q-Total.2 megajoules in, 3.15 megajoules out. Ran for 20 billionths of a second.
It works. It’s a start.
Given most of NIFs losses are in the lasers it's easier for them to adjust for Q-Fusion.
JET is still the highest with a Q-Total of 0.67. NIF Q total from that shot is 0.0077
https://youtu.be/JurplDfPi3U
Pessimistic video on how claims of net energy gains should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Pessimistic video on how claims of net energy gains should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff