Merged How Close is power from Nuclear Fusion

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Did you notice the date on that? That's the event we just discussed. See Shemp's post above.

Obviously I did not. My bad.

Wrong year. It showed up in my newsfeed today from a site I could not access so I just searched for the original paper.

Still waiting then. :sad:

 

[dudalb]

Once bitten, twice shy.
I will remain very skeptical about any practical fusion until the first plant opens, given all the dissapointments we have had in the past.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Wrong year. It showed up in my newsfeed today from a site I could not access so I just searched for the original paper.

Yeah. It came back in the news because other scientists have "confirmed" the result. I put confirmed in scare quotes because the group that confirmed it uses the same misleading terminology as the original claim.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Yeah. It came back in the news because other scientists have "confirmed" the result. I put confirmed in scare quotes because the group that confirmed it uses the same misleading terminology as the original claim.

You'll love this one then:

Ignition confirmed in a nuclear fusion experiment for the first time Dated 11 August 2022

A 2021 experiment achieved the landmark milestone of nuclear fusion ignition, which data analysis has now confirmed – but attempts to recreate it over the last year haven’t been able to reach ignition again

(Highlighting mine.)

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Right. That's the confirmation I just referred to. I mentioned the highlighted part in post 26.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I persist. After all I have been waiting since sometime just before before 1960.

Nuclear fusion power inches closer to reality

Scientists say, yet again, that nuclear fusion is a few years away. Are they right this time?

No new technical progress but more funding will (may) be available.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Scientists say, yet again, that nuclear fusion is a few years away. Are they right this time?

But they base that on this:

Scientists are mere years from getting more energy out of fusion reactions than the energy required to create them, they said.

But that is based an entirely misleading definition of what "energy required to create" them means. The definitions are so wrong they might as well just say we've achieved fusion already.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

But they base that on this:



But that is based an entirely misleading definition of what "energy required to create" them means. The definitions are so wrong they might as well just say we've achieved fusion already.

I can almost visualize the engineering issues in getting any useful energy out of any of the machines proposed. But not quite.

I'm still getting over my disappointment that Fleischmann and Pons were such terrible scientists.

 

[Puppycow]

I see very little in that article that makes me think practical fusion power will be a reality by the end of the 2030s.

But I hope I'm wrong about that.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Some people have more faith than I do.

Why Private Billions Are Flowing Into Fusion

From Bloomberg

Jul 14, 2022 As the world searches for a way to avoid climate catastrophe, dozens of fusion startups are putting billions of dollars into the risky quest for unlimited clean power.

You could invest here (they are really close): https://www.helionenergy.com/

And they have already raised $2.2B!! Helion secures $2.2B to commercialize fusion energy

 

[arthwollipot]

I think there's reason to be cautiously optimistic.

But it turns out that fusion is actually really hard when you're not a miasma of incandescent plasma. We'll get there in many, many tiny steps, each of which will be a "breakthrough".

 

[The Great Zaganza]

the fundamental question is: do we want another source of energy that is extremely investment intensive, requires long construction time and long amortization?
Something that requires long transmission lines?

A useful Fusion power plant would require at least three reactors, one always up, one on maintenance, one on backup.

And any investor might be wary of committing billions to a prototype, when the expectation is that the technology will mature into something much better and cheaper in the next few decades.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

the fundamental question is: do we want another source of energy that is extremely investment intensive, requires long construction time and long amortization?
Something that requires long transmission lines?

Something that doesn't run on leftover dinosaur farts?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

the fundamental question is: do we want another source of energy that is extremely investment intensive, requires long construction time and long amortization?
Something that requires long transmission lines?

A useful Fusion power plant would require at least three reactors, one always up, one on maintenance, one on backup.

How do you know any of that will be the case?

And any investor might be wary of committing billions to a prototype, when the expectation is that the technology will mature into something much better and cheaper in the next few decades.

Hasn't this been true of practically every new technology?

BTW the energy market is literally trillions of dollars.

 

[ahhell]

10 to 20 years, come back in 5 years and I'll update based on more current info to 10 to 20 years.

 

[arthwollipot]

10 to 20 years, come back in 5 years and I'll update based on more current info to 10 to 20 years.

But this is what they've been saying. Fusion has moved out of that category now. Apparently the goal is now a finite time away. We don't know how long, but if you come back in 5 years it will actually be 5 years closer.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

But this is what they've been saying. Fusion has moved out of that category now. Apparently the goal is now a finite time away. We don't know how long, but if you come back in 5 years it will actually be 5 years closer.

What does this mean? This would seem to only make sense if up until now all the researchers thought they were working on the impossible.

 

[arthwollipot]

What does this mean? This would seem to only make sense if up until now all the researchers thought they were working on the impossible.

The old joke about practical nuclear fusion is that it is 40 years away, and always will be.

What I'm saying is that it will no longer always be 40 years away. However far away it is now, let's say 40 years just for the sake of argument, in five years it will be 35 years away.

That's what I'm hearing, anyway. I don't have any particular special sources of knowledge in the field.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

So just Bullwinkle's hat trick.

 

[Delvo]

The joke is dumb anyway. If you're going to wisecrack about people saying X all the time, then your X is supposed to be something that somebody somewhere actually says. Otherwise, the only time that anybody will ever encounter your X is in your lame excuse for a fake wisecrack about it supposedly being said by somebody else who isn't saying it.