Fusion Ignition

[Le duke]

Kind of amazing there isn’t a thread about this.
 
This is flight, the atomic bomb, the moon landing and the internet combined. Potentially the most important scientific achievement, ever.


 https://youtu.be/njPoLi7j-gU

 
 
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[Mike Parrish]

2 minutes ago, Le duke said:

Kind of amazing there isn’t a thread about this.
 
This is flight, the atomic bomb, the moon landing and the internet combined. Potentially the most important scientific achievement, ever.
 

 
 
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20 years, at least, to commercialization is the tough part.

[Le duke]

20 years, at least, to commercialization is the tough part.

Correct.

Get a partner like BP or Exxon involved and the timeline could shorten. What would be better for them than an infinite supply of energy they don’t have to drill for? They don’t have to buy/lease land, deal with spills, and go from villain to hero.


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[Mike Parrish]

Just now, Le duke said:

Correct.

Get a partner like BP or Exxon involved and the timeline could shorten. What would be better for them than an infinite supply of energy they don’t have to drill for? They don’t have to buy/lease land, deal with spills, and go from villain to hero.


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My man.

Exxon and BP don't want fusion.

They need scarcity and capex heavy extraction as barriers to entry for their business models to work.

[Le duke]

My man.
Exxon and BP don't want fusion.
They need scarcity and capex heavy extraction as barriers to entry for their business models to work.

They’ll either get on board or go extinct.

Adapt or die.


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[Mike Parrish]

Just now, Le duke said:

They’ll either get on board or go extinct.

Adapt or die.


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20 years is a LOT of quarterly reports and bonuses.

[Le duke]

20 years is a LOT of quarterly reports and bonuses.

True.

I think the biggest threat to this is Congress, though. There’s going to be a LOT of people who are going to be getting paid to try to stop this. Any mention of “green energy” results in a apoplectic fit.


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[Mike Parrish]

1 minute ago, Le duke said:

True.

I think the biggest threat to this is Congress, though. There’s going to be a LOT of people who are going to be getting paid to try to stop this. Any mention of “green energy” results in a apoplectic fit.


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I think the best fit for an early adopter will be a state level entity like California.

A state utility charging a flat rate monthly connection fee to cover maintenance.

[Ban Basketball]

I know that I could Google it,  but I already did and didn't get a suffice answer, nor have I ever taken a physics class. 

I know that fission is what we use now,  with the big drawback being waste.  With fusion,  I've always understood that it will apparently be clean,  but the big drawback is that the chain reaction cannot be controlled. I think I assumed we already knew how to fuse the atoms, being "how to control" the reaction was all that I heard as the drawback.  Obviously,  we had yet to figure out how to fuse. 

I haven't read A THING about how they plan to control it,  if my memory serves me right regarding this drawback.  So,  did I hear the "control" part wrong,  or will that still be a concern?

[Ban Basketball]

This assumes that the reaction can be controlled,  but, on another note,  it ought to be something to watch our energy companies,  always looking out for us, mind you,  cook up their propaganda machines to tell us why we mustn't use this form of energy. 

Just as how wind and solar energy are devils in a woodpile.  

[mspart]

We've been here before.

mspart

[mspart]

My dad was in his thermodynamics class in college when nuclear energy was first happening.   His teacher was distraught because that would mean steam would not long be in the equation.   Well, he found out the heat from the fission reaction heated up the water and made steam and he was vindicated.  

Will fusion take the same path?  Still use water to drive a turbine?   Fusing two Hydrogen atoms together releases a heck of a lot of energy in the form of heat.   It is carbon neutral but produces Helium.   Will that be a new contaminate that we will have to mitigate?  How to control the amount of heat produced will be the real turning point.   In order to start off a fusion reaction, you have to introduce a lot of energy (hence the use of lasers), but once it gets going, how do you control it.   Feed in a few hydrogen atoms at a time?  They are pretty small and tough to meter out just so.  

I think this is a great advancement for us, but will it replace the energy source for trains, ships, and trucks?  Certainly it can replace the sources of energy we use to make electricity, but electricity is not that efficient or effective for transportation of a truck or train.  Unless we run electric in all the roads so we have endless driving, similar to trolleys and electric buses with the electric lines overhead.  If we have Mr. Fusion, then that might just work.

mspart

[Mike Parrish]

The two biggest engineering problems for fusion that I'm aware of are:
* controlling the extreme magnetic fields necessary to keep the plasma away from the physical walls of the reactor
* material science issues with the plasma eating away at the containment structure

[mspart]

Someone wrote somewhere that there is no containment issues.   Yeah right.   Radioactivity won't leak out but temperatures of the sun will.  

mspart

[Mike Parrish]

2 minutes ago, mspart said:

Someone wrote somewhere that there is no containment issues.   Yeah right.   Radioactivity won't leak out but temperatures of the sun will.  

mspart

Well, the temperature is 150 million degrees Celsius inside a tokamak reactor, so ....

In a fission reactor, the fuel itself is radioactive, as are the byproducts.

In a fusion reactor, nothing is radioactive.
It's just really hot.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Mike Parrish

[mspart]

Melts dirt!!

mspart