48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone
Hotter than the surface of the sun by a factor of ~18000.
Hotter than the suns core by a factor of ~7.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/#hds-sidebar-nav-1
People talk about Icarus flying too close to the sun. Motherfuckers are recreating it in labs š
In case the reference is lost, thereās a famous Muslim proverb: if the mountain wonāt come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. A flipped version of this proverb has somehow also become commonly known, perhaps surpassing the correct version (in my culture at least): if Muhammad wonāt go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to Muhammad.
People talk about Icarus flying too close to the sun. Motherfuckers are recreating it in labs
This!
Thatās definitely some next-gen level magic being scienced/engineered.
I just want to know what kind of thermometer they put into the plasma to measure the temperature. It must have been made of ice or something to not burn up.
Isā¦ is that good?
Edit: it is!
From what absolutely little I know, yes. Sustaining the reaction at such high temps for long is, as of now, difficult.
Yeah, I decided to actually bother and read the article. Thatās why I made my edit. This sounds like a very important technical milestone for the development of fusion reactors. Hooray!
when talking about fusion, just think the conditions of stars/the sun. In order to function correctly, it has to be ridiculously hot.
The race for fusion is how to maintain it, and eventually have a net positive transaction of energy out, to energy in ratio.
just think the conditions of stars/the sun
Hotter than the sun. The sun has an enormous gravity pushing things along. To compensate we use more heat.
I thought we used magnetrons and such, and the excessive heat was due to current inefficiency and control of the fusion process in containing the heat and it building up higher and higher.
Stupid guy here, being ridiculously hot is the whole point right? Isnāt a fusion reactor just an extremely complex steam engine?
The difficult bit is to keep the fuel fusing. At the temperatures and pressures that are needed to get atoms to fuse together the whole lot wants to blow itself apart. Being able to reliability sustain the reaction for any length of time is a big achievement.
Once we can get it to keep going, then yes, we can use the excess heat for power, although itāll probably involve turbines rather than an old school steam engine type setup.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
The fusion of light elements up to a certain nucleus size releases energy. However, fusion only occurs at very high temperatures and pressures. The goal is to 1) create the conditions for nuclear fusion (which they did), 2) have the fusion reaction produce energy that sustains those conditions (they did for 48 seconds), and ideally a tiny bit more, 3) gather residual energy that isnāt critical to the reaction itself, which is the part that looks like a steam engine.
presuming you mean a fusion electricity power plants - maybe. Thatās one option.
at those temps, thermoelectric could be interesting.
Sorry im not any sort of scientist here but i thought energy could not be created or destroyed so to get a net-positive energy out we would need to keep feeding in fuel, is this correct?
And if so, how?
energy is not created nor destroyed, however something can change forms, which gives off energy.
how stars work in fusion is that their high pressure and high temperatures allow for the fusion of particles. hydrogren (1 protonl fuses with another to produce helium (2 protons). in a stars life, that cycle continues. elements fuse till it hits iron (the end point of fusion). which then a stars life.is considered dead and eventually black hole stuff starts to happen due to density of star.
the power is actually not āinfiniteā its limited by the fuel supply available (hydrogren), but the net energy in to energy out is positive if the fuel source exists.
Iād love to see an operating fusion reactor in my lifetime. Real sci-fi technology
Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet using my hand terminal. It can also understand what I am saying and excecute my spoken commands (to some extent at least). Thatās some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended
Itās seriously insane growing up on star trek and then seeing it come to life.
Still holding out for flying cars.
And warp drive!
I donāt want flying cars because I donāt want 95% of the people around me to be driving regular cars. Canāt even use a turn signal and now they have carte blanche to drive over houses and shit?
The answer is mass transit. Mag-rail, not personal aviation.
I think VR + generative AI is a clear pathway to Star Trekās holodecks. Imagine being able to just say āI want to play a game Iāve never played before, in an Amazonian rainforestā, and then the AI renders the game and environment for you in VR. Weāre genuinely very close to that reality.
I had this thought recently watching a video about the Apple Vision Pro. If I saw some corpo in Cyberpjnk 2077 using that exact device, I wouldnāt bat an eyelash.
Do I want one? No. Is it from the future? Yes.
Probably going to happen. Proxima Fusion is eyeing early 2030s for a commercial prototype and those arenāt venture capital techbros, itās a Max Planck institute spin-out. About as hard science as you can get. Wendelstein 7X has shown that the approach works, the thing exceeded all expectations (that is: It behaves exactly as computer models said it would) and scales up without nasty surprises (much unlike tokamaks) so theyāre done with the tech fundamentals now itās about engineering something cost competitive, think requirements such as replacement parts the reactor will regularly need not exceeding electricity market prices.
I am quite positive Iāll see reliable, sustained fusion reactions in my lifetime.
Iām also pretty positive itāll be useless as an energy source. Still could be useful for other things though.
Iām also pretty positive itāll be useless as an energy source.
Why? Honestly curious.
I donāt think weāll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.
Why? Converting heat into electricity is the easy part, it requires no new tech
Thatās not the stumbling block for fusion. Getting significantly more energy out than we put in is the issue. Other technologies did this better, and those other technologies are advancing more quickly as well.
Thatās not to say itās not worth trying since nothing ventured nothing gained. There are other technological advancements that will likely come from our progressions in fusion too which will be great. I just donāt see fusion as being a good way to generate energy.
48 seconds at those temperatures is no joke, that is pretty amazing. I didnāt see the article elaborate on what the current limiting factors are for pushing beyond 48 seconds. Like I wonder if itās a hard wall, a new engineering challenge, a tweak needed, etc. this is the reactor that set the last record so they are doing something really right.
(The article touches on this bit a little) I was watching something about fusion the other day and it seems that it is super tricky to keep the magnetic field balanced in a way that keeps the plasma in a proper toroid. Not only does it need to keep the correct strength, it has to fight against random turbulence. This is critical to start the reaction, but also to maintain it.
Also, they gave some other physical limitations in the article as well:
To extend their plasmaās burning time from the previous record-breaking run, the scientists tweaked aspects of their reactorās design, including replacing carbon with tungsten to improve the efficiency of the tokamakās ādivertors,ā which extract heat and ash from the reactor.
Basically, itās the container that has limitations as containing a pseudo-sun probably isnāt easy.
According to another commenter the heat generated is 7 times that of the core of the sun. Considering we use the sun in sci fi to destroy anything that canāt be destroyed by other means, controlling that level of heat seems like a real challenge
Yeah. Actually using that heat is the next challenge, I suppose. If I am not mistaken (and I am often mistaken), they are not actually using the reaction to power the reactor yet.
Itās all math, basically. If they measure more energy coming out than they put in, itās considered a win.
Last one I read about is just constantly and very quickly (far quicker than human abilities) adjust the magnetic field around the plasma in order to keep it stable and in place. Theyāve been (or at least one team was) using AI to go over data and control and predict the field adjustments, because only reacting after the plasma starts to move hasnāt been quick enough.
Yes, thatād be TAE technologies.
The algorithm was called the optometrist, it was paired with a human operator to more quickly converge on the correct settings for stable plasma by having the machine randomly tweak various meta-parameters, while the human would generally decide whether the current settings were ābetterā or āworseā than the previous pulse.
I wonder if there isnāt a stable chamber shape that promotes turbulence in a controlled manner in order to prevent it getting out of hand? A little bit like the dimples on a golf ball create micro pockets of turbulence promoting laminar flow.
They most likely ran out if liquid helium as the world is running out of the stuff at an alarming rate
They use liquid helium to cool the super magnetsā¦
This is such a ridiculous comment. I can literally go on Amazon and buy some helium right now. You really think if thatās possible, a cutting edge research lab would run out of the stuff?
Sure, itās limited and getting scarcer, but no oneās running out yet.
I canāt wait for the billionaires to increase our power bills for this.
Yes yes I know it would be cheaper, but billionaires are going to charge more money even though itās costing them less.
I canāt wait for the billionaires to increase our power bills for this.
Yes yes I know it would be cheaper, but billionaires are going to charge more money even though itās costing them less.
You know, not everything has to be āeat the richā.
This could just be a really neat science article/discussion about a fusion test, and have no need to bring up Capitalism.
The constant complaining just gets old after a while. Be focused, if you want to be listen to, and taken seriously.
Seriously, canāt we just be happy about something for a few minutes?
Well, for me, itās more of āquit your bitching about everything all the time, itās annoying as Fā.
Though if it wasnāt that, it would definitely be what you stated.
Edit: I donāt mean to be insulting, just expressing the irritation of it. Iām not trying to diminish anyoneās opinions on any subject, just trying to focus it into the proper conversations so that other conversations donāt get polluted (see below).
This is the thing which makes Lemmy more annoying than reddit. Every. Fucking. Thread. Has to be this same low information teenage edgelord shit about why capitalism has ruined the color green, or whatever. Itās as exhausting as it is stupid.
Half this shit has literally nothing to do with capitalism. The other 2/3 is literally shit which is the exact same or worse under the USSR/Mao. For the love of fucking God, please at least critique capitalism in a way which makes literally any sense at all and stop with this āsay the line Bartā fan service.
Itās fair that the constant complaining does get old, and the eat the rich shit is VERY old. But I donāt see power bills getting cheaper as a result of this technology eventually becoming viable. At least not at first. Especially when in the US you have people like Warren Buffet who buys power companies and immediately raises prices by around 50% as a matter of routine.
But I donāt see power bills getting cheaper as a result of this technology eventually becoming viable. At least not at first. Especially when in the US you have people like Warren Buffet who buys power companies and immediately raises prices by around 50% as a matter of routine.
Ah! Now this is a conversation we can have. (Gets on soapbox.)
With all the talk about cheap fusion energy, no discussion is ever made about how itās going to fit in with our existing capitalistic system, and what happens to all the companies that exist worldwide that currently generate energy using other/classic means.
Do they all go bankrupt? If so, what does that mean to the different economies in the different countries?
Assuming theyāre willing to go bankrupt in the first place. What about if they fight back, if they flex their political power to prevent the cheap fusion energy from being realized?
Maybe they have governments subsidize them? If so, then so much for cheap energy, as we all pay more taxes to subsidize. At that point then why bother, economically that is. It still benefits the planet, so thereās that.
Maybe the world powers decide to do nothing, and just shelve fusion power altogether, to protect their existing interests. Then what happens to the planet, as we get more and more into trouble using fossil fuel energies that harm the planet? Existing renewables (solar, etc.) arenāt enough, so something else is needed as well.
We all joke and/or worry about fusion energy being here in 20 to 30 years, and how that 20 to 30 years always keeps sliding into the future, never coming to fruition. But the real problem is going to be once Humanity finally makes fusion power work practically, what does that mean to the status quo in power, and will they be accepting of it, and if not, what does the rest of us do about it?
TLDR: Does old power āgo quietly into that last good nightā and allow new power to take over, or do they fight back? And what does that mean for all of us? And the planet?
(Gets off soapbox.)
Some of us canāt not live with daily trauma of being poor lol
Oh the comments annoy you? Sorry some of us will struggle quieter? Wtf
Oh the comments annoy you? Sorry some of us will struggle quieter? Wtf
Iām advocating for you to be smart in how you do it. Apply it in the right places, in the right amounts, to the right audiences.
āBullet sprayingā the same thing over and over again everywhere just dilutes the message, and it turns people off to listening to the message, and harms the causes the opinions are being expressed for.
Until the rich are eaten it should be brought up at every opportunity. They still exist so keep it up until theyāre gone.
āeat the richā is the āthisā of lemmy. Holy shit is it ever getting old.
Cheaper than renewables? 100 million degrees doesnāt sound cheap, and frankly fusion power has been ācoming in the next 10 yearsā at least since I was at school and Iām in my mid-forties.
The usual joke is that fusion is always ā30 years awayā, not 10. The reason is that fusion projects have historically faced an issue where funding is chronically below predictions
However, this past decade is seeing a number of promising changes that make fusion seem much closer than it ever has. Lawrence Livermore managed to produce net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the first time. Fusion startups are receiving historical levels of VC funding. ITER is expected to produce as much as ten times as much energy as used to start the reaction. The rise of private space infrastructure is making helium-3 mining on the moon more possible than ever before.
But technical issues aside, does that sound financially viable as a source of energy?
Even regular fission has fallen out of favour due to cost, and thatās basically just hot rocks. Harnessing a miniature sun using gas mined on the moon sounds ludicrous in comparison.
Every year the people who send you bills get together to decide how big a slice of you each of them gets.
Yes, it always adds up to 100%
Cheaper in the long run perhaps - but how expensive is it to build?
Atomic energy is only ācheapā since the cost for the power plants is heavily paid for by tax money. For the cost of one power station you could cover a huge amount of land with solar panels.
This is apples to oranges. Fusion is not the same as fission. We simply donāt know the economics of a viable fusion reactor.
However, we do know fissions cost is heavily driven by safety and regulation. It is very reasonable to assume that fusionās requirements in this area are distinctly smaller.