Another Fusion Breakthrough

[peakbagger]

Nuclear fusion "breakthrough" reportedly arrives

Decades of effort have gone into fusion energy, which promises almost limitless carbon-free power.

www.axios.com

Laser ignition was always a dark horse. I wonder how long the billions will be spent build the other lead technolgies? Given the US's past practice they will probably inadvertently hand it off to another country to commercialize it.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Nuclear fusion "breakthrough" reportedly arrives

Decades of effort have gone into fusion energy, which promises almost limitless carbon-free power.

www.axios.com

Laser ignition was always a dark horse. I wonder how long the billions will be spent build the other lead technolgies? Given the US's past practice they will probably inadvertently hand it off to another country to commercialize it.

Laser based fusion! That's how Ironman created a new element to replace the palladium in his arc reactor that was poisoning him!

I recently read about some tech that was developed in the US and then just given to China. Can't remember what it was. It might have been in one of your previous posts.

 

[stoveliker]

This is the announcement that there will be an announcement.

It seems to be an arms race in publicity, given the "5 seconds" UK hoopla last year.

I still think that a batch process is not ideal for fusion.

 

[stoveliker]

From NPR:
U.S. reaches a fusion power milestone. Will it be enough to save the planet?

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For one thing, he says, the lasers require more than 300 megajoules worth of electricity to produce around 2 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light. In other words, even if the energy from the fusion reactions exceeds the energy from the lasers, it's still only around one percent of the total energy used.

Moreover, it would take many capsules exploding over and over to produce enough energy to feed the power grid. "You'd have to do this many, many times a second," McBride says. NIF can currently do around one laser "shot" a week.

 

[begreen]

This local interview on the topic with a UW research scientist is quite informative and optimistic.

A step closer to a new form of renewable energy: nuclear fusion

On Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm walked up to a microphone to drop some big science news: Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had achieved a fusion mileston.

www.kuow.org

 

[TWilk117]

Laugh tell said they won’t be able to do it for at least ten years

 

[begreen]

Laugh tell said they won’t be able to do it for at least ten years

Or longer

 

[begreen]

Here is another project that is working on a simpler approach to fusion power, plasma railguns.

Chantilly startup NearStar Fusion is developing a new form of energy tech - Technical.ly

"We're kind of like the Wright brothers," CEO Amit Singh said. The two-year-old company uses plasma railguns technology to create fusion energy.

technical.ly

 

[DBoon]

I find all of the articles about fusion energy fascinating to read and I think the basic research to learn how to attain sustainable fusion reactions on earth is well worth the cost for other spin-off applications unrelated to fusion energy. But does anybody truly, truly believe that in our lifetimes sustainable fusion reactions will be possible and cost-effective enough to generate electricity?

I can see that we solve all the technical hurdles to making it possible, but it will then probably be just too complicated to be reliable or cost effective.

 

[EbS-P]

Is this the breakthrough that will make it happen??

Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion

In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale...

phys.org

 

[stoveliker]

I think not. Getting magnets that work for the application is one hurdle, but engineering (dynamic) plasma confinement is much more than that.
And engineering the (materials in the) walls to be able to take up the energy deposited to allow its extraction while not degrading too quickly is another.

It's a necessary buy far from sufficient step imo.