Fusion breakthrough?

[Jimmy Higgins]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

 

[Elixir]

Ah, yes. Ad asterisk

 

[TV and credit cards]

How often does the DoE Secretary come out for an announcement on such? Usually these are tucked away at the end of the scroll. This “science” story was three from the top on Reuters. That’s huge.

I read they achieved a net gain some months back. Hopefully there’s more to it than that, like sustainment and gobs of energy.

 

[bilby]

In the unlikely event that fusion power ever becomes available, it will still be opposed by "environmentalists", and will be no safer, no cleaner, and no more reliable than nuclear fission power - which will inevitably cost vastly less to generate.

It's a complete red herring.

If you want a safe, clean, reliable, carbon neutral electricity supply, you can get it from a seventy year old technology that we have already built at commercial scale.

Fucking around with this futile Buck Rodgers shit is just a distraction from getting on and solving the problems.

It's interesting from a pure science perspective, but if it were easy enough to be cheaper than fission, we'd have had it fifty years ago.

Fusion is a desperate attempt to solve an already solved problem, because of a bunch of morons who don't want a solution and who therefore oppose the one we already have. The only reason they're not equally dead set against fusion power is that it has the good grace not to exist, so they can keep building macrobiotic windmills (and fucking the climate up by burning Russian gas).

 

[lpetrich]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In the unlikely event that fusion power ever becomes available, it will still be opposed by "environmentalists", and will be no safer, no cleaner, and no more reliable than nuclear fission power - which will inevitably cost vastly less to generate.

I think you are forgetting something important... initial perception. The general public believes fusion is safe. Therefore... fusion can be trusted. Fusion is safe from not being on the heels of about a century of industrial pollution of the planet and people not generally taking industrial say-so at face value. Initial perception can be quite influential, facts be damned.

It's a complete red herring.

If you want a safe, clean, reliable, carbon neutral electricity supply, you can get it from a seventy year old technology that we have already built at commercial scale.

Vinyl... no wait... wrong thread.

 

[bilby]

I think you are forgetting something important... initial perception. The general public believes fusion is safe. Therefore... fusion can be trusted. Fusion is safe from not being on the heels of about a century of industrial pollution of the planet and people not generally taking industrial say-so at face value. Initial perception can be quite influential, facts be damned.

I'm not forgetting it; I just think it's outweighed by a price-tag many orders of magnitude higher than that of other sources of electricity.

 

[steve_bank]

In a press statment it qas said commercial fusion power is 10 years away.

It has been 10 years away since the 80s.

 

[Tigers!]

Where are Pons and Fleishmann these days?

 

[barbos]

Where are Pons and Fleishmann these days?

and Andrea Rossi

 

[Bomb#20]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

 

[bilby]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

100% efficiency lasers are about ten years away.

...and always will be.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

It didn't need 100% efficiency. 99.7% efficiency would have worked too.

It does kind of create the funny image of needing a coal power plant to power the limitless energy from fusion.

Look, fusion has potential. In a global economy of what $100 trillion dollars, tossing a tiny percentage of that to develop fusion isn't a bad idea. It would probably be better to work with fission though, and create more efficiency with the byproducts of that process over the long-term. But that will run into trouble until someone comes forth and makes a publicly forehead slapping "duh!" presentation on nuclear power.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

And already there are dreamy little dreams of actually using fusion energy to send space craft to the stars resurfacing.

 

[Elixir]

And already there are dreamy little dreams of actually using fusion energy to send space craft to the stars resurfacing.

That ain’t nuthin. This morning Mrs Elixir was quite vexed to learn that Safeway’s store brand sucky eggs were going to $5/dozen. I told her to cheer up because by this time next year everything will be cheaper than dirt because … FUSION !!
Cheered her right up.

 

[steve_bank]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

It all depends on where you draw the thermodynamic boundary and apply Laws Of Thermodynamics.

 

[lpetrich]

• Nuclear power plant - Energy Education -- energy efficiency 33 - 37% - steam turbine engine
• Transformative Power Systems | Department of Energy - 33% - steam turbine engine
• Natural gas power plant - Energy Education - combined cycle: as much as 60% - uses combustion turbines and steam turbine engines

Without some alternate way of capturing the energy released, nuclear-fusion powerplants would capture that energy as heat, and it would then use the same kind of steam-engine stage as coal and nuclear-fission ones.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Saw that tritium was used for the reaction. Using tritium as a fuel would be terribly expensive. Like using tritium as a fuel.

 

[Jokodo]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

100% efficiency lasers are about ten years away.

...and always will be.

They will come along just when gigawatthour batteries at household prices will, right?

 

[barbos]

Rumors are abounding over a breakthrough with fusion resulting in a net gain reaction. An announcement is expected on Tuesday. This would be a positive step towards the holy grail of energy production. But just a positive step. Of course, we need to know the actual results and all the binding asterisks for it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Controlled nuclear fusion is VERY difficult.

Controlled nuclear fusion is so easy, a kid built a working fusion reactor for a science fair, and came in second! The technology has been around since the 60s. There's a company building them commercially; they're used for manufacturing radioactive medical isotopes. What's very difficult is getting a fusion reactor to generate more power than it takes to run the thing. That's what the clowns at Lawrence Livermore claimed to have done -- the binding asterisks are they're comparing the energy generated by fusing the hydrogen in a pellet with the energy delivered to the pellet by the lasers they fired at it to make it fuse. I.e., their breakthrough is they would hypothetically have a net gain reaction if they hypothetically had used 100% efficiency lasers.

Physicists are not clowns, your politicians are clowns.