The US National Ignition Facility has achieved even higher energy yields since breaking even for the first time in 2022, but a practical fusion reactor is still a long way off
I mean, it’s what the whole article is about. If you mean successfully generating sustainable electricity from fusion then yeah, maybe. Maybe not. People said flight was impossible too, you never know.
Why will a tokamak never work, exactly? We’ve been running fusion experiments in them for 60 years and have a pretty good idea that we can make one big enough to produce power. We’re just baby stepping through the work so we don’t build a $30 billion dollar power plant that’s missing a design element.
K-DEMO, JT-60, DEMO, CFETR, STEP, and the US DoE’s planned reactor suggest a high level of confidence that the science is already there. It’s just an engineering problem, much like the nuclear bomb in 1935.
This reads kind of like Derrida, or JB Peterson, where it almost seems like the goal is to deliberately avoid communicating in a way that is clear. To paraphrase, “You all misinterpret what I say, not because I’m bad at communication but because you all are.” If one person misunderstands or misinterprets, maybe that’s on them. If everyone does, it’s more likely that it’s on you.
That’s because your comment is on a post that is literally one of the sources you’d get. More efficiency, overcoming total input, making it a generator, etc are all ancillary.
There was an article in 1902 about how ridiculous powered flight was and that humans would never be able to fly,
The next year the wright brothers achieved the first powered flight.
There was also an article in The mid 1960s that reaching the moon was at least a century away and that NASA wouldn’t achieve it’s goal until the late 21st century,
We had boots on the moon before the end of that decade.
We will “bottle the sun”, and we’ll do it before the turn of the century.
You fall under the former though. Have you actually looked into this at all or do you just feel that fusion is impossible and then bother all of us with that?
Perhaps you didn’t understand me. I’m saying there’s a difference between a problem which cannot be reasonably solved (humans can only sustain X amount of g-force) and a problem which is merely difficult (plasma containment).
I read the whole thread and didn’t see you mention it. Anyways, there were some promising improvements on that a while ago with new shapes for the plasma to hold that are easier to contain. That’s also only an issue for reactors that use sustained plasma instead of short-fire bursts.
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Sounds like solid reasoning to me
ITER will probably work. It’ll be a long and expensive process, but it’ll work. Question is if something else gets there sooner and cheaper.
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I dunno. How do you get through life completely missing the point while getting hung up on minor issues?
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It already has?
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Those crazy sons of bitches actually did it!
Can’t drink it though, tastes like burning.
Got 'em
the reactor exist, isn’t comercially viable but it exist
The technology exists. There’s huge funding going into it recently. Europe’s ITER project is working towards it also, but in a different way.
The only major issue faced right now is how to increase the efficiency.
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It is being surmounted now. Slowly but surely, it’s happening. And progress is accelerating also.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+news
Citation?
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No, just the rate of improvement in efficiency of fusion reactors.
I mean, it’s what the whole article is about. If you mean successfully generating sustainable electricity from fusion then yeah, maybe. Maybe not. People said flight was impossible too, you never know.
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You’re calling the US National Ignition Facility at LLNI snake oil salesmen?
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Bro 😭
Combined with actual progress and scientific methods “you never know” is how you fly helicopters on other planets too.
I’m all for skepticism but, like, how are you gonna hoodwink someone into nuclear fusion power? Can that even happen?
Reminds me of the Librarian in W40K, “An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.”
We’ve harnessed the power of fusion in nuclear weapons for decades already.
We’ve literally put it in a small container.
November 1, 1952. Enewetak Atoll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike
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I mean … the article is literally what it’s about.
You’re being downvoted because you’re being a cynical contrarian.
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Saying nothing will ever work ever and nothing is ever good is not being skeptical.
The article you’re commenting on is the citation, you’re being cynical and acting in bad faith.
People disagree with you, I’d wager if you used a little more tact you might have more reasonable discussion.
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Why will a tokamak never work, exactly? We’ve been running fusion experiments in them for 60 years and have a pretty good idea that we can make one big enough to produce power. We’re just baby stepping through the work so we don’t build a $30 billion dollar power plant that’s missing a design element.
K-DEMO, JT-60, DEMO, CFETR, STEP, and the US DoE’s planned reactor suggest a high level of confidence that the science is already there. It’s just an engineering problem, much like the nuclear bomb in 1935.
This reads kind of like Derrida, or JB Peterson, where it almost seems like the goal is to deliberately avoid communicating in a way that is clear. To paraphrase, “You all misinterpret what I say, not because I’m bad at communication but because you all are.” If one person misunderstands or misinterprets, maybe that’s on them. If everyone does, it’s more likely that it’s on you.
Sure sounds like never.
“And it is almost a certainty not to be ever in the lifetime of man.”
Let’s just sliiiiide those goalposts a few hundred more feet huh?
That’s because your comment is on a post that is literally one of the sources you’d get. More efficiency, overcoming total input, making it a generator, etc are all ancillary.
There was an article in 1902 about how ridiculous powered flight was and that humans would never be able to fly,
The next year the wright brothers achieved the first powered flight.
There was also an article in The mid 1960s that reaching the moon was at least a century away and that NASA wouldn’t achieve it’s goal until the late 21st century,
We had boots on the moon before the end of that decade.
We will “bottle the sun”, and we’ll do it before the turn of the century.
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You fall under the former though. Have you actually looked into this at all or do you just feel that fusion is impossible and then bother all of us with that?
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The g-force problem is unimprovable-- humans themselves have a limit. The containment problem is not.
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Perhaps you didn’t understand me. I’m saying there’s a difference between a problem which cannot be reasonably solved (humans can only sustain X amount of g-force) and a problem which is merely difficult (plasma containment).
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We’re actually closer than ever. If people like you ruled the world we would still have rock tools and would still be wearing animal skins.
I think you’re wrong and furthermore, that your attitude is unsavory.
Shallow, and pedantic.
Shallow is debatable but what have I said that’s even remotely pedantic?
They were agreeing with you
https://youtu.be/OpbdGnJbneE?si=UfT_79ONTVFxYWlA
Pretty sure they were not talking about you, but riffing on what you were saying.
Specifically, a Family Guy reference
Mmm, yes, shallow and pedantic.
No, using a bottle would be ridiculous, they use a reactor of course!
Tokamak is Russian for magnetic bottle and is one method being explored for thermonuclear fusion containment.
Yeah, but it’s not a literal bottle.
Well that depends what you think defines a bottle
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I’ll bite. What problems are insurmountable?
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I read the whole thread and didn’t see you mention it. Anyways, there were some promising improvements on that a while ago with new shapes for the plasma to hold that are easier to contain. That’s also only an issue for reactors that use sustained plasma instead of short-fire bursts.
You do understand ‘lifetime of man’ is the larger of those time frames, right?
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