This Is the First Fusion Power Plant to Generate Net Electricity

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Could the future of nuclear fusion be a much smaller, self-sustaining tokamak reactor? Researchers at the General Atomics DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the largest nuclear fusion research facility in the U.S., think so. The secret is the pressurized plasma.

The scientists from DIII-D have designed a full“compact nuclear fusion plant” concept and detailed the plans in a new paper in Nuclear Fusion. In simulations, their 8-meter-wide pressurized plasma fusion concept is powerful enough to generate 200 megawatts (MW) of net electricity after the energy cost of the fusion itself.

This would be the very first fusion power plant to generate net electricity. The current best ratio is an output of 67 percent of the total energy required to power the reactor.

Engineers designed the plant using special physics modeling that mimics different parameters a real world compact fusion plant would experience. The scientists write:

-more-

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-the-first-fusion-power-plant-to-generate-net-electricity/ar-BB1fjPr8?ocid=DELLDHP&li=BBnbfcL

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. More accurately 'could this be the first' ... sounds like its only designs right now ...

If true that's going to be incredibly good news ... assuming that it doesn't cost a ridiculou$ amount to build each one.

[lagomorph777]

2. "The researchers are careful to emphasize their paper is still very abstract."

Ok, I'm going back to sleep now.

[PoliticAverse]

3. "The fusion plant is still far in the future" n/t

[GPV]

4. Will it happen in my lifetime?

[Hortensis]

5. "calls for bold action to place fusion power on the grid in the 2035-2040 time frame"

The comprehensive final report released by FESAC in late February lays out a strategic plan for fusion energy in the U.S. over the next decade. The NASEM report calls for bold action to place fusion power on the grid in the 2035–2040 time frame. A key recommendation of both reports is developing the science and engineering basis for a low-capital-cost fusion pilot plant that will lay the groundwork for commercial fusion reactors.

https://www.ga.com/us-researchers-design-compact-fusion-power-plant

This is from General Atomics, who'd obviously like our government to decide R&D have advanced to the point of thinking toward implementation. I searched on Biden and just found the planned commitment to nuclear for cleanER energy (until better is developed) as part of the Paris Climate Accord, but I didn't see mention of fusion.

[exboyfil]

10. They want grid implementation in about fifteen years?

And they haven't even built a demonstration reactor? Remember commercial fusion is only twenty years away.

It was 20 years away in 1960.

[Hortensis]

11. Yes, but when does change ever remain a straight line? Especially

with technology, the past is anything but a predictor of the future. Humanity's been on a runaway bullet train of change ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

It keeps amazing me that my great-grandparents, born in the first half of the 19th century in Europe, were the last generations in our family to live mostly as people of the Agricultural Age had for 20,000 years before. The world was already changing around them, though, and their grandchildren all went to college and were already a second generation away from many millennia of surviving by farming. Heck, my mom and aunt were strangers to planting pansies, much less potatoes.

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. My house and car are powered

by a fusion reactor conveniently located a mere 8 light minutes away. It is generating 12kW of power right now, and delivered 97.3kWh of energy yesterday. The cost of the technology fell 75% in the last ten years, and is available now.

Assume the reactor they have on paper costs $1 billion. For that same price you could have a 10kW solar array on 33,300+ houses and a 13kWh battery, with the houses producing between 20-50kWh of energy per day, with zero fuel costs, and fractional maintenance over the 25-30 year life of the array (15 years for the battery pack) The battery packs would store 433+ MWh of energy, and would constitute a virtual power plant capable of 166MW of power for two hours to balance the grid, or provide power during short blackouts.

That's my"back of the envelope" math, so I have rounded. It is based on current solar price of $2/watt installed, and $10K for a single 13kWh battery pack and inverter. These prices are falling.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

7. "Simulations"? give me a working design that is verified by independent testing

[edhopper]

8. Fusion has been a decade away

for 50 years.

[triron]

9. Only in the 'design' stage apparently. No demonstration plant yet.

[abqtommy]

12. I dunno. The words "pressurized plasma" scare me. I never hear about that with solar or

wind generation of electricity.

[Disaffected]

13. F'ing Click Bait

But, the article is from Popular Mechanics so no surprise.

[hunter]

14. We already know how to build safe affordable nuclear power plants. We just have to do it.

Nuclear power is the only energy source capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely. It's the only existing "carbon neutral" energy source able to support the lifestyles many affluent people now enjoy.

Solar and wind are not economical without fossil fuel "backup" power because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Typically this supposed "backup" power carries half the load. Cutting our fossil fuel use in half won't save the world, especially if the world economy is growing. To save the world we have to quit fossil fuels entirely.

We don't have to wait for fusion power.

Proposed fusion power plants that "breed" tritium from lithium won't be any safer, less expensive, more reliable, or easier to safely dismantle and dispose of when they are worn out, than modern fission plants.

Yeah, I'd rather live near a nuclear plant than a gas power plant or gas fracking field.

We are so accustomed to the dangers of fossil fuels (including global warming...) we tend to ignore them.