Fusion Energy Breakthrough

[WHITT]

Major Breakthrough on Nuclear Fusion Energy

The UK-based JET laboratory has smashed its own world record for the amount of energy it can extract by squeezing together two forms of hydrogen.

If nuclear fusion can be successfully recreated on Earth it holds out the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.

The experiments produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds (11 megawatts of power). This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997.

"The JET experiments put us a step closer to fusion power," said Dr Joe Milnes, the head of operations at the reactor lab. "We've demonstrated that we can create a mini star inside of our machine and hold it there for five seconds and get high performance, which really takes us into a new realm."

MORE:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

[edhopper]

1. We have been 10 years away from workable fusion

for over 50 years.

[WHITT]

2. It Would Only Work For 5 Seconds

because it started melting the magnets, but they will now move their operation to the South of France, where the European Consortium has a larger facility with super-cooled magnets.

I think they've done it.

[edhopper]

4. And how many years

from a functioning reactor? 10?

[MineralMan]

6. That might lengthen the run, but the energy expended

to contain the reaction will still exceed the energy produced. And that's the fatal flaw with fusion power generation. It will remain the fatal flaw, I believe.

There is a force that can contain fusion reactions - Gravity. That works for stars, but not in human-controlled fusion reactions.

Yes, you can control a fusion reaction briefly, if you are able to supply enough external energy to contain the reaction. Theoretically, you could recover enough energy from the reaction to contain it, but nobody has figured out how to do that, so all research fusion experiments end up costing more input energy that the energy produced, and the reaction has to be brief so it doesn't destroy the equipment used to contain the reaction.

The European Consortium just has more powerful containment equipment - which uses correspondingly more input energy to control a reaction that will produce less energy as output than the input energy.

[Goodheart]

16. You're such a killjoy!

[MineralMan]

18. Sorry.

But, don't blame me. Blame the laws of physics.

Safest place for a fusion reaction is about 93 million miles away, it seems to me.

[MineralMan]

3. OK... Now, how much energy was pumped into that experiment to

get that result? More than was produced, of course. It's always more than is produced, so far, in fusion experiments.

The news stories rarely ever provide the input energy information. There's a reason for that...

[Aussie105]

11. It's proof of theoretical concept, nothing more at the moment.

But yes, I wondered that myself.

It may be the one thing that halts development in it's tracks, or it may not.
Wait and see.
Smart people are working the mechanics and math as we speak.

[MineralMan]

12. So far, that has actually been the fatal flaw with fusion research.

People are still working on it, but the energy required to contain a fusion reaction will always be a major stumbling block.

Fusion reactions are so energetic that mechanical containment cannot work. In fission reactors, the energy developed is not so difficult to contain, and the reaction is fairly easily moderated and controlled. Not so with fusion reactions. They must be contained by energy, as in magnetic fields. However, the nature of fusion reactions is that they are so energetic that containment is extremely difficult.

In fact, that is the core problem faced by fusion research. Personally, I do not think it can be solved. So far, decades of research have not resulted in a controllable fission reaction that produces more energy that that required to initiate and control the reaction.

[hunter]

5. I'm tired of waiting for fusion. We need to quit fossil fuels now...

... and we have the technology to do it.

[lagomorph777]

7. We can switch to fusion today.

We have a fully functional fusion reactor in space.

It's called the Sun.

[hunter]

8. Unfortunately it's blocked most of the time by the earth beneath our feet and clouds in the sky.

A solar powered economy would look nothing like the economy many affluent people now enjoy and probably wouldn't be able to support the current human population, now approaching 8 billion people.

We've worked ourselves into a corner. 99% of us, wealthy and poor alike, are dependent on high density energy sources for our water, food, and shelter, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, every day of each year, .

The first nuclear power plants were built about 70 years ago. Nuclear power is a mature technology. We know how to build safe power plants, we know how to handle the waste. ( In a similar way cars built today are vastly less dangerous and less polluting than cars built in the 1950s. )

I used to be an anti-nuclear activist. I'm not any more. Aggressive renewable energy schemes in places like California, Germany, and Denmark have failed; they've only increased our long term dependence on fossil fuels, especially natural gas.

There's enough gas in the ground to destroy whatever is left of the natural environment as we know it. We need to leave it there.

Hybrid natural gas / solar / wind power schemes will not save the world.

[c-rational]

10. +1

[Hestia]

22. But, but, but - there is a program on NOVA showing that scientists have solved some of this

It's Double-edge sword kids. If we can keep hedge-funds, private equity funds away from the science, we've really got a fighting chance over these new developments.

Brand new program, Butterfly Blueprints. It aired a week or so ago.

(As an aside, butterflies do not exist anywhere in the fossil records, either above or below the K2 levels. Scientists have no idea where butterflies and moths actually developed in nature. It would be a huge scientific breakthrough if they found out.)

Anyway, a gentleman who has been studying butterflies for over 30 years has figured out a) how butterfly wings are structured, b) how they are waterproof, and c) they are resistance to infections and bacteria, d) how butterflies use the sun to warm up, which is different than thought until now, and e) they are reflective in a special way.

They developed/mimicked the butterfly wing structure in the lab (no wholesale slaughter of butterflies) and the first thing developed is a structure that they have used for massive trauma in the human body. When screws, let's say, when you have to have your jaw repaired from a car wreck or something, they implanted the screws in the jaw and found that the human bones in the jaw will grow and absorb the material without any infections whatsoever. Absolutely game changing in trauma therapy.

They also found in studying this same chemical material, solar squares have been developed the size of Chiclets (remember those, boys and girls?) that are much more powerful that what we have now. They can be applied anywhere to anything. It's the mass production that is the sticky-wicket.

The medical studies were done in Europe and the solar at Univ of Austin and one Uni in Calif, but by European scientists.

If we do not give away the results of these break throughs to corps/hedge funds, etc but *license* out the technology, it will be absolutely game-changing in changing over to solar on a massive scale. The tech is very thin, like those pics of solar shingles that came out about 10 years ago.

Where the hell are those btw? I've been waiting for those or something like the butterfly wing film to come out before going solar. I refuse to hand over the roof to my house to get my electric bill down, just so the solar company can take my savings and use it to pay off the panels in 30 years. Bastards *always* have a way to take our monies.

It was so exciting watching the program, as to the new developments that have been discovered by our beautiful flutter-bies. There is something new, to us, by the actual structure of what and how their wings are made.

Highly, highly, highly recommend the program - ever since Charles Koc(h)k died, more and more science based breakthroughs are now aired. We no longer have to assuage his or his bros. worry about how to keep the tech off the market or to keep them from making money off of the new tech. We'll still take the monies from the trust fund he set up to continue to fund NOVA Science programs. The only way to get off these funds, would be, by each and every person give $25 per month, without fail and including children's contributions, to continue NOVA. PBS tried to kick the Koc(k)h habit but found they couldn't, he gave that much in funding.

I'm still excited just typing this about what has been discovered/developed by our new BFF's in the etymology world.

[LastDemocratInSC]

9. Another name for a solar energy spill?

A sunny day.

[jmowreader]

15. The issue with solar energy isn't the sun...

It’s the very dangerous chemicals they use to make the panels.

[tinrobot]

13. In 2022, they beat the record set in 1997.

It took 25 years to double their output.

I would love fusion to succeed, but this timeline is not very encouraging

[KS Toronado]

14. 11 megawatts of power

Solar Energy Industries Association calculates that on average 1 megawatt of solar power generates enough
electricity to meet the needs of 164 U.S. homes, this is a lot of power if and when scientists learn how to
harvest it safely.

Meanwhile I'm waiting on enough energy to power my Flux Capacitor.

[lagomorph777]

19. Just order a Mr. Fusion from Amazon.

[KS Toronado]

20. Tried, they're on back order.

[dumbcat]

17. I wonder where that 11 megawatts of power

went for that 5 seconds? What absorbed it?

[Ron Green]

21. Just Stop.

More energy ain’t gonna happen without further degradation of the earth, our true and only home.

We must roll back energy extraction, which means we must roll back population AND economic growth. There’s really no other way.

Just stop trying to spin this.

[Hestia]

23. or use the Reduce part of the Eco-Triangle. Obama's Energy Dept tried to get the message out that

not only do we need to Reuse and Recycle, but the real energy savings comes from Reducing our energy needs. All 3 work together to kick our habit. Only using 1 or 2 parts of the triangle isn't going to cut it, we have to use all 3 parts.

My DH didn't get it until I told him Reducing is taking what we have already developed, strip the items down to their basic structure and Reuse those parts. Energy is sucked in in the making the base materials but in Recycling the materials, we do not have to Remake everything, it's already been done.

Phones and Desktops/Laptops are the biggest users of these base materials that really need to be Reused and Recycled. But noooo, what about the poor manufacturers that would lose money in not being able to make the base materials wholesale? How would they be not be able to pollute and damage the entire planet to get their billion a month?

Poor poor billionaires...not.