• cynar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The amusing thing is that the sun is actually quite a shit fusion reactor. It’s power per unit volume is tiny. It just makes it up in sheer volume. A solar level fusion reactor would be almost completely useless to us. Instead we need to go far beyond the sun’s output to just be viable.

      It’s like describing one of the mega mining dumper trucks as an “artificial mule”.

  • LostWon@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Maybe if it runs longer, we all get to jump to a better timeline. 😅

    • Pumpkin Escobar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Or the world blows up and it’s all over. I guess what I’m saying is, no downside, fire it up and let’s see what happens.

    • Obelix@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      I’m sceptical. Even if somebody would present a working fusion reactor today, what would the timeline to replace everything based on fossil fuels even be? Build several thousand of expensive fusion reactors in every country of the world, even in geopolitical rivals like China, Russia or North Korea or war-torn third world countries? Replace every car with an electrical one? Replace home heating everywhere? Rebuild every ship and airplane worldwide?

  • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Meanwhile in America we’re trying to make macdonalds cheaper by bundling an extra sandwich to go along with a value meal…

  • tomkatt@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This is freaking awesome. Only a few years ago it was exciting to see a fusion reaction last a fraction of a second.

  • Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Doesn’t sound that impressive when Wendelstein 7-X achieved 17 minutes of plasma in 2021.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Guarantee you they weren’t generating a whole lot of power though… And if you can’t do that part then what’s the point?

      • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, and we measured them to the purpose of flight… Not wingspan, or how soft the wheels were.

        So maybe we should measure technology that’s about generating power by…

        I’ll let you fill in the blank.

        P.S I have a “perpetual” motions machine that can run for 30 minutes (8 minutes longer than this fusion reactor), are you interested in investing?

        EDIT: Four years ago the British Fusion reactor (J.E.T. originally built in 1984) produced “59 megajoules of heat energy” none of which was harvested and turned into electricity. The project was then shutdown for good after 40 years of not generating power.

        • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yes, but you’re asking how much cargo it can take while we’re barely off the ground. Research reactors aren’t set up to generate power, they’re instrumented to see if stuff is even working.

        • cubism_pitta@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          LLNL has achieved positive power output with their experiments. https://www.llnl.gov/article/49301/shot-ages-fusion-ignition-breakthrough-hailed-one-most-impressive-scientific-feats-21st

          No fusion reactor today is actually going to generate power in the useful sense.

          These are more about understanding how Fusion works so that a reactor that is purpose built to generate power can be developed in the future.

          Unlike the movies real development is the culmination of MANY small steps.

          Today we are holding reactions for 20 minutes. 20 years ago getting a reaction to self sustain in the first place seemed impossible.

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          A fusion reactor has already output more power than its inputs 3 years ago. Running a reactor for an extended period of time is still a useful exercise as you need to ensure they can handle operation for long enough to actually be a useful power source.

          • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Generating massive amounts of heat and harvesting that and converting it to power are two (or three) different problems.

            • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Agreed. But just to go along with the flight analogy proposed earlier, it took hundreds of years from Da Vinci’s flying machine designs to get to one that actually worked.

              • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                In 1932, Walton produced the first man-made fission by using protons from the accelerator to split lithium into alpha particles.[5]

                We’ve been at this for coming up to 100 years too.

                Let me know when they actually generate power. I don’t want another article about a guy jumping off the eifle tower in a bird suit. A successful flight should be measured by the success of the flight.

                Power generators should be measured by the power generated.

                0 watts. Franz Reichelt went splat on the pavement having proven nothing.

                America, the UK, France, Japan, and no doubt other places have been toying with fusion “power” for 90 years… We’ve created heat and not much else as far as I can tell.

                • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Fission isn’t fusion, the first artificial fusion was two years later in 1934. That gives us a mere 332 years to beat the time from Da Vinci’s first design to the Wrights’ first flight

                  0 watts. Franz Reichelt went splat on the pavement having proven nothing

                  He demonstrated pretty clearly his idea didn’t work.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why don’t we use “shatters world record” like the pro-China articles where they did this for 16 minutes?

    I know why.

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Why do you care so much what an article says about France’s accomplishments of science and China’s accomplishments of science? Why can’t we enjoy the movement of technology without bickering about lines drawn in the sand by people none of us know or care about?