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U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - --- - 12-12-2022 02:26 PM
Reuters Link
Quote:The U.S. Department of Energy will announce on Tuesday that scientists at a national lab have made a breakthrough on fusion energy, the process that powers the sun and stars that one day could provide a cheap source of electricity, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have achieved a net energy gain for the first time, in a fusion experiment using lasers, one of the people said. The FT first reported the experiment.
Fusion works when nuclei of two atoms are subjected to extreme heat of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) or higher leading them to fuse into a new larger atom, giving off enormous amounts of energy.
But the process consumes vast amounts of energy and the trick has been to make the process self sustaining and to get more energy out than goes in and to do so continuously instead of brief moments.
If fusion is commercialized, which backers say could happen in a decade or more, it would have additional benefits including the generation of virtually carbon free electricity which could help in the fight against climate change without the amounts of radioactive nuclear waste that today's fission reactors produce.
The underlined, while important, fails to mention the real reason why Fusion Energy is the Holy Grail of energy production: massively reduced fuel requirements. If this is successful, and a power plant could be developed that is small enough to fit in planes, trains, ships, and even personal vehicles, America will solidify it's presence as the pre-eminent technology and military power on the world for the indefinite future.
Here's a video on the possibilities:
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - EigenEagle - 12-12-2022 02:35 PM
Hope it's true but nuclear fusion has been so elusive for such a long time I'm skeptical.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - --- - 12-12-2022 02:36 PM
(12-12-2022 02:35 PM)EigenEagle Wrote: Hope it's true but nuclear fusion has been so elusive for such a long time I'm skeptical.
Me too brother. The saying "Fusion is always 10 years away" hasn't failed us yet. I'm cautiously optimistic this time.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - EverRespect - 12-12-2022 02:41 PM
Heat of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) into a plane or personal vehicle. What could go wrong?
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - Gamenole - 12-12-2022 02:43 PM
(12-12-2022 02:36 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:35 PM)EigenEagle Wrote: Hope it's true but nuclear fusion has been so elusive for such a long time I'm skeptical.
Me too brother. The saying "Fusion is always 10 years away" hasn't failed us yet. I'm cautiously optimistic this time.
Secretary Granholm is supposed to make the announcement herself tomorrow and it is being billed as "a major scientific breakthrough", so hopefully we are really on track for clean, cheap energy from fusion. Bad news for Putin and the OPEC crowd if we are...
https://www.powermag.com/u-s-officials-set-to-announce-fusion-energy-breakthrough/
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - tanqtonic - 12-12-2022 02:51 PM
While we may achieve sustainable fusion 'in the lab', the engineering requirements for economic production are so out of the realm as to be effectively impossible.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - --- - 12-12-2022 02:51 PM
(12-12-2022 02:41 PM)EverRespect Wrote: Heat of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) into a plane or personal vehicle. What could go wrong?
Apparently, basic understanding of the fusion process and why your statement is... really not a smart one.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - --- - 12-12-2022 02:53 PM
(12-12-2022 02:51 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: While we may achieve sustainable fusion 'in the lab', the engineering requirements for economic production are so out of the realm as to be effectively impossible.
Such as? Genuine question. Certainly challenges will exist, but a statement like this reminds me of this 1903 New York Times article that stated that manned flight was practically impossible... only for the Wright Brothers to achieve flight 9 weeks later.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - UofMstateU - 12-12-2022 02:59 PM
(12-12-2022 02:53 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:51 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: While we may achieve sustainable fusion 'in the lab', the engineering requirements for economic production are so out of the realm as to be effectively impossible.
Such as? Genuine question. Certainly challenges will exist, but a statement like this reminds me of this 1903 New York Times article that stated that manned flight was practically impossible... only for the Wright Brothers to achieve flight 9 weeks later.
The NYT"s has been fake news for over a century.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - EverRespect - 12-12-2022 03:00 PM
(12-12-2022 02:51 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:41 PM)EverRespect Wrote: Heat of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) into a plane or personal vehicle. What could go wrong?
Apparently, basic understanding of the fusion process and why your statement is... really not a smart one.
Well I never claimed to be a fusion expert. Just going off how your quote of the article explains how the energy is created. Maybe the author isn't that smart. Why don't you enlighten us on how it was misstated.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - gdunn - 12-12-2022 03:02 PM
Even if Fusion is possible in 10 years to power homes and what not... That doesn't change the fact that 10 years is not now and the current administration is pushing for all new vehicles to be EV before that time period with a substandard infrastructure throughout the country.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - --- - 12-12-2022 03:14 PM
(12-12-2022 03:00 PM)EverRespect Wrote:I'll do my best(12-12-2022 02:51 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:41 PM)EverRespect Wrote: Heat of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million Fahrenheit) into a plane or personal vehicle. What could go wrong?
Apparently, basic understanding of the fusion process and why your statement is... really not a smart one.
Well I never claimed to be a fusion expert. Just going off how your quote of the article explains how the energy is created. Maybe the author isn't that smart. Why don't you enlighten us on how it was misstated.
Fusion energy requires extremely high temperatures, yes, but these temperatures are so high, we don't actually have materials that can withstand direct contact to the gases. This might sound bad, but fusion energy at this stage is only possible by containing and compressing the gases in a magnetic field. The gases are essentially contained entirely by the magnetic field and not physically by the structure itself. What this means is, no magnetic field, no reaction, and we no reaction, there's no heat, and the gases that are no longer contained expand to ambient pressure and then dissipates.
Think of your oven when it's on broil. The air temperature inside might be 500F but if you open the door, you're not vaporized by the hot air, but it does feel warm. If you touch the metal, you'll burn yourself though.
A fusion reaction will not melt down, it will simply stop. The gases inside the reactor are hot, but gases that exist at low pressure are generally safe. I hope this helps
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - Was SoMs Eagle - 12-12-2022 03:16 PM
Chinese announced a major fusion energy breakthrough on Wednesday.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - tanqtonic - 12-12-2022 03:34 PM
(12-12-2022 02:53 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:51 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: While we may achieve sustainable fusion 'in the lab', the engineering requirements for economic production are so out of the realm as to be effectively impossible.
Such as? Genuine question. Certainly challenges will exist, but a statement like this reminds me of this 1903 New York Times article that stated that manned flight was practically impossible... only for the Wright Brothers to achieve flight 9 weeks later.
As a first start, how to build and maintain the walls and shielding -- they have to be specially designed to be 'breeding' walls, that is walls that dont smother neutron flux but enhance it. You need neutrons to react with an Li or Be layer to propagate tritium production within the reactor.
In short, the production of net positive energy in very short bursts is the easy part of the problem. The issue of economics is doing that on a sustainable basis. Here is a good critique of economic fusion production.
I interacted with the 'author' above many moons ago, and have been impressed with his work since then.
In short, it is going to be blazingly hard to become energy output positive on the reactor as a whole, and equally hard to become neutron positive (thus being tritium neutral) in the economic effort.
Lab efforts dont have to deal with these types of issues.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - memtigbb - 12-12-2022 03:37 PM
I have always believed fusion was possible and it would be our best chance for energy. I just shake my head at the solar panel/windmill/morons.... all that time and money wasted on subpar BS and then when the real thing comes along it is all dust and smoke.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - VA49er - 12-12-2022 03:49 PM
How will they contain the fusion?
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - gdunn - 12-12-2022 03:50 PM
(12-12-2022 03:49 PM)VA49er Wrote: How will they contain the fusion?
That's future people problems.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - VA49er - 12-12-2022 03:53 PM
(12-12-2022 03:50 PM)gdunn Wrote:(12-12-2022 03:49 PM)VA49er Wrote: How will they contain the fusion?
That's future people problems.
lol, yeah, but I think I confused fusion and fission.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - bullet - 12-12-2022 04:14 PM
(12-12-2022 02:43 PM)Gamenole Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:36 PM)Kruciff Wrote:(12-12-2022 02:35 PM)EigenEagle Wrote: Hope it's true but nuclear fusion has been so elusive for such a long time I'm skeptical.
Me too brother. The saying "Fusion is always 10 years away" hasn't failed us yet. I'm cautiously optimistic this time.
Secretary Granholm is supposed to make the announcement herself tomorrow and it is being billed as "a major scientific breakthrough", so hopefully we are really on track for clean, cheap energy from fusion. Bad news for Putin and the OPEC crowd if we are...
https://www.powermag.com/u-s-officials-set-to-announce-fusion-energy-breakthrough/
Sounds like the Dems are selling oil short and coming up with a way to make oil prices drop. Pelosi will no longer be speaker. Has to find some way to make money.
Fusion is the Holy Grail of energy. Nothing has happened since the 70s and its always just around the corner.
RE: U.S. to announce Scientific Breakthrough on Fusion Energy - UofMstateU - 12-12-2022 04:41 PM
(12-12-2022 03:16 PM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote: Chinese announced a major fusion energy breakthrough on Wednesday.
The probably stole and read the report from the department of energy.