48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone
Hotter than the surface of the sun by a factor of ~18000.
Hotter than the suns core by a factor of ~7.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/#hds-sidebar-nav-1
People talk about Icarus flying too close to the sun. Motherfuckers are recreating it in labs 😂
If Icarus won’t come to the sun, the sun will come to Icarus.
In case the reference is lost, there’s a famous Muslim proverb: if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. A flipped version of this proverb has somehow also become commonly known, perhaps surpassing the correct version (in my culture at least): if Muhammad won’t go to the mountain, then the mountain will come to Muhammad.
Hotter than yo mama …. Wait a minute
Just barely though…
People talk about Icarus flying too close to the sun. Motherfuckers are recreating it in labs
This!
That’s definitely some next-gen level magic being scienced/engineered.
And some mother fucking!
The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand.
I just want to know what kind of thermometer they put into the plasma to measure the temperature. It must have been made of ice or something to not burn up.
…Icarus was a primitive savage from ancient times…he didn’t have our cool cyberpunk tech
Is… is that good?
Edit: it is!
From what absolutely little I know, yes. Sustaining the reaction at such high temps for long is, as of now, difficult.
Yeah, I decided to actually bother and read the article. That’s why I made my edit. This sounds like a very important technical milestone for the development of fusion reactors. Hooray!
This baby is gonna produce such amazing meth
I’d love to see an operating fusion reactor in my lifetime. Real sci-fi technology
Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet using my hand terminal. It can also understand what I am saying and excecute my spoken commands (to some extent at least). That’s some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended
It’s seriously insane growing up on star trek and then seeing it come to life.
Still holding out for flying cars.
And warp drive!
I don’t want flying cars because I don’t want 95% of the people around me to be driving regular cars. Can’t even use a turn signal and now they have carte blanche to drive over houses and shit?
The answer is mass transit. Mag-rail, not personal aviation.
Yeah, motherfuckers can’t even drive in two dimensions. Adding a third would be a clusterfuck of galactic proportions.
I’m waiting for the post-scarcity stuff 😭
The post-scarcity utopia only happens after the Eugenics Wars and that whole Khan thing, mind you…
Unfortunately the limiting factor on flying cars is the drivers. And the limiting factor on warp drive is the science not turning out to be a scam.
I could see AI at least solving the former.
And warp drive!
I’d take a jump drive, if warp isn’t available.
I mean flying cars are basically just helicopters.
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I think VR + generative AI is a clear pathway to Star Trek’s holodecks. Imagine being able to just say “I want to play a game I’ve never played before, in an Amazonian rainforest”, and then the AI renders the game and environment for you in VR. We’re genuinely very close to that reality.
Nice. Let’s use it for shit posting and spreading misinformation
Same is true for the printing press.
When will people understand that our tools are not the problem? It’s us!
Porn, don’t forget porn. So much porn
Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet
That’s some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended
Well played, sir/madam. Well, played.
Your toilet understands you? Sweet
Emotionally? No. Linguistically, sure.
Probably going to happen. Proxima Fusion is eyeing early 2030s for a commercial prototype and those aren’t venture capital techbros, it’s a Max Planck institute spin-out. About as hard science as you can get. Wendelstein 7X has shown that the approach works, the thing exceeded all expectations (that is: It behaves exactly as computer models said it would) and scales up without nasty surprises (much unlike tokamaks) so they’re done with the tech fundamentals now it’s about engineering something cost competitive, think requirements such as replacement parts the reactor will regularly need not exceeding electricity market prices.
really hoping ITER pulls it off or they make a new breakthrough design.
I am quite positive I’ll see reliable, sustained fusion reactions in my lifetime.
I’m also pretty positive it’ll be useless as an energy source. Still could be useful for other things though.
I’m also pretty positive it’ll be useless as an energy source.
Why? Honestly curious.
I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.
I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.
They also used to say Man will never fly.
Technically, just give it time. Politically, that’s a whole other matter.
They also used to say Man will never fly.
Sure… I’m not saying fusion will never happen (it already does of course) or even that it’ll never be net positive for energy.
Just that, for energy it’s looking to be worse than most other options.
So I’m not saying man will never fly, I’m saying something closer to flying cars won’t happen. It’s not that we couldn’t do it, just that the alternatives are better.
just that the alternatives are better.
I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.
I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.
Simply based on past and current trends. The advancement curve on fusion would need to really step it up and if we say that it can, then we also need to accept the same is possible for the alternatives which means fusion still lags behind.
Fusion would need to be extra special somehow, and from what’s happened so far, it seems less special than the rest if anything.
Naturally this is all speculative of course, and being wrong on this is great either way as one way or another we will continue to get better at getting energy.
Seems pretty useful to me, considering you only exist because of fusion.
I’m specifically referring to man-made fusion as an energy source… Otherwise essentially all of our energy sources could be called “fusion” since they all trace back to it in one way or another.
48 seconds at those temperatures is no joke, that is pretty amazing. I didn’t see the article elaborate on what the current limiting factors are for pushing beyond 48 seconds. Like I wonder if it’s a hard wall, a new engineering challenge, a tweak needed, etc. this is the reactor that set the last record so they are doing something really right.
(The article touches on this bit a little) I was watching something about fusion the other day and it seems that it is super tricky to keep the magnetic field balanced in a way that keeps the plasma in a proper toroid. Not only does it need to keep the correct strength, it has to fight against random turbulence. This is critical to start the reaction, but also to maintain it.
Also, they gave some other physical limitations in the article as well:
To extend their plasma’s burning time from the previous record-breaking run, the scientists tweaked aspects of their reactor’s design, including replacing carbon with tungsten to improve the efficiency of the tokamak’s “divertors,” which extract heat and ash from the reactor.
Basically, it’s the container that has limitations as containing a pseudo-sun probably isn’t easy.
According to another commenter the heat generated is 7 times that of the core of the sun. Considering we use the sun in sci fi to destroy anything that can’t be destroyed by other means, controlling that level of heat seems like a real challenge
Yeah. Actually using that heat is the next challenge, I suppose. If I am not mistaken (and I am often mistaken), they are not actually using the reaction to power the reactor yet.
It’s all math, basically. If they measure more energy coming out than they put in, it’s considered a win.
How would they use it to power a reactor? Is it like a regular nuclear reactor where you essentially boil water to power a steam turbine?
I swear a part of my inner child died the day I found out that nuclear reactors are essentially big kettles.
It’s likely going to create steam, just like a reactor today. It is a very effective way to turn a turbine for a generator, after all. All the bits that actually start and maintain the reaction need fuck tons of electricity, so the reaction can literally power itself when attached to a generator.
While there are a ton of formulas for converting energy from heat, to steam, to mechanical energy and then into electricity, it’s all basically the same: more power out than you put in is a good reaction.
Almost forgot, water is dual function. It cools the equipment and it acts as an energy transport. I believe ammonia is more efficient in some circumstances, but water is better for obvious reasons.
Yeah, I mean it makes sense. My inner child wants there to be some sort of magic that splits the atomic nucleus (or in the case of fusion… well you know) and harnesses the energy through some sort of fancy magical-to-us-commonfolk process.
Kettles are great, but not whimsical or fantastic.
How the heat is generated is still wicked-cool and is basically magic. Think about it this way: We are holding a toroid shaped micro-sun in place with magnets. Those magnets need to be adjusted hundreds of times a second to keep everything in its place. Sure, it just boils water, but how it boils water is where the real magic is.
We are building atoms by taking control of the core of a star.
Last one I read about is just constantly and very quickly (far quicker than human abilities) adjust the magnetic field around the plasma in order to keep it stable and in place. They’ve been (or at least one team was) using AI to go over data and control and predict the field adjustments, because only reacting after the plasma starts to move hasn’t been quick enough.
Yes, that’d be TAE technologies.
The algorithm was called the optometrist, it was paired with a human operator to more quickly converge on the correct settings for stable plasma by having the machine randomly tweak various meta-parameters, while the human would generally decide whether the current settings were “better” or “worse” than the previous pulse.
I wonder if there isn’t a stable chamber shape that promotes turbulence in a controlled manner in order to prevent it getting out of hand? A little bit like the dimples on a golf ball create micro pockets of turbulence promoting laminar flow.
Unknown. There were attempts into that general idea, one of them is the polywell, but I don’t know too much about it.
They most likely ran out if liquid helium as the world is running out of the stuff at an alarming rate
This is such a ridiculous comment. I can literally go on Amazon and buy some helium right now. You really think if that’s possible, a cutting edge research lab would run out of the stuff?
Sure, it’s limited and getting scarcer, but no one’s running out yet.
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I can’t wait for the billionaires to increase our power bills for this.
Yes yes I know it would be cheaper, but billionaires are going to charge more money even though it’s costing them less.
You know, not everything has to be “eat the rich”.
This could just be a really neat science article/discussion about a fusion test, and have no need to bring up Capitalism.
The constant complaining just gets old after a while. Be focused, if you want to be listen to, and taken seriously.
Seriously, can’t we just be happy about something for a few minutes?
Seriously, can’t we just be happy about something for a few minutes?
Well, for me, it’s more of ‘quit your bitching about everything all the time, it’s annoying as F’.
Though if it wasn’t that, it would definitely be what you stated.
Edit: I don’t mean to be insulting, just expressing the irritation of it. I’m not trying to diminish anyone’s opinions on any subject, just trying to focus it into the proper conversations so that other conversations don’t get polluted (see below).
Easy to call it bitching when you have an easy privileged life.
If everyone was stuck outside in the cold, and one guy wouldn’t stop talking about how cold it is, how long before others would start to be annoyed? Yes, it’s cold out. Yes, we’re cold too. Yes, mutually complaining about the cold can be a bonding experience, especially when we can all see another group safely enjoying their warm shelter they refuse to share. But when every conversation or discussion for months on end is interrupted by the guy saying it’s cold and offering zero solutions, at some point people are going to tell him to shut up.
TL;DR: No privilege here; please stop bitching
Easy to call it bitching when you have an easy privileged life.
No, it’s not, not when you care.
When you care, you want to see opinions expressed at the right places, and in the right amounts, so they’re the most effective.
‘Bullet spraying’ the same thing over and over again everywhere just dilutes the message, and it turns people off to listening to the message, and harms the causes the opinions are being expressed for.
Yes it sure is! Just as easy as it is to not be a permanent cynic about fucking everything, because (and I speak from past experience I wish people would learn from here) that takes effort too.
Consider: the caloric energy expenditure in your pointless stating the obvious above, now multiply that by how often you do this. Carry the 2. Imagine using that on something productive! Think of the Bitcoin you could own!! All the energy needed for that Bitcoin’s gonna need at least 50 seconds of fusion.
And so: we’ve come full circle, as was prophesied.
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no
This is the thing which makes Lemmy more annoying than reddit. Every. Fucking. Thread. Has to be this same low information teenage edgelord shit about why capitalism has ruined the color green, or whatever. It’s as exhausting as it is stupid.
Half this shit has literally nothing to do with capitalism. The other 2/3 is literally shit which is the exact same or worse under the USSR/Mao. For the love of fucking God, please at least critique capitalism in a way which makes literally any sense at all and stop with this “say the line Bart” fan service.
What about throw the rich into the fusion reactor?
Don’t think the containment field could handle that.
It’s fair that the constant complaining does get old, and the eat the rich shit is VERY old. But I don’t see power bills getting cheaper as a result of this technology eventually becoming viable. At least not at first. Especially when in the US you have people like Warren Buffet who buys power companies and immediately raises prices by around 50% as a matter of routine.
But I don’t see power bills getting cheaper as a result of this technology eventually becoming viable. At least not at first. Especially when in the US you have people like Warren Buffet who buys power companies and immediately raises prices by around 50% as a matter of routine.
Ah! Now this is a conversation we can have. (Gets on soapbox.)
With all the talk about cheap fusion energy, no discussion is ever made about how it’s going to fit in with our existing capitalistic system, and what happens to all the companies that exist worldwide that currently generate energy using other/classic means.
Do they all go bankrupt? If so, what does that mean to the different economies in the different countries?
Assuming they’re willing to go bankrupt in the first place. What about if they fight back, if they flex their political power to prevent the cheap fusion energy from being realized?
Maybe they have governments subsidize them? If so, then so much for cheap energy, as we all pay more taxes to subsidize. At that point then why bother, economically that is. It still benefits the planet, so there’s that.
Maybe the world powers decide to do nothing, and just shelve fusion power altogether, to protect their existing interests. Then what happens to the planet, as we get more and more into trouble using fossil fuel energies that harm the planet? Existing renewables (solar, etc.) aren’t enough, so something else is needed as well.
We all joke and/or worry about fusion energy being here in 20 to 30 years, and how that 20 to 30 years always keeps sliding into the future, never coming to fruition. But the real problem is going to be once Humanity finally makes fusion power work practically, what does that mean to the status quo in power, and will they be accepting of it, and if not, what does the rest of us do about it?
TLDR: Does old power ‘go quietly into that last good night’ and allow new power to take over, or do they fight back? And what does that mean for all of us? And the planet?
(Gets off soapbox.)
We still don’t know anything other than wild hand waving speculation about the eventual costs of fusion power. The ultimate solution may require a ton of unobtanium-spice alloy that has been tempered in a midoclorian bath. We have no F-ing clue what it’ll cost. But I can guarantee that there will be state sponsored conspiracy theories about all aspects of it. So let’s wait before we start fighting over the conspiracies. They are not ripe yet.
So let’s wait before we start fighting over the conspiracies.
Nothing wrong with starting the discussion. I guarantee you those who have something to lose are already thinking about it.
From another article…
—not least by thinking about issues of energy equity and justice. “When we have these plants, where do we place them so that we can provide a clean energy source for all types of communities?” the NIF’s Ma asks. “How do we build up a workforce that is diverse? How do we ensure that as we are building up this industry, we are training folks to have the skills of the future? We get to at least try to do it right this time.”
As far as this goes…
The ultimate solution may require a ton of unobtanium-spice alloy that has been tempered in a midoclorian bath.
… I see what you did there. 😉
I mean, If the oil and other polluting energy companies decide to fight back, I suppose that the fusion energy company can just send them a reactor as a gift to their headquarters and detonate them. Problem solved. /S
It’s wwaaaaaaaayyy to soon to be speculating about power bills. A practical power plant is probably still about 30 years away.
Until the rich are eaten it should be brought up at every opportunity. They still exist so keep it up until they’re gone.
‘Bullet spraying’ the same thing over and over again everywhere just dilutes the message, and it turns people off to listening to the message, and harms the causes the opinions are being expressed for.
“eat the rich” is the “this” of lemmy. Holy shit is it ever getting old.
Sorry my favorite food isn’t boot leather
You tell ‘em!
Once the top 1% are eaten, there will be a (slightly poorer) new top 1%. We’ll eat them. Eventuallt we will all rise to the top and be eaten. Thus, the circle of life will continue.
Every year the people who send you bills get together to decide how big a slice of you each of them gets.
Yes, it always adds up to 100%
Or all these new companies that you now decide to charge you for power despite not actually being involved in power production, substations, or any other transmission. They exist only to drive up cost for the consumer and give a false sense of choice.
Half my electricity bill is “delivery fees” which I assume is line maintenance.
Super cheap electricity could still drop my bill by 40%
This could also translate to relying more on electricity for things like cooking and heating which would decrease carbon emissions.
Cheaper in the long run perhaps - but how expensive is it to build?
Atomic energy is only “cheap” since the cost for the power plants is heavily paid for by tax money. For the cost of one power station you could cover a huge amount of land with solar panels.
This is apples to oranges. Fusion is not the same as fission. We simply don’t know the economics of a viable fusion reactor.
However, we do know fissions cost is heavily driven by safety and regulation. It is very reasonable to assume that fusion’s requirements in this area are distinctly smaller.
This is kind of my worry as well. We’ve seen fission become impractical by cost and renewables are much cheaper, so even a successful fusion generator has a high bar. I dream of controlled fusion to not just be successful, but practical
We don’t know that it will be cheaper. We still don’t really know that it will be possible.
Lmao, I literally clicked on this thread being like “I wonder how Lemmy will find a way to whine about this.”
Hot damn! Limitless fusion power is only thirty years away!
Like it has been for the past 30 years (which, I assume, was the joke here.)
If fusion research was funded adequately we’d probably have it by now, but I don’t know if it’s the energy lobby or what that means that it’s chronically underfunded. An actually working fusion reactor design would bring about such an upheaval in the energy markets that I wouldn’t be surprised if plutocrats had a hand in making sure the research receives orders of magnitude less money than it should.
Existing energy conglomerates (ie, oil and gas) probably send their army of lobbyists around the world to spread FUD about fusion. Thus minimal funding. 🪦
Not while fusion is 30 years away. They’ll wait until it’s closer to 2 years.
Maybe. We all (here) wish fusion power was funded better and understand how useful it could be for humanity if we can make it happen, but ….
- yesterday I read about the Stellerator using 3D printed parts
- in this thread, someone commented on using ai to drive containment
- I’m sure teams must be using the latest materials.
It’s quite possible that we would have always needed the rest of the world to catch up
Breakthroughs will bring in investment and then things can accelerate if it ends up viable.
It’s not limitless, you still need fuel. Especially tritium doesn’t really occur naturally because of its extremely short half-life, current plans for ITER involve breeding tritium from lithium in the fusion reactor. The closest to limitless power we have is PV.
Tritium is a convenience, not a necessity. If researchers manage to build a functional fusion reactor which captures the energy, we can find substitutes.
A reactor that produces enough of its own fuel… It’s starting to sound like a perpetual motion machine.
Read again, there are plans to use lithium instead of tritium, still limited.
$10 says fusion power also ends up being the cure for Alzheimer’s.
The advancements in magnetic field manipulation will be of great value to the ferrite-infused prostate medicine field! Also: better selfie camera’s!
Almost as hot as the temperature my wife leaves the shower at.
You should have her turn it off when she’s done and then just set it to the temperature you like. Unless…no.
sick. cool. So uh. How long until power generation happens now?
Ah who am i kidding, it’ll be at least a decade, probably more like two. Three including manufacturing and building all the plants.
Well according to the 1993 classic, “SimCity 2000,” fusion power becomes available to build in the year 2050. Since I have no other source that provides an exact date of viability, this remians the most reliable prediction we have.
curious, has SimCity predicted anything correctly up to now?
If my experience with the game was an accurate account, quite a few natural disasters.
Wasn’t that the one with the godzilla natural disaster toggle? If so, i figure the next few years could have some fun surprises… if we’re lucky.
When did space solar unlock? The uk is building one now apparently
The bell riots, September 2024. See yall there!
i like this meta, i agree.
Ah who am i kidding, it’ll be at least a decade, probably more like two.
To be fair, they’re trying to create a miniature star and keep it controlled/contained, to use its energy. That’s some next-gen level stuff.
it’s definitely one of the ideas of all time. i just wish people would stop pretending like it’s “just right around the corner”
Meanwhile germany is burning more coal than it ever has to generate power because they no longer have nuclear energy. And gas is expensive.
Stay in school kids. Study Physics & Engineering!
yep. Given how long it’ll take to develop fusion power, multiple generations of people will have worked on it in practice, and many more in theory.
This is how we arrive at the “always 30 years away” trope.
It’s also just kind of how these things tend to go. I mean even the the funny international one ITER. Has had this exact issue, they keep pushing back deadlines over and over again. Which is only really surprising if you aren’t familiar with the tech, it’s highly complex. But it’s a great example as to why this stuff happens.
Can’t wait for fusion reactors to not be thing for another 50 years at the very least.
Better in 50 years than never
Fusion triple product:
the duration the thing worksxinverse of how close you are to melting the reactor vesselxhow large is the reactor vesselI’d like to know more. How do you actually harness the energy produced by temperatures that high? Is the end goal to figure out how to sustain the reaction at lower temperatures or do we actually have ways to generate electricity from those temperatures without losing most of it to waste?
I think the current designs would all use radiation heat, which means infrared etc light hitting the reactor walls and a coolant (water) running through them to generate steam, and then it’s the good old turbine to electricity process… Light emitted from a plasma that hot isn’t that hot itself / wouldn’t heat reactor walls to the same temps.
Steam turbines aren’t the only way, certain fuel cycles permit direct energy conversion: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion
Whey do you mean? Everything is just stream!
One day we will break that record and nobody will ever know again.
One step closer to getting the T-51s working.
Only 2,543,456,495,596 steps to go
The faster I get my steak the better
Can’t be good for our global warming problem, amirite?
