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Carbon-free fusion power could be ‘on the grid in 15 years’

Smaller magnets for fusion
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-smaller-stronger-magnets-devices-harness.html

China seems to have made some advances:
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-method-neutron.html

"The new global variance reduction method, also called On The Fly (OTF), makes the Monte Carlo (MC) codes applicable for shielding analyses of large-scale and complex fusion reactors. Relevant results have been published in Nuclear Fusion."

You also want to look at how electricity flows:
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-electricity-fusion-devices.html
"Resistivity is the property of any substance that inhibits the flow of electricity," said PPPL physicist Nathaniel Ferraro, one of the collaborating researchers. "It's kind of like the viscosity of a fluid, which inhibits things moving through it."

Perhaps another field of research can help:
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-explore-hydrodynamic-semiconductor-electrons.html
"Simple formulas usually mean simple physics," Hone said, who was astonished when Adam's postdoc, Derek Ho, built the new model, which challenges assumptions many physicists learn about metals early in their education.

I don't know if that could be scaled up.
Cubic boron arsenide looks to be the best semiconductor...Maybe a role in fusion too?

Of use?
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-magnetic-quantum-fluid-extremely-ways.html

Record set
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-papers-highlight-results-megajoule-yield.html
https://www.energy-daily.com/m/repo...d_at_the_Korean_Artificial_Sun_KSTAR_999.html

Plasma news
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-high-time-resolution-electron-temperature-density-magnetically.html

Materials for nuclear plants that don't become brittle?
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...oost-spacecraft-radiation-shielding-100-fold/
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-laboratory-explore-quantum-mysteries-nuclear.html

The latest
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-machine-turbulence-tracking-fusion-reactors.html
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-self-generated-current-magnetized-plasmas.html

On plasma for space
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-plasma-stratification-space-science.html
 
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do you get some kind of build-up, this urge to put in a billion hyperlinks into a reply until its just not possible to stop?
 
 
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Well, years since this thread started - does anyone believe fusion will be on the grid in eleven years?
 
Serveaux said:
Well, years since this thread started - does anyone believe fusion will be on the grid in eleven years?
Click to expand...
I think we'll see net production by then. I think its a long shot, but not impossible to have it on the grid in 11 years.
 
Ronald Held said:
Always 10 years from "now".
Click to expand...
Helion built the building for their net gain reactor this year and last and is starting to build the reactor inside. Initially it was supposed to go live next year but with COVID delays that pushes it into 2024/2025.
 
question fission is both power and nuclear weapon
is fusion a dual use item ,power and weapon ,if so will it be restricted to those that already have nuclear weapons?
 
tavor said:
question fission is both power and nuclear weapon
is fusion a dual use item ,power and weapon ,if so will it be restricted to those that already have nuclear weapons?
Click to expand...
so called h-bombs are fission-fusion weapons. They can't ignite without the fision reaction so they still need hard-to-find plutonium or uranium isotopes. A pure fusion weapon is theoretical but does not exist. It might be harder to create than a matter-antimatter bomb.
 
One of the problems faced by researchers are called "locked tearing modes" in the plasma....the instability-caused modes rotate with the hot, charged plasma— the fourth state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion reactions—and tear holes called islands in the magnetic field that confines the gas, allowing the leakage of key heat.

Help may be on the way:
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-hurdle-safe-carbon-free-energy.html

Plasmas are also used to make lasers more powerful
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-compact-high-power-laser-plasma-optics.html

Now, could a locked tearing mode be of use to a fusion pumped laser in some manner---turning artifact into key working part? I have this feeling that disparate technologies have within them solutions to each other's problems...

Here people use microwaves for better electronics--creating standing waves
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-microwave-oven-cooks-next-gen-semiconductors.html

TSMC partnered with Hwang, who modified a microwave oven to selectively control where the standing waves occur. Such precision allows for the proper activation of the dopants without excessive heating or damage of the silicon crystal.

This discovery could be used to produce semiconductor materials and electronics appearing around the year 2025, said Hwang, who has filed two patents for the prototype.

And now superconductors at last?
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-key-advance-physics-enable-super-efficient.html
According to the research team, this discovery could prove a historic step towards developing room-temperature superconductors. Ultimately, these could have far-reaching applications ranging from maglev trains, nuclear fusion reactors, quantum computers, and high-energy particle accelerators, not to mention super-efficient energy transfer and storage.

I seem to see a link here somehow...

Just in
https://www.energy-daily.com/m/repo...uccess_of_historic_fusion_experiment_999.html

Another advance
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-solution-major-problems-fusion.html

AI to help
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-machine-nuclear-physics.html

The material here resists heat, yet is transparent to some energies
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-heat-proof-chaotic-carbides-revolutionize-aerospace.html
"These materials bring together plasmonics, hardness, stability and high temperatures into a single material," Curtarolo said. "And they can be tailored to specific applications, which isn't possible using standard materials because you can't change properties defined by nature."
[FONT=Quicksand][/FONT]
 
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It's good to see plasma research is finding more out like this. It does seem to lend some good news for ITER, being that it's the biggest tokamak ever made. Inertial confinement fusion with lasers doesn't run into all of the problems with Tokamaks but obviously has plenty of problems of its own.

The MIT group, Commonwealth use a Tokamak and obviously think they are very close, still using 2025 as a target date, so maybe they ran into some similar observation.

I do like the colliding or pulsed beam type systems just because they get around the entire problem, though it comes at its own costs. Of all the architectures, I admit I find Eric Lerner's the most elegant in practice, but since he's a bit on the fringe, he's never going to get the funding that the frontrunners have.
 
I never bought into the idea of elegance in anything besides biology and aviation. A fix to the standard model would likely be byzantine if I had to guess.

If artificial fusion works...I think it will have a zillion parts to beat the plasma into submission.

Some news
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-fusion-million-kelvin-seconds.html

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in South Korea working with two colleagues from Princeton University and one from Columbia University has achieved a new milestone in the development of fusion as an energy source—they generated a reaction that produced temperatures of 100 million Kelvin and lasted for 20 seconds. In their paper published in journal Nature, the group describes their work and where they plan to take it in the next few years.

More news
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-method-high-energy-density-plasmas.html
An international team of scientists has uncovered a new method for advancing the development of fusion energy through increased understanding of the properties of warm dense matter, an extreme state of matter similar to that found at the heart of giant planets like Jupiter.

Advances in other fields may help
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-fundamental-quantum-physics.html

This particle accelerator using nothing but light may also play a role--NIF and Tokamak combined maybe?
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-compact-electron.html
Scientists harnessing precise control of ultrafast lasers have accelerated electrons over a 20-centimeter stretch to speeds usually reserved for particle accelerators the size of 10 football fields.

Other sources of power
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-electricity-ocean.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-energy-technology-electricity-ocean-cars.html

China's fission/fusion combo?
https://futurism.com/china-nuclear-fission-fusion-power

Plasma visualized
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-plasma.html
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Another step forward for fusion...
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-scientists-fusion-energy-sun-stars.html
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-cylinder-magnetic-triples-energy-output.html

A step back?
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-evidence-ions-differently-fusion-reactions.html
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-first-of-its-kind-experimental-evidence-defies-conventional.html
 
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US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough
Net energy gain indicates technology could provide an abundant zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels

It's a "Nice First Step". But let's not put the cart before the horse.

You still have to deal with the energy loss when transferring the heat to the Steam/Water Turbines to generate Electricity.

That energy loss is huge.

Modern Nuclear Reactor Steam Turbine is 33% Thermally Efficient.

So while you might be generating 120% power.

You have to pass it through Steam and that is only ~33-37% Thermally Efficient.

So That comes out to 120%x33% = 39.6% Energy back out.

We still have a ways to go.
 
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Paywalled…

Here’s CNET’s take on the announcement coming Tuesday, 12-13-2022:

https://www.cnet.com/science/climat...jor-announcement-expected-from-us-scientists/

Now I still like the idea of a thin, sacrificial film of iron surrounding more easily fused elements like cigarette paper being fed into a chamber somehow…the iron drawing a field onto itself as it is also hit with beams. This would be fusion’s coal, as it were….tiny dewars to smoke lithium blunts, man.

To be serious for a moment—there has to be some kind of continuous feeding of the beast…

Thermoelectrics are getting better at capturing waste heat, I hope.
 
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KamenRiderBlade said:
US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough
Net energy gain indicates technology could provide an abundant zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels

It's a "Nice First Step". But let's not put the cart before the horse.

You still have to deal with the energy loss when transferring the heat to the Steam/Water Turbines to generate Electricity.

That energy loss is huge.

Modern Nuclear Reactor Steam Turbine is 33% Thermally Efficient.

So while you might be generating 120% power.

You have to pass it through Steam and that is only ~33-37% Thermally Efficient.

So That comes out to 120%x33% = 39.6% Energy back out.

We still have a ways to go.
Click to expand...

I suppose if the reaction can be sustained without having to continuously expend external energy - even an inefficient steam/generator system could work.

Still, they REALLY need to be looking into a better, more direct means to convert that heat into power...
 
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