Fusion, another step closer?

[Maelstrom]

Just in:
https://www.livescience.com/jet-fusi...-energy-record

Still only in a 5 second burst, and I have not seen if their was a net gain in energy yet, but a step in the right direction!

[Cikomyr2]

Fusion go go fusion!!!

We can do this people! We can save the world!!

[warty goblin]

Definitely not energy-positive yet - they produced 59 megawatts, the experiment was powered by two 500 megawatt flywheels. I'm assuming they didn't use 100% of the energy in the wheels, but probably a good bit more than 6%. But five seconds is really good, and apparently limited only by their non-superconducting electromagnets overheating. Makes a person very optimistic for the French reactor when it comes online.

[Squire Doodad]

Wait, so we're actually at the "20 years away" part of fusion commercial viability??

[Peelee]

Wait, so we're actually at the "20 years away" part of fusion commercial viability??

Always have been.

[Rater202]

My understanding of fusion has always been "we have the knowledge but we don't have the ability." We know how it works but we don't have the tech to do it.

A good chunk of engineering is just... Making tools and then using those to make tools to make tools to make tools until you have the tools you need to make the tools you need to do the thing you wanted to do in the first place.

Or trying something just to see if it works, then write down what, if anything, about it worked and what, if anything, about it didn't so that you can refer to those notes later when you try to make a better one.

Hence "fusion is always twenty years away" line. It's just people shrugging and guessing when the right breakthrough will happen or when the combination of incremental improvements and trial and error will result in meaningful improvement.

[Squire Doodad]

Still, I think we've gotten it down from always 20 years away to always 15 years away! Now that's what I call progress!

[Eldan]

My understanding of fusion has always been "we have the knowledge but we don't have the ability." We know how it works but we don't have the tech to do it.

A good chunk of engineering is just... Making tools and then using those to make tools to make tools to make tools until you have the tools you need to make the tools you need to do the thing you wanted to do in the first place.

Or trying something just to see if it works, then write down what, if anything, about it worked and what, if anything, about it didn't so that you can refer to those notes later when you try to make a better one.

Hence "fusion is always twenty years away" line. It's just people shrugging and guessing when the right breakthrough will happen or when the combination of incremental improvements and trial and error will result in meaningful improvement.

I've actually seen one researcher formulate it as X billion dollars of funding away. Apparently, funding for fusion has proportionally gone down since the 80s.

[Radar]

I've actually seen one researcher formulate it as X billion dollars of funding away. Apparently, funding for fusion has proportionally gone down since the 80s.

That is indeed the case. The funding data can be found here. Currently we are on a good way of getting the fusion power going with ITER progressing toward completion. While it is insanely expensive, it is a prototype for actual fusion power plants. Based on the data gathered there, more efficient designs will be made and implemented.

I also have fairly high hopes for the high beta reactors developed by for example Lockheed Martin, but their success is so far a bit more uncertain. ITER is just an extension and refinement of already well tested designs. Getting a relatively new reactor design to work as intended is a bit more tricky business. If it works though, it would be far more significant due to the lower size and manufacturing cost.

[Gnoman]

"Fusion is always 20 years away" is the result of fusion constantly being back-burnered in funding and other resource allocation because it is such a long-term project. There's been a few fundamental problems that had to be overcome - the limitations of existing magnets was a big one - but the biggest hurdle is that it has never been a top-priority project. There's no guarantee that we'd have fusion plants today if it had been Manhattan Project-ed back in the 70s, but we'd be a lot closer if it had been consistently given the level of support given to other technologies.

[Maelstrom]

I think, unfortunately (and this is just my speculation, having no true insight) that fusion keeps getting "back-burnered" as a result of the technology having no real direct contribution to military technology. Until it can be miniaturized for use in mobile vehicles to power future weapons, at least... I'm sure there other factors/lobbies that are involved as well, though

[Gnoman]

Nonsense. The energy densities of petroleum products, along with the ease of shipping them around and loading them into a vehicle, make them very hard to replade in military applications. Fusion power could completely eliminate civiliam use of petroleum. That alone would make it a boon to the military.

Fusion is backburnered because it is a long-term project, and a lot of other projects offer faster payoffs even if they have limitations. Same reason why fission plants are often passed up in favor pf natural gas ones even in friendly territories- they take a lot longer to build.

[Cikomyr2]

I think, unfortunately (and this is just my speculation, having no true insight) that fusion keeps getting "back-burnered" as a result of the technology having no real direct contribution to military technology. Until it can be miniaturized for use in mobile vehicles to power future weapons, at least... I'm sure there other factors/lobbies that are involved as well, though

From a geopolitical point of view, effective fusion power would defang any nation that relies on fossil fuel as their core source of income and influence.

[Yora]

The long term effect of widespread available fusion power electricity would have such far reaching consequences that we can't really imagine them now. Since the beginning of human society and industry, the main limiting factor has always been energy. The knowledge how to do all kinds of new things and advancements has almost always existed a very long time before it was possible to gain the required energy and pay for it. Be it human labor, animal power, water power, steam power, or electricity, energy has always been the bottleneck. Getting the raw materials and manufacturing them into the components for a fusion power plant has always been hugely expensive because it's energy intensive. Once you have fusion plants to provide cheap energy, it becomes cheaper to make more fusion plants, leading to a cascading chain of cheaper energy. Nobody has the slightest clue what a global economy might look like where energy only keeps getting cheaper.
I think fusion power will be the biggest game changer since the steam engine, possibly even since agriculture.

[Radar]

The long term effect of widespread available fusion power electricity would have such far reaching consequences that we can't really imagine them now. Since the beginning of human society and industry, the main limiting factor has always been energy. The knowledge how to do all kinds of new things and advancements has almost always existed a very long time before it was possible to gain the required energy and pay for it. Be it human labor, animal power, water power, steam power, or electricity, energy has always been the bottleneck. Getting the raw materials and manufacturing them into the components for a fusion power plant has always been hugely expensive because it's energy intensive. Once you have fusion plants to provide cheap energy, it becomes cheaper to make more fusion plants, leading to a cascading chain of cheaper energy. Nobody has the slightest clue what a global economy might look like where energy only keeps getting cheaper.
I think fusion power will be the biggest game changer since the steam engine, possibly even since agriculture.

It really depends on when or if fusion power becomes cheap. Take solar panels: they do not need fuel and yet the electricity they produce is far from free. Between manufacturing and operational costs fusion power plants might not be competitive with traditional sources of energy for a long time. So this will be a gradual evolution instead of revolution. And the energy cost of building a fusion reactor is just some part of all the cost. Key element is the required precision of its elements, which will not be any easier with excess energy. The same goes with the labor needed for putting all the elements together as complexity of even a simple tokamak (like ITER will be) is far beyond what one would encounter in a traditional power plant.

There is also another reason, why there will be no energy cascade like you predict: you need to be able to use that energy for something. Extending the infrastructure takes time and there has to be a need for larger production output.

[Squire Doodad]

Take solar panels: they do not need fuel and yet the electricity they produce is far from free.

While I acknowledge the point you're making in the post as a whole, do keep in mind that solar panels are quite efficient and inexpensive. They need recycling infrastructure and have some issues, but on the whole they're doing very well. In some areas, it is more efficient to build a new solar farm than it would be to keep an old coal plant running. Solar panel farm restraints are more related to socioeconomic and especially geopolitical issues, which I won't go into here.

[Radar]

While I acknowledge the point you're making in the post as a whole, do keep in mind that solar panels are quite efficient and inexpensive. They need recycling infrastructure and have some issues, but on the whole they're doing very well. In some areas, it is more efficient to build a new solar farm than it would be to keep an old coal plant running. Solar panel farm restraints are more related to socioeconomic and especially geopolitical issues, which I won't go into here.

That being said, they only started getting economically viable fairly recently - it took a few good decades of intense research to go from first commercial products to where we are now with solar energy.

As a sidenote, further use of solar power is also restrained due to its inherent problem of not producing any energy at night and being weather-dependent. Without solving the problem of large scale energy storage, it will remain an addition to the energy mix instead of a main source.

[Squire Doodad]

That being said, they only started getting economically viable fairly recently - it took a few good decades of intense research to go from first commercial products to where we are now with solar energy.

As a sidenote, further use of solar power is also restrained due to its inherent problem of not producing any energy at night and being weather-dependent. Without solving the problem of large scale energy storage, it will remain an addition to the energy mix instead of a main source.

Good point on the time it took - we'd need to throw a lot more weight behind fusion to get it viable soon.

It is worth noting that there's been research on vanadium batteries as a way to better handle energy storage on city level usage, so that may be already solved in some regards. This would require a new set of supply lines for vanadium though, much like how sodium batteries would technically be more environmentally friendly than lithium but there isn't the infrastructure for it quite yet.
In any case, I keep on getting the sneaking suspicion that if fossil fuel R&D subsidies were to be shifted wholly to any given renewable, it'd be vastly more efficient within a year...but that's a whole other matter

[Manga Shoggoth]

The long term effect of widespread available fusion power electricity would have such far reaching consequences that we can't really imagine them now. Since the beginning of human society and industry, the main limiting factor has always been energy. The knowledge how to do all kinds of new things and advancements has almost always existed a very long time before it was possible to gain the required energy and pay for it. Be it human labor, animal power, water power, steam power, or electricity, energy has always been the bottleneck. Getting the raw materials and manufacturing them into the components for a fusion power plant has always been hugely expensive because it's energy intensive. Once you have fusion plants to provide cheap energy, it becomes cheaper to make more fusion plants, leading to a cascading chain of cheaper energy. Nobody has the slightest clue what a global economy might look like where energy only keeps getting cheaper.
I think fusion power will be the biggest game changer since the steam engine, possibly even since agriculture.

It's mostly forgotten these days, but back in the days when nuclear (fission) power plants were going to be our saviours, the hyperbolie was that nuclear power plants would be so cheap and plentiful that the companies would have to pay people to to use the power.

I suspect the limiting factors on any progress have been cost and politics - and energy availability is only a part of that.

[Vahnavoi]

The lesson taught to us by nuclear fission is that it doesn't matter if you have technology and resources to do a thing if you lack the goodwill to ever actually do the thing. At this point, I'm willing to chuck nuclear fusion in the same bin. We wouldn't even need to build fusion reactors if we had continued building fission reactors using the technology we already did use to build the existing ones. It's too late to start now - given how badly delayed some third generation reactors have become, it was too late to start in early 2000s. It will be too late for fusion too, because world energy demand was projected to double or triple from 2010 to 2040. If some other technology doesn't already fill the gap from here to 2035, we'll be talking of trying to make new fusion plants commercially viable in the middle of or even after a global energy crisis.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Fusion doesn't aim at solving the current energy crisis. Even ITER isn't meant to produce electricity on its own, and only its projected successors (the DEMO class fusion reactors) are intended to demonstrate the fusion-based electricity production. Before we see widespread fusion energy implemented, we may have to wait for 2050 or 2070. Nuclear fusion aims at solving the next energy crisis, and providing incredible amounts of energy in the very long term. But for that to even be a possibility, we have to survive that long, with fission and renewable energy, and make the transition between fuel-burning machines and electricity-powered ones, worldwide. But if we can overcome the ecological crisis, then mastery of nuclear fusion will be the greatest reward there can be, to all of us as a species.

[halfeye]

Fusion doesn't aim at solving the current energy crisis. Even ITER isn't meant to produce electricity on its own, and only its projected successors (the DEMO class fusion reactors) are intended to demonstrate the fusion-based electricity production. Before we see widespread fusion energy implemented, we may have to wait for 2050 or 2070. Nuclear fusion aims at solving the next energy crisis, and providing incredible amounts of energy in the very long term. But for that to even be a possibility, we have to survive that long, with fission and renewable energy, and make the transition between fuel-burning machines and electricity-powered ones, worldwide. But if we can overcome the ecological crisis, then mastery of nuclear fusion will be the greatest reward there can be, to all of us as a species.

There will still be heat. Global warming will not be stopped by turning to more efficient methods, though it may be slowed.

I remember when fusion power was fifty years away, and it seems it still is.

[Radar]

There will still be heat. Global warming will not be stopped by turning to more efficient methods, though it may be slowed.

I remember when fusion power was fifty years away, and it seems it still is.

As it is, direct production of heat is not an issue at all - our total energy consumption is still 5 orders of magnitude below what Earth gets from the Sun. Any fluctuations there could not shift the climate.

Emission of greenhouse gasses on the other hand results in cumulative effects that can and do upset the climate balance.

[halfeye]

As it is, direct production of heat is not an issue at all - our total energy consumption is still 5 orders of magnitude below what Earth gets from the Sun. Any fluctuations there could not shift the climate.

Emission of greenhouse gasses on the other hand results in cumulative effects that can and do upset the climate balance.

I am strongly opposed to pollution, I personally think toxic waste is more important than greenhouse gases, but that is a quibble. In the long run heat will be a limiting factor, even if we aren't there yet, supposing we eliminate the greenhouse gases and toxic wastes in whichever order.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I am strongly opposed to pollution, I personally think toxic waste is more important than greenhouse gases, but that is a quibble. In the long run heat will be a limiting factor, even if we aren't there yet, supposing we eliminate the greenhouse gases and toxic wastes in whichever order.

Nuclear toxic wastes are much less harmful to the environment compared to greenhouse gases, especially considering the care that is taken to contain them. New generations of fission nuclear plant can even use what was previously considered waste to produce even more energy. In the end, nuclear waste is not rejected in the wild and doesn't harm nature, while greenhouse gases have a very real and direct impact on biodiversity, not even counting the effect on crops and the increase in extreme weather. Also, in short, the heat we produce with human activities is completely negligible compared to how the sun heats the planet, and compared to the normal variations of temperatures due to the cosmic movements of Earth. Earth loses much more heat into space by means of radiation than all human activities produce. This really isn't a problem, and won't become one for at the very least several centuries, and only if we multiply our energy useage several times.

[halfeye]

Nuclear toxic wastes are much less harmful to the environment compared to greenhouse gases, especially considering the care that is taken to contain them.

I said toxic, and I meant toxic, I did not mention nuclear. OTOH, the nuclear toxins from Chernobyl and Fukishima weren't nothing.

New generations of fission nuclear plant can even use what was previously considered waste to produce even more energy. In the end, nuclear waste is not rejected in the wild and doesn't harm nature, while greenhouse gases have a very real and direct impact on biodiversity, not even counting the effect on crops and the increase in extreme weather. Also, in short, the heat we produce with human activities is completely negligible compared to how the sun heats the planet, and compared to the normal variations of temperatures due to the cosmic movements of Earth. Earth loses much more heat into space by means of radiation than all human activities produce. This really isn't a problem, and won't become one for at the very least several centuries, and only if we multiply our energy useage several times.

Several centuries isn't never.

[Mastikator]

I said toxic, and I meant toxic, I did not mention nuclear. OTOH, the nuclear toxins from Chernobyl and Fukishima weren't nothing.

Compared to the amount of ionizing radiation you absorb on a daily basis from CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuels? Yeah they kinda were nothing.

In fact if you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day you get orders of magnitude more radiation into your system than people who live in Chernobyl today.

[Squire Doodad]

Several centuries isn't never.

It isn't, but focusing on "several centuries if we use drastically more power" is rather short-sighted when we have real and existential threats on an ecological level, such as plastic pollution, GHGs, deforestation, and so on. And all of those have dealt damage already and will continue to do so over timescales of weeks or years, not even centuries.

[halfeye]

Compared to the amount of ionizing radiation you absorb on a daily basis from CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuels? Yeah they kinda were nothing.

In fact if you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day you get orders of magnitude more radiation into your system than people who live in Chernobyl today.

Going by Wikipedia, the exclusion zone still exists, after 36 years, so people don't live in Chernobyl today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone

[Mechalich]

Going by Wikipedia, the exclusion zone still exists, after 36 years, so people don't live in Chernobyl today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone

If you scroll down a little in that article, you'll notice it mentions that a number of people do live in the exclusion zone despite the illegality and that the authorities have declined to throw them out (the number continues to drop because these are almost entirely senior citizens). A significantly larger number of people work in the zone on a regular basis, and stay nearby. Until the year 2000, when Ukraine shut down Reactor #3, the final operational reactor, people continued to work in the Chernobyl power station, on the other reactors that were not damaged by the 1986 meltdown.