Elusive fusion reactors to be commercialised by 2025-2030... Or so they say

ChroniC said:
I mean I know your not a rocket scientist but do the math and come up with your own assumption rather than pedelling crap.
The article suggest we would only need small batteries.
Let's take a real world usage, to prove that to be complete toss. The largest battery storage device on earth is the being built at them moment to be 1.6GW.

How in the world are we gona get from a huge shortfall on days of low renewable by 50x
The answer was Nuclear but its too late now, to slow to build, and vilified.

That article is too vague to be true.
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Why don't you write a scientific article that refutes the author well evidenced findings, and get it peer reviewed and published. Then i will consider your opinion to be valid.

I am not a rocket scientist, no, but i am a scientist with a PHD, dozens of publications and multiple patents. What are your qualifications for understanding scientific publications ?
 
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mrk said:
Microsoft is now in on the action, says fusion to be used by 2028:

www.businessinsider.com

Microsoft says commercial use of fusion-produced energy will be available within 5 years as part of new deal with Sam Altman-backed Helion

Microsoft is the first company to commit to purchasing electricity produced from fusion, the clean energy source that powers the stars in space.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
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So they are planning on building a working fusion power plant in under 5 years.

I don’t even think we can build fission power plants that fast and that’s old technology. Might be a bit of wishful thinking here.
 
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Chuk_Chuk said:
So they are planning on building a working fusion power plant in under 5 years.

I don’t even think we can build fission power plants that fast and that’s old technology. Might be a bit of wishful thinking here.
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Microsoft aren't building anything, they just signed a contract to buy power at a specified price. MS don't have much to loose here, because if there is no Fusion power delivered then the contract is void and MS wins some penalties.
Helion don't even have a working prorotype that generates electicity
 
D.P. said:
Microsoft aren't building anything, they just signed a contract to buy power at a specified price. MS don't have much to loose here, because if there is no Fusion power delivered then the contract is void and MS wins some penalties.
Helion don't even have a working prorotype that generates electicity
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You've misunderstood, who "they" is referring to in my post.
 
Chuk_Chuk said:
You've misunderstood, who "they" is referring to in my post.
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actually, I just didn't make my point very clear as I knew you meant Helion and not MS.
The thing is this story is picking up news because Microsoft is in the title, but actually MS are taking on minimal risk and is not really an indication of the level of maturity of the technology. Helion haven't even proven "Scientific gain" in a prototype, so what they are selling is a complete fantasy
 
A recent Event Horizon episode featured Last Energy's CEO and talked about future goals for compact fission nuclear power which is also a compelling area of development.


The really interesting talking point is after 10 mins, where safety of current nuclear is discussed. Nuclear in itself is extremely safe, a meltdown isn't a disaster, it is a function by design, and incidents like Chernobyl are not your usual meltdown since Chernobyl was a reactor designed to create nuclear weapons fuel primarily.

Edit* Typos from mobile...
 
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D.P. said:
Why don't you write a scientific article that refutes the author well evidenced findings, and get it peer reviewed and published. Then i will consider your opinion to be valid.

I am not a rocket scientist, no, but i am a scientist with a PHD, dozens of publications and multiple patents. What are your qualifications for understanding scientific publications ?
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Link or it's bluster

P.s not that care
P.p.s just sayin
 
Gray2233 said:
Appealing to authority to the degree of the above makes me want popcorn.
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I wasn't appealing to authority because I wasn't making any claims. I don't usually provide my credentials, but you need to look at the context . ChroniC was trying to rubbish a peer-reviewed scientific article that was published in a respected journal by experienced scientists and where the authors provided plenty of modelling, statistic, data, insight as proof. ChroniC offered zero evidence of his assertions so I simply said he should publish his finding in a peer-review journal if he wants me to take him seriously. He claimed i was not a rocket scientist, failing to realise I am actually a qualified scientist with a proven record of publications, which is enough for me to know to trust the peer-reviewed scientific publication over some random internet forum user who can't provide a shred of evidence.
 
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mrk said:
[..]
The really interesting talking point is after 10 mins, where safety of current nuclear is discussed. Nuclear in itself is extremely safe, a meltdown isn't a disaster, it is a function by design, and incidents like Chernobyl are not your usual meltdown since Chernobyl was a reactor designed to create nuclear weapons fuel primarily.

Edit* Typos from mobile...
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It was also badly designed, in part from stolen and incompletely understood information. Then implemented badly. Then used for too long. Then used incorrectly by insufficently qualified people under pressure from people who had no clue at all about how it worked. But the design was really bad. The rest of it wouldn't have mattered if the design wasn't so fundamentally flawed that it could easily slip into an overload within milliseconds and was inherently unstable. The design was the opposite of failsafe.

It's no coincidence that the worst two nuclear accidents were caused by very early Soviet nuclear technology and Soviet systems of use of that technology.
 
Diddums said:
30 years m8. 30 years.
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More like it, yes. I would say at least another 30 years.

There is a huge amount of BS in the reports about fusion. They talk in terms of getting close to breakeven, but they are actually a long way away from it. They aren't taking into account losses external to the reaction itself. They are probably, currently, at about .01 not the 1 they claim. There are still very significant problems in the way of reaching breakeven.
 
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Minusorange said:

Could be pretty big for Fusion if true
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Pretty big for a long list of other things too. It's made from fairly common materials and it's quite easy to make and it's superconducting at up to 127C at normal earth atmospheric pressure. That's not how any known superconductor works. Not even close. If it's true it's a whole new type of thing with a list of uses so long it would be a book. And probably more uses that nobody's thought of yet because nothing like it has existed.

We'll probably find out if it's true quite soon because they've published some details. Enough details for people to start testing.
 
SpellowHouse said:
More like it, yes. I would say at least another 30 years.

There is a huge amount of BS in the reports about fusion. They talk in terms of getting close to breakeven, but they are actually a long way away from it. They aren't taking into account losses external to the reaction itself. They are probably, currently, at about .01 not the 1 they claim. There are still very significant problems in the way of reaching breakeven.
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The actual record for fusion is 0.67 with the tokamak at JET. That was an actual measure, i.e. total in and total out. I think you're thinking of the...creative accounting...shenanigans with the National Ignition Facility.
 
Angilion said:
The actual record for fusion is 0.67 with the tokamak at JET. That was an actual measure, i.e. total in and total out. I think you're thinking of the...creative accounting...shenanigans with the National Ignition Facility.
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You are incorrect. That doesn't take into account all sorts of losses. We are miles away from 1. This is the problem with the fusion scientists at the moment, they are greatly exaggerating their success. Not that I think they should stop, but they are misleading the public.
 
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Producing more energy than it takes to start the fusion reaction won't be that big a deal. The issue is going to be getting a stable constant fusion reaction that is creating it's own fuel, inputting that fuel, removing waste products and taking off the electricity simultaenously. The nature of the fuel and the reaction products is going to be a challenge.

Just imagine a gas turbine, air comes in is compressed, fuel is added and ignited the got gas passes through a turbine and is exhausted directly to atmosphere. The air is freely available, gas or deisel are easy to transport and inject and burn and removal of the reaction waste is easy.

For a tokamak if that is the successful product you probably require the fusion event itself to create some of your fuel with fission break down of lithium into a hydrogen isotope. The fuels must then get into a continuous superheated ring of plasma to fusion react and produce heat. You then need to get the waste products out of the magnetic confinement. It just doesn't sound straightforward as stable continuous process.

edit: a few typos
 
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SpellowHouse said:
You are incorrect. That doesn't take into account all sorts of losses. We are miles away from 1. This is the problem with the fusion scientists at the moment, they are greatly exaggerating their success. Not that I think they should stop, but they are misleading the public.
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Can you provide me with numbers and sources? I was under the impression that it was an honest "total output/total input" figure and I couldn't find anything to contradict that let alone to say that the stated figure of 0.67 was actually about 0.01 (as you claimed).

Also, the result I referred to wasn't "at the moment". It was 20 years ago.

I'm also not saying it was near q=1. It isn't. 0.67 to 1 is a very large gap in this context. As well as that, it was for about a second. q>1 would be an important milestone, but it would still be a long way from an actual power station for the reasons PlacidCasual mentions above.
 
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