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

Unseul · Tuesday at 18:09

GGizmo said:
I'm new to this subject.

What are the practical benefits to us of nuclear fusion?

Not free energy, but extremely cheap and plentiful fuel, with no basically no negative waste. It's pretty much the key to freeing up power, and with very cheap power comes so much. Whether that's AI, sun lamps for food, desalination plants etc etc.

D3K · Tuesday at 18:16

SpellowHouse said:
Did you know that the UK government is planning on there being commercial reactors available to build by 2035?

I don't think there is any hope of that. We are a lot further away from break-even than people are caring to admit. And most of the newest solutions aren't easy to scale.

We just had our annual sales conference and our CEO had commonwealth fusion systems as a headline in his keynote speech, a one liner about how they're taking orders. Was the first I heard about it, but I'm gonna remain sceptical on it. Taking orders =/= proven and feasible

Diddums · Tuesday at 18:53

GGizmo said:
I'm new to this subject.

What are the practical benefits to us of nuclear fusion?

Gives us something to chat about, like flying cars and quantum computing.

throwaway4372 · Tuesday at 18:55

Ppl gotta find other futuristic stonks now the ai shine wore off. :rolleyes:

Mr Jack · Tuesday at 18:56

GGizmo said:
What are the practical benefits to us of nuclear fusion?

In theory: huge amounts of clean, cheap energy. It remains to see how near to that reality is.

Freakbro · 2025-01-29T08:31:33+0000

Mr Jack said:
In theory: huge amounts of clean, cheap energy. It remains to see how near to that reality is.

Probably about 30 years

SpellowHouse · 2025-01-29T09:26:36+0000

GGizmo said:
I'm new to this subject.

What are the practical benefits to us of nuclear fusion?

The fuel is almost limitless.

The reactor produces less, dangerous, radioactive material.

No chance of a meltdown.

The big question remains as to whether it can be economic.

I think a large part of the problem with traditional reactors is the public have it firmly lodged in their heads that they are dangerous. This doesn't need to be true. There are much safer Thorium reactors (sadly, developed by China) and waste recycling to reduce long-term waste (which was banned by many countries for proliferation fears, but something the UK could do).

Mr Jack · 2025-01-29T10:25:33+0000

SpellowHouse said:
I think a large part of the problem with traditional reactors is the public have it firmly lodged in their heads that they are dangerous. This doesn't need to be true. There are much safer Thorium reactors (sadly, developed by China) and waste recycling to reduce long-term waste (which was banned by many countries for proliferation fears, but something the UK could do).

The stupid thing is that preferring fossil over nuclear hasn't just made power more expensive, less secure, and produced more carbon dioxide and other harmful atmospheric pollutants; it's also put more radiation into the environment! Even including Chernobyl and all the other nuclear incidents.

StriderX · 2025-01-29T10:35:33+0000

I'm sure they're figure out in the next 30 years...

Quartz · 2025-01-29T10:46:09+0000

LostCorpse said:
surprised this didnt get picked up https://phys.org/news/2025-01-chinese-artificial-sun-fusion-power.html
The longest fusion raction is 1,066 seconds (17 minutes and 43 seconds), by the EAST reactor in China. claimed

The article says they maintained a plasma, not fusion.

GravyMonster · 2025-01-29T11:17:44+0000

GravyMonster said:
It was 10 years away 5 years ago, Turkish!

I'm just going to keep quoting myself in this thread from multiple years ago, every time it reappears on the FP.

SpellowHouse · 2025-01-29T19:23:33+0000

Mr Jack said:
The stupid thing is that preferring fossil over nuclear hasn't just made power more expensive, less secure, and produced more carbon dioxide and other harmful atmospheric pollutants; it's also put more radiation into the environment! Even including Chernobyl and all the other nuclear incidents.

Yes, and this was known back then as well. The scientists knew that coal was releasing more radiation in to the atmosphere, but no one listened.
It was fear from the public that destroyed our ability to build reactors. At one point we were world leaders, now we have to go cap in hand to the French, who kept those skills.

d_brennen · 2025-01-29T19:33:03+0000

SpellowHouse said:
Yes, and this was known back then as well. The scientists knew that coal was releasing more radiation in to the atmosphere, but no one listened.
It was fear from the public that destroyed our ability to build reactors. At one point we were world leaders, now we have to go cap in hand to the French, who kept those skills.

And the Chinese, which is eyebrow raising in it's stupidity

physichull · 2025-01-29T20:30:58+0000

SpellowHouse said:
The fuel is almost limitless.

The reactor produces less, dangerous, radioactive material.

No chance of a meltdown.

The big question remains as to whether it can be economic.

I think a large part of the problem with traditional reactors is the public have it firmly lodged in their heads that they are dangerous. This doesn't need to be true. There are much safer Thorium reactors (sadly, developed by China) and waste recycling to reduce long-term waste (which was banned by many countries for proliferation fears, but something the UK could do).

I wouldn't even say the big question is economics, they haven't even proven the concept yet.

Quartz · 2025-01-29T21:28:12+0000

SpellowHouse said:
The fuel is almost limitless.

Really? I understood lithium availability to be an issue for EVs. And neither deuterium nor tritium are common.