Support NeoGAF

[sono]

Thats awesome.


What will T-Fal think of next

 

[LiquidMetal14]

It's pretty impressive the average temperature of farts these days due to the climate change. You can feel the hot heat when you lay down the law. Probably means more hot sharts too.

 

[Nvzman]

 

[NekoFever]

3.5MJ? The German Wendelstein 7-x managed 1.3 Gigajoule (1300 MJ) over 8min in February this year. Their next milestone 18 Gigajoule for 30min within the next couple of years.

How are the 3.5MJ an impressive feat? Or am I missing something?

The US experiment is releasing more energy than it takes to start it, which is the breakthrough. There have been lots of experiments that have achieved fusion but they’ve all consumed more energy to start and sustain it than they generated.

The German experiment has broken records for the amount of energy generated and time sustained, which are also important milestones (we have to be able to run this stuff continuously if it’s to be useful in power generation), but it consumes more energy than it puts out.

A commercially viable fusion reactor will need to achieve both the American and German breakthroughs — net energy generation and continuous operation.

 

[Robot Carnival]

this is great news of course. but what I really want to know is, is there any research into turning all that energy/heat into electricity directly instead of just using it to boil water into steam to spin a wheel?

 

[AJUMP23]

I expected free energy today.

 

[kruis]

We've had that since the 60s. It's called a thorium reactor. It is also the only thing in the world that can use up our existent nuclear waste as fuel and reduce the liquid that is dangerous for 100,000 years into a brick that is dangerous for 100 years. It is also stable for a much wider temperature range, requires a small fraction of the maintenance, and if everything goes horribly wrong and fails it naturally cools instead of meltdown. It was blocked because of anti-nuclear hysteria and is still illegal even though there are working reactors in existence. Look into it and have fun losing even more faith in humanity to do the right thing (except oh hey, look, China is friendly to the idea tho and made one 2 years ago, better get western press to villainize over again it now).

China is getting things done.

World’s first commercial thorium reactor approved in China - Global Construction Review

Chinese authorities have issued an operational permit for the country’s first thorium reactor. The decision comes two years after researchers at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics unveiled a prototype, which was billed as the first reactor that did not require water for cooling.

www.globalconstructionreview.com

 

[jason10mm]

this is great news of course. but what I really want to know is, is there any research into turning all that energy/heat into electricity directly instead of just using it to boil water into steam to spin a wheel?

I believe there have been some success in direct "heat=》electricity" processes, but it's often just exploiting concepts not that much different than water to steam to turbine, really. There is a medium that does the conversion at varying levels of inefficiency and scalability is an issue. Steam turbines have the benefit of (relative) simplicity and durability at a scale necessary to power cities.

See small thermoelectric generators like the biolite

BioLite Outdoor & Off-Grid Energy | Free Shipping $99+ | United States

BioLite designs off-grid personal scale energy products for cooking, charging, and lighting. Perfect for camping, fishing, tailgating, power outages, and more.

www.bioliteenergy.com

Thermoelectric generator - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Crayon]

this is great news of course. but what I really want to know is, is there any research into turning all that energy/heat into electricity directly instead of just using it to boil water into steam to spin a wheel?

You can roast marshmallows over it.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

How are the 3.5MJ an impressive feat? Or am I missing something?

 

[EddieVanHelgen]

There's been loads of scientific breakthroughs over the last couple of weeks! What a time to be alive. Looks like the UFO hearing has lit a fire underneath some backsides and they need to get out ahead of it all.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

Wait, what’s going on with UFOs?

Here is a quick summary: Gimbal UFO - A New Analysis

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Perhaps the crowning achievement of western civilization.

Wrong.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

The US experiment is releasing more energy than it takes to start it, which is the breakthrough. There have been lots of experiments that have achieved fusion but they’ve all consumed more energy to start and sustain it than they generated.

That is wrong, because it ignores the 300 megajoules of electricity that the lasers require to heat up the plasma!
So in order to break even the fusion would have to be held up for almost 300 times longer than it currently does - but that is impossible with Laser Fusion!
Laser Fusion is not suited to power a longterm commercial reactor as there is no way to refuel it. The fuel being a tiny deuterium-tritium capsule that the lasers shoot at.
Making those capsules is very complex and you would need to feed a constant supply to the lasers to keep the fusion going. Right now its one shot - done!
The NIF being a nuclear weapons research facility that is NOT researching fusion for commercial use isnt helping there.

ITER and Wendelstein 7X in comparsion are research reactors to see if fusion can be held up as long as possible to make it viable for power generation.
Those reactors can be refueled easily, as they were designed just for that, unlike what the NIF does. Their "breakthrough" is completely usless for fusion power.

 

[Laieon]

As someone who lost my best friend to leukemia in middle school, only to then have my younger brother lose his leg to cancer when I was in high school I'm more interested in that 4th point.

This is pretty cool too though.