New record for fusion

a reply to: playswithmachines

Welcome back!!

The amount of “usable energy” from nuclear fusion is really impressive! Most don’t understand that the “hot plasma” is less than a fluorescent light bulb! But as the magnetic pressure increases we get those conditions in controlled nuclear fusion.

With Mr. Bedlam gone, it’s nice to talk to someone who actually deals with this amount of energy! Really, The kEv amount to push electrons away and protons together is it’s own concept but then to add layer after layer (to get TD to even happen) is so much calculations that we really cannot do as an academic exercise.

And if, like you, have a “way different approach” that is not how they are approaching the same idea they will ignore you until they can no longer.

I do love your exchanges Bedlam about the technical details (it takes me a week to read up, become familiar, and feel confidence in responding. And some of your posts are conceptually challenging and I do not respond. But we need that!)

Anyway, I have a memory of fusion reactors “twisting” the plasma like a wet towel, lengthwise, which solves the problem of “steady state”.

But it is a “memory of the future” and I have not seen it yet!!

How weird is that??!!!

Love ya bro!!! (Hehehe!!)

Hi ATS!!

Way back in the old, old times [5 YA!! LOL!], a young TEOT decided to start a nuclear fusion thread about MIT doing some plasma research and hitting, "2 atmospheres for 2 seconds at 85 million degrees", or something like that. Since then so many leaps and bounds have happened that I am surprised that some start up is not further along than we think (and the same can be said about a certain aerospace company that makes jets...). Seasons change, records come and go, research continues, lockdowns happen, people switch jobs,... time passes!

And nuclear research has reached a level where regular people are starting to wonder if nuclear fusion is "less than 30 years away"!!

For those not tracking fusion advances, here are a couple that you may have missed:

* Wendelstein 7X had a complete shake down of it's conceptual design and was verified by super computers. At the same time, researchers found that W7X's external magnets (the design is known as a stellarator) can also be applied to tokamaks (the donut shaped reactor). Edge Instabilities can be smoothed out in both types of reactors by using relatively low level magnets that are external to the reactor vessel!
* Commonwealth Fusion had test and proven at 20 T superconducting magnet. While a great milestone and technical achievement, the less glamorous side of research is the real winner: logistics! Now, there is a set manufacturer, technique, and methodologies to construct these modular magnets so constructing multiple fusion reactors becomes a tenable reality.

Speaking of reality, here is some news that demonstrates how far research has come (and yet to go),

The Korea Institute of Fusion Energy has set a new record by running at one million degrees and maintaining super-hot plasma for 30 seconds, beating its own previous record by 10 seconds, a report by New Atlas reveals.

The tokamak reactor used for the record run is the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR)[...]

24 November 2021, interestingengineering.com: A South Korean Artificial Sun Reactor Just Broke a Nuclear Fusion Record.

A few short years and we have gone from a few seconds barely reaching 80 million degree, to high pressure, high performance (HP mode), which was only a theory, in KSTAR!!

With all major reactors sharing machine control code software, and plasma run data, and all these advancements made in reactor materials, nuclear fusion does not seem to still be 30 years away!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Its not going to work and its proved it will not work due to plasma/magnetic field interaction instability and 6 degrees of freedom for the plasma to kink...hit the wall and lose energy.

Fusion power is over rated and will produce TONS of radioactive waste and is very expensive and dangerous causing massive pollution.

a reply to: dogstar23

Its a scam. Too big to fail titanic A giant white elephant.

No one has explained how they going to get USEFUL energy out from the SUPER DELICATE SUPER STRONG SUPER PERFECT TOTALLY ENCLOSED fusion torus.

Any answers? No?

Just as I expected.

a reply to: championoftruth

It is the same as being done in nuclear fission: energy blanket.

There is a tech proven mixture of flouride, lithium, and beryllium called FLiBe that absorbs fast neutrons and transfers the kinetic energy to heat. FLiBe is a salt mixture and can heat up to higher than boiling water. So they take the heat, boil water to turn a turbine and make electricity.

The lithium actually creates tritium which, when cleaned of impurities is fed back into the reactor as fuel.

The reactor walls are sacrificed in this configuration. The better way is to circulate lithium so it liquidates, allow it condense at the bottom of the reactor, clean/recycle it, again, use the heat to turn a turbine but use supercritical CO2 because it is more energy efficient. You atore excess electricity as redox flow batteries or hydrogen (in the form of ammonia).

Energy prices fall through the floor. Fossil fuels are no. longer required as a source of energy and everyone pays for this like a life insurance table rate. And the energy becomes “free” and everyone doesn’t pay attention to where it comes from.

And we make too much… and head to the stars!!

a reply to: championoftruth

A half life of 12 years is better than 10,000 years (for everyone’s info, a “half life” is the amount of time it takes for half the radioactive material to decay).

100 years beats 9,900 years for the same material to no longer be radioactive.

Your argument is FUD. Keep on throwing around the term “nuclear” and “radiation” to keep FUD at an all time high!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

fission does not NEED magnetic fields coils. for fusion it is INSTRUMENTAL.


So its just a flop as no USEFUL energy can be obtained without the thing fizzling out...

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Again you are very ignorant. and brainwashed by the fusion lobby and propaganda.

thebulletin.org...

a reply to: championoftruth

Hum. It is science not political statements that i speak about not hype or agendas.

Learn some math and physics and you may find that you need to change your view. If you can understand “Q = 1” then you can actually say something meaningful about fusion being a pipe dream. Until then, thanks for the opinion!

Anyway, back to ahow!


There is a write up in IEEE Spectrum about Z-pinch research in Seattle getting a running atart and having a reactor up by next year (they started in 2017 which is unbelievable aince nuclear fusion is always “30 years away”!)

The basic idea is to stream plasma faster on the outside than the fuel on the inside (which being confined heats and then reacts. No external magnets needed as the surrounding plasma generates a field… gove the article a read!).

Anyway, this is also how Lockheed’s genertates some of its confinement fields (they let the plasma ooze towards the reactor walls and push it back with a higher magnetic field forcing the plasma towards the ends where it is shot back towards the center (thus creating a Z-pinch type condition) and they shoot more furl and heat into the plasma and keep on circulating until fusion. They sacrafice the reactor to collect the fast neutrons in a FliBe energy blanket and generate heat and tritium for more energy).

Well, this should help explain what Lockheed is doing and how those rocket engines are working!!

spectrum.ieee.org...

(Not bad for an ignorant, brainwashed idiot, huh??

)

a reply to: championoftruth

Well, 3peer reviews also seem to be “brainwashed by the fusion lobby”

Interesting Engineering, Breakthrough in Nnuclear Fusion Energy: Ignition Confirmed in 1.3 MJ shot.

NIF fired 192 lasers at an improved fuel target. A year later, and 3 peer reviews, they are confirmed to have reached the ignition regime.

Real science takes time. And now there is evidence that we have reached the conditions for nuclear fusion using lasers.

No lobby needed!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I read both articles but I don't really understand what they have accomplished.

They achieved something in 2021 for output I guess and the other article is from 2022 which leads me to believe that whatever they accomplished in 2021 isn't enough to claim success.

I don't get it. Have they achieved successful fusion or not?

a reply to: Grimpachi

I just put that question thru my no-fixed-truth quantum computer that I have and guess what it says? You guessed it, it say they may have or they might not have, now that's amazing science.

I also just plugged in my coordinates for a moon landing, I'm planning a vacation... it told me I might land or I might crash it all comes down to probability.

Should I risk it or just run the questions thru my old school calculator?

I mean 1+1 might equal 2 isn't cutting it...

South Korea achieved a new record (for them) when they heated their fusion reactor to 100 C for 24 seconds. The race has been on to reach this heat regime as it will have to be maintained for actual nuclear fusion to take place. So it announced that WX-7 reached over 100 C million degrees, then SoKo’s KSTAR, followed by an announcement from China State Media saying they did the same but for a longer duration. That was the genesis of this very thread! I stated that unverified results are nothing from a nation bent on showing the world that they have the wrong ideology!

KSTAR’s results have been peer reviewed prior to the news announcement! And that means more to me because the machine language control codes are shared around the world with other fusion devices (so if one can control plasma and heat it to this regime, then others will be able to do the same!)

Anyway, here is the press release and a cross section of KSTAR reaching that regime! Enjoy!!

ScienceAlert, 9 Sept 2022 - Korea’s Fusion Reactor Ran 7 Times Hotter Than The Sun For Almost 30 Seconds.

YouTube vid (from above article):



(Shows KSTAR in cross section of the plasma and apparently a thermometer read out as they hit the 100 million C mark. Note: KSTAR is not equipped to currently run at that temperature for extended periods of time. It will be upgraded in the future but it basically hit its operational limit for this run).

Real science takes time! Good milestone!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Excellent!

I'm curious how much energy the containment drew for that 24 seconds?

Can't wait for my electric bill to go down, I'll accept anything at this point but we know it'll never be free.

A more efficient way for the powers that be to control our lives without having to do anything is always a good thing to spend money on.

a reply to: iamthevirus

I knd of think of electricity from fusion as being like an actuary table - you pay for your estimated usage over your lifetime. It would be to little to stick a meter in front of your electric flow rate and would not be correct. And if you use more you get charged the difference. And they will always charge you for maintenance (replacement of parts, and radioactive storage) but that still does not add up to what is being charged today!

Everything will have to change (notice household appliances all becoming electric?? It is already happening!) The easist to notice will be energy storage and transmission. That is because it only makes sense to upgrade end to end transfer of energy with an abundant energy source).

The whole world will change! And it is about damn time we trash these dumb ideas like the internal combustion engine for one person to move around burning petroleum products and polluting the atmosphere!

So think. “Chemical, mechanical, and thermal” seem to be the choices. So watch to see if any of this tech “becomes viable” in the near future.

Then see if the electric bill drops!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I still couldn't find how much power that containment drew, probably enough to run Seoul for a week?

1 weeks worth of power for 24 seconds, what's the return investment on that lol.

TAE Technologies is decades ahead of everyone else, private sector has its perks, should have the first plant operational by 2030 which is just around the corner.

TEOT, i really need to talk to you soon. The fusion tech is already here, but Lockheed and the DOD would rather tell you it's 20 years ahead. It is not, it is right here and now. But they will throw up all kinds of barricades. Pff i know all of them, we spent a million and 12 years on this, and still they fight.Problem is, we ran out of money some time ago, and they have a blank chequebook....

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
Hey bro, nice to see you again. Sorry i was away for so long. But i have been doing fusion research, and yesterday my tests confirmed all of it. To get a grasp of this, you need to know how all the fusion reactors work, for there are many types.
Let's see apart from the Tokamak there are also (very old designs) the (i destroyed the files recently)but if i remember correctly;
Aries, Aries 2, Sombrero, Solase, SiriusT, SiriusM and the SOAR projects, these are all different kinds of fusion reactor.
As far as i know, Lockheed are working on a fusion reactor, probably a Z-pinch setup like mine, small enough to put in a plane, probably to power a laser, since i see no other use for a 50Kw power supply in a plane that runs on avgas......but i digress. Great to be back, i will pursue this thread later, bye for now

Fusion reactions in the lab famously consume more energy to initiate than they can output.

At Jet, two 500 megawatt flywheels are used to run the experiments. But there is solid evidence that this deficit can be overcome in the future as the plasmas are scaled up.

ITER's toroidal vessel volume will be 10 times that of JET. It's hoped the French lab will get to breakeven. The commercial power plants that come after should then show a net gain that could be fed into electricity grids.

if im not mistaken.....thats a billion watts to start it up..... what kind of insane electricity bill would that be ....and who the hell is paying for that ......