Forget the Tesla connector. Give me fusion energy!

[av8or]

I want a star in the frunk!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough-announcement/

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[mkg3]

If fusion reactor can be made small and light enough, it will solve the long distance commercial electric airplane challenge...

 

[Autolycus]

As exciting as the breakthrough is from a SCIENCE! perspective, the Director of Lawrence Livermore said it would be decades before nuclear fusion is commercialized for electricity generation. But hey, if it is eventually commercialized, we could literally have unlimited power with potentially VERY few downsides like exist with all current power sources. Well, that's assuming fusion reactors don't require some minerals that are a problem -- which, they probably will, if we're being honest, since that's just the way it seems to go.

I'm just upset that Back to the Future was way off on the timeline for when we'd have flying cars and Mr. Fusion.

 

[COdogman]

So I can have fusion power retrofitted with a new tonneau?

 

[Laurent]

Forget fusion energy. I want whatever energy source UAP’s are using. Hey Lockheed Martin, how’s that reverse engineering coming along?

 

[domoplaytime]

Forget fusion energy. I want whatever energy source UAP’s are using. Hey Lockheed Martin, how’s that reverse engineering coming along?

For sure some of those are powered by hot air.

 

[domoplaytime]

Well, that's assuming fusion reactors don't require some minerals that are a problem -- which, they probably will, if we're being honest, since that's just the way it seems to go.

Like deuterium and tritium. They can't even fuse pure hydrogen yet, right? I'm not holding out hope for Mr Fusion in my lifetime unless someone sends it back from the future.

 

[av8or]

I picked up my granddaughter from school today, This makes me excited for what her future might be.

 

[Laurent]

For sure some of those are powered by hot air.

You're free to ridicule the topic as many have in the past but the US government is on the record as saying UAP's are real. I wish I knew what they are powered by, hot air or otherwise.

 

[domoplaytime]

You're free to ridicule the topic as many have in the past but the US government is on the record as saying UAP's are real. I wish I knew what they are powered by, hot air or otherwise.

I'm fascinated with the topic. I was just going for the double entendre.

 

[Autolycus]

Like deuterium and tritium. They can't even fuse pure hydrogen yet, right? I'm not holding out hope for Mr Fusion in my lifetime unless someone sends it back from the future.

Deuterium is extremely easy to obtain. It's plentiful in seawater, or at least plentiful enough and easily enough extracted that it's not a problem at all. It's current market cost is <$15 per gram and would definitely come down if there's a larger market for it because of commercialized fusion reactors.

Tritium could potentially be a real problem, but it is theoretically possible to generate ("breed" in the industry's parlance) tritium from lithium as part of the fusion reactor's normal cycle. So, there's yet another need for lithium, which is plentiful but in desperate need of better, cleaner sources.

But I was thinking about all the specialized minerals that will be involved in the machinery to produce the lasers and magnetic fields. Those will be really big machines and will probably require large quantities of very specific materials that may or may not be commonly mined now. Or maybe not. Maybe it will just use a bunch of really basic stuff that's readily available.

EDIT: Tritium is only a problem for the existing test reactors. Other groups are trying to develop reactors that will be fueled by Deuterium-He3 or Hydrogen-Boron. Those require higher temps but do have other benefits, maybe most prominently that they don't produce free neutrons, which are bad bad. Downside of He3 is that it's not abundant on earth at all. It's abundant on the moon, but that means we have to be able to mine the stuff on the moon and bring it back. That's a whole other challenge. H1 and Boron are both pretty plentiful, but it requires SIGNIFICANTLY higher reactor temps.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I think this is great but in the near term we need to heavily invest in nuclear fission plants. It might be 50 years before we can get a fusion plant online if ever. We can get a bunch of thorium salt reactors done in 10 years with virtually no waste and zero chance of meltdown.

We are so misinformed on nuclear plants and their safety today and the irony is our hesitancy is forcing power companies to keep older less safe designs running well beyond their designed operational lifetimes. This is both proving how safe even the old designs are and how short sighted humanity can be.

We can largely fix our consumption of fossil fuels in a decade if we pull our heads out of our collective asses and demand fission plants be built.

 

[Autolycus]

I think this is great but in the near term we need to heavily invest in nuclear fission plants. It might be 50 years before we can get a fusion plant online if ever. We can get a bunch of thorium salt reactors done in 10 years with virtually no waste and zero chance of meltdown.

We are so misinformed on nuclear plants and their safety today and the irony is our hesitancy is forcing power companies to keep older less safe designs running well beyond their designed operational lifetimes. This is both proving how safe even the old designs are and how short sighted humanity can be.

We can largely fix our consumption of fossil fuels in a decade if we pull our heads out of our collective asses and demand fission plants be built.

If we can solve all engineering and regulatory issues with them, small modular reactors would be a massive boon to the world.

FWIW, TVA and Southern Company have new MSR projects that were announced in 2021. We'll see how those go, but considering Southern Company's problems with constructing the new Vogtle reactors I'm not sure what might happen with the MSR projects. We really need to get to a point where the reactor design, approval, and construction is a more streamlined process -- not cutting corners but more efficient and predictable.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

If we can solve all engineering and regulatory issues with them, small modular reactors would be a massive boon to the world.

FWIW, TVA and Southern Company have new MSR projects that were announced in 2021. We'll see how those go, but considering Southern Company's problems with constructing the new Vogtle reactors I'm not sure what might happen with the MSR projects. We really need to get to a point where the reactor design, approval, and construction is a more streamlined process -- not cutting corners but more efficient and predictable.

Agreed. Some red tape is good when dealing with something that’s very safe if done correctly but very dangerous if not. It just can’t be such a high hurdle that you cannot overcome it. Personally I think there is very little political weight behind these new reactors and with political weight comes funding. Nothing cuts red tape faster than the funding to comply with the stringent standards.

 

[Craigins]

Sadly the fusion announcement is a tad misleading. The reaction generated more energy than the laser output, which is a nice achievement. But the lasers required vastly more input power to generate the beams. So it wasn't truly a net positive from a system level input/output perspective.

I'm also on the side of switching fossil fuel to fission before we reach fusion. Most hurdles are regulatory and public perception. And sadly it seems regulatory is pushed by public perception, and with the current public, I have no hope.

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