Believe it when I see it: US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough

I get that but HOW do we use that energy?
We cannot just plug it into the iphone . . .

Does fusion produce electricity directly?
I am googling. . . . it looks like it will use the heat.

Multiple approaches have been proposed to capture the energy that fusion produces. The simplest is to heat a fluid. The commonly targeted D-T reaction releases much of its energy as fast-moving neutrons. Electrically neutral, the neutron is unaffected by the confinement scheme. In most designs, it is captured in a thick "blanket" of lithium surrounding the reactor core. When struck by a high-energy neutron, the blanket heats up. It is then actively cooled with a working fluid that drives a turbine to produce power.

Another design proposed to use the neutrons to breed fission fuel in a blanket of nuclear waste, a concept known as a fission-fusion hybrid. In these systems, the power output is enhanced by the fission events, and power is extracted using systems like those in conventional fission reactors.[8]

Designs that use other fuels, notably the proton-boron aneutronic fusion reaction, release much more of their energy in the form of charged particles. In these cases, power extraction systems based on the movement of these charges are possible. Direct energy conversion was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the 1980s as a method to maintain a voltage directly using fusion reaction products. This has demonstrated energy capture efficiency of 48 percent.[9]"

So it can make DIRECT Electricity.
It seems no matter what the source . . .. the only way we can really use it is converting it to Electricity or Mechanical energy

Rocket River

 

No one has been saying we are 2 years away for half a century. The estimate has been from 50 years to hundreds of years to even longer. Some have said it's a pipe dream not worth investing in.

This is a massive achievement. It's still a long road. Q = 1 is more of a scientific breakthrough than anything else. You still have to engineer a reaction that is self sustaining and can product usuable power output, and then be commercially viable.

But 15 years ago there were a lot of people who didn't even think we'd ever get to this point.

 

Paul Ehrlich is gonna be pissed

"In fact, giving society cheap, abundant energy at this point would be the moral equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. With cheap, abundant energy, the attempt clearly would be made to pave, develop, industrialize, and exploit every last bit of the planet—a trend that would inevitably lead to a collapse of the life-support systems upon which civilization depends.“

— Paul R. Ehrlich

"An ecologist's perspective on nuclear power", Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report vol. 28, no. 5-6 (May-June, 1975) https://fas.org/faspir/archive/1970-1981/May-June1975.pdf, page 5.
​

https://quotepark.com/quotes/2032925-paul-r-ehrlich-in-fact-giving-society-cheap-abundant-energy-at/

 

Almost ALL of our power generation, other than solar and some fringy tidal stuff, is based on this really old technological idea:
1. Somehow turn a turbine
2. Coils of wire move between strong magnets (actually magnets spin past coils of wire in most cases)
3. AC current results in the coils (via Faraday's Law, basically)

Hydroelectric: paddlewheel near bottom of dam turns a turbine
Fossil fuel plants: steam heated by burning oil/coal/gas turns a turbine
Nuclear (fission and fusion, I assume also): heat of nuclear reaction boils water, makes steam, steam turns turbine

The thing about fusion, RR, is that it doesn't create nasty radioactive byproducts that last thousands of years. If if if engineers (not really a scientific problem anymore) can ever bring it to large scale, it would be pretty amazing: super cheap fuel with very little bad residuals (like carbon in the atmosphere or radioactive spent fuel rods, etc)

But the thing some have smartly pointed out in this thread: this recent news is just one of many tiny steps toward that goal. We have an enormous engineering problem between where we are now and where we build a fusion power plant.

It's like the difference between a little sterno can and a modern natural-gas-fired power plant. We just barely achieved the sterno can with the news that started this thread.

 

Thank you. What interested parties need to digest.

 

This is worth repeating.

 

Thank you.
I expected as much.

Which has always been one of the things about Sci Fi is that they have to make some nebulous power sources
They cannot explain how they work. .. . . not even in the abstract. LOL

Electricity. The basis for almost all human work

Rocket River

 

The general consensus hasn’t been that it is two years away. In fact a lot of very smart and educated people on the topic have said that they didn’t even believe it is possible.

This is a very big deal. There are a lot things that still need to happen but the belief is that the largest step is now over. Science is generally conservative with their estimates and they are saying 10 years at least for the infrastructure and there are other issues. As I said earlier, this may take 15-20 years before we start to see the writing on the wall - but it is likely going to happen.

It took the internet awhile to change the world, the same with gas powered cars. I remember when scientists said battery ran vehicles would be a viable option once there was sustainable investment and it is now a reality.

You and I will likely be old when it happens, and it won’t solve all of our problems and it will create others - but this will likely overall positively impact the lives of our children and grand children.

 

Are we on the 2-yard line?

Is it happening... Tuesday at 5:45?

 

At the end of the day all advanced discoveries in energy such as nuclear fission and fusion are just to create a heat source that boils water to superheated state and spins a giant spinny thingy so yes you are right.

 

Kickboxing: The Sport of the Future Since 1973

 

It could be like current fission plants without most of the shitty stuff...

Little to no 10k year+ waste to store or breeder fuel that could be used for nuclear weapons
No dependence of fuel like uranium that shows signs of depleting in 20-50 years.
More investment in 10+ billion dollar reactor tech with possibly longer lifetimes beyond 40 years,

 

Not 2 yard line, but we now know it's possible. So instead of a scientific problem, it becomes an engineering problem.

 

The energy comes from the theory of relativity.

E=MC^2

In a fusion reaction, two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. The process releases energy because the total mass of the resulting single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei. The leftover mass becomes energy.

 

Scientists ain't got s**t on Hollywood:

 

Well we have a history of dealing with evil people for energy such as Sadam, the Saudi family, and Putin. For ultimate energy, we have to go the source.