One step closer to fusion...

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
Things have improved... it used to be 30 years away... and then they changed it to 15, and then it went down to 10 ... now it's being rumored it's only 5! ... which realistically means it'll probably take another 30 years or so... :p
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079

crutschow

Joined Mar 14, 2008
34,280
I believe LPPFusion has them beat:

"In a breakthrough in the effort to achieve controlled fusion energy, a research team at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) in Middlesex, NJ, announced that they have demonstrated the confinement of ions with energies in excess of 100 keV (the equivalent of a temperature of over 1 billion degrees C) in a dense plasma."

But I'm sure the naysayers on this thread will have something negative to say about that.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
I believe LPPFusion has them beat:

"In a breakthrough in the effort to achieve controlled fusion energy, a research team at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) in Middlesex, NJ, announced that they have demonstrated the confinement of ions with energies in excess of 100 keV (the equivalent of a temperature of over 1 billion degrees C) in a dense plasma."

But I'm sure the naysayers on this thread will have something negative to say about that.
It's not naysaying. We've had a good handle on the science of thermonuclear fusion since the first H-bomb and Russian “magnetic containment devices” from the 50's. Plasma temperature is only one key to a total engineering solution to controlled fusion. We will eventually define the engineering standards needed to build a operational machine from the science but knowing how to make a great wheel doesn't mean you can build a working EV in the next ten years.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusion-is-always-30-years-away

Even as scientists take steps toward their holy grail, it becomes ever more clear that we don’t even yet know what we don’t know.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
Even as scientists take steps toward their holy grail, it becomes ever more clear that we don’t even yet know what we don’t know.
I agree... but ignorance works both ways. We don't know what challenges lie ahead of this technology, but we also don't know if we're near a watershed breakthrough moment
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
I agree... but ignorance works both ways. We don't know what challenges lie ahead of this technology, but we also don't know if we're near a watershed breakthrough moment
IMO watershed breakthrough moments happen in movies and very seldom in actual research or engineering. Slow incremental improvements in actual engineering are what drive technology even if the science says it's possible. This is the historic trend with controlling fundamental forces of nature like electromagnetism and nuclear interactions. I would be extremely happy to be surprised with fusion but as usual, I suspect we will get controlled fusion when we really need it.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,218
Slow incremental improvements in actual engineering are what drive technology even if the science says it's possible.
Yes, it's true. But what I meant to say is that, comparing this sort of thing to digging a deep well to find water, sometimes one breaks through suddenly and unexpectedly... the work to get to that point, however, is almost always long, hard and monotonous.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,079
Yes, it's true. But what I meant to say is that, comparing this sort of thing to digging a deep well to find water, sometimes one breaks through suddenly and unexpectedly... the work to get to that point, however, is almost always long, hard and monotonous.
Still just a step my friend.

Digging the well is only one step in a huge process of getting water to the crops for example. The problem is not finding water in the fusion case, it's designing a new universe of piping and control systems for something that melts everything without touching it while exploding from energy generation in the process.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I believe LPPFusion has them beat:

"In a breakthrough in the effort to achieve controlled fusion energy, a research team at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) in Middlesex, NJ, announced that they have demonstrated the confinement of ions with energies in excess of 100 keV (the equivalent of a temperature of over 1 billion degrees C) in a dense plasma."

But I'm sure the naysayers on this thread will have something negative to say about that.
I happen to think LPP is going to win. But it's interesting that the link is ten years old. Are they ten years closer today than they were then?
 
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