The Stellarator reactor successfully passes a helium plasma test!

[Enderman]

Not that many people know about this thing, but it's pretty sweet.

 

 

It is a computer engineered nuclear fusion reactor using a different design from the classic "tokamak" reactors (the donut shaped ones)

 

On 10th December, the day had arrived: the operating team in the control room started up the magnetic field and initiated the computer-operated experiment control system. It fed around one milligram of helium gas into the evacuated plasma vessel, switched on the microwave heating for a short 1,3 megawatt pulse – and the first plasma could be observed by the installed cameras and measuring devices.

 

A few days ago it was switched on for the first time to produce helium plasma, which is easier to control than hydrogen plasma, since this is just a first test.

It should be ready to do hydrogen plasma at the start of next year (2016) which is what produces all the power (when done correctly!)

 

 

I'm looking forward to see if this thing can maintain a positive energy output for extended periods of time. If the reactor can keep running for loger than all reactors have been able to in the past, the energy produced will be greater than the energy needed to start it up, and nuclear fusion - the energy of the future -  will be achieved!

 

 

TLDR: It's completed, it works with helium, and it will be tested with hydrogen early next year.

 

Source: http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3984226/12_15

[Syntaxvgm]

Great!
I have no idea what this means, because I haven't taken to time to read about any of this.

[Enderman]

Great!

I have no idea what this means, because I haven't taken to time to read about any of this.

POWAAAH!

this is the future

 

if this thing works with hydrogen, then the future gets here faster

[The Official Czex]

... The energy produced will be greater than the energy needed to start it up...

 

So... Free energy? Essentially?

[DevilishBooster]

Dude... That is wicked!

I wish there was a way to have an RSS feed for only this topic across the entire interwebs.

[Enderman]

So... Free energy? Essentially?

cheaper, much more of it, and no global warming

u gotta pay the people who run it though, and building one is pretty expensive so it will take time to recover the investment

 

this one cost $1000000000 euros to build

[Syntaxvgm]

So... Free energy? Essentially?

I'm pretty certain this doesn't break the conservation of energy? So no? Someone? 

[The Official Czex]

cheaper, much more of it, and no global warming

u gotta pay the people who run it though, and building one is pretty expensive so it will take time to recover the investment

 

this one cost $1000000000 euros to build

 

One step closer to putting one of these in my PC. Less chance of exploding over a CX, right? 

[The Official Czex]

I'm pretty certain this doesn't break the conservation of energy? So no? Someone? 

 

My 9th-grade science teacher said nuclear science breaks the laws of thermodynamics. One year ago was fun.

[Enderman]

I'm pretty certain this doesn't break the conservation of energy? So no? Someone? 

its just e=mc^2

 

 

[Syntaxvgm]

its just e=mc^2

 

-snip-

Gonna go off on a lil tangent here-

I think a lot of people with no interest in science that hear news about breakthroughs to solve energy problem misunderstand the problem and the solution.  The solution to the problem is not 'free energy' (people still believe that's a thing) but rather finding a way to efficiently produce energy from resources that are readily available in a cheap, safe and consistent manner. 

Nuclear energy as it is doesn't tick all of those boxes, but probably is the closest. Solutions like solar currently rely on rare materials to construct panels, ect. 

I hear 'why don't we just use solar panels, wind farms, ect' all of the time, 

And the answer to that reminds me of a humorus little fact- making a new car consumes a lot of energy and resources. Take a prius for example- it's estimated to be more harmful to the environment to switch to a prius than to stay with a gas guzzling car, even years later (probably given you were not gonna get a new car anyway)

Or maybe a tesla. Cool as fuck, but battery technology still relies on rare materials, like Lithium. Even beyond the batteries, things like neodymium are used in electric motors. 

So just because solar works 'well' (albeit at a low efficiency still, what is it, still less than 25% or something?), it doesn't mean it's the answer to the environment. I'm sure if the whole world switched to solar in it's current state, it might affect that availability of some rarerish materials. 

 

Anyway, where I'm getting at is getting excited over a singular thing is foolish, and the thing I've learned is there are so many factors that get in the way of cost friendly and environmentally neutral/sustainable energy. There's so much more than what's n the surface, I've come to respect that fact that I know nothing about it and we should let things play out instead of pushing people/governments to use x or y solution just yet. 

Even if this 'solves' one end of the 'energy problem', how do we store and use energy cleanly, efficiently and cheaply, including the manufacturing of the batteries ect.  People look at the cost and impact of use but not the impact of production a lot. 

[BuckGup]

I would love to have 3D modeled that

[Enderman]

Gonna go off on a lil tangent here-

I think a lot of people with no interest in science that hear news about breakthroughs to solve energy problem misunderstand the problem and the solution.  The solution to the problem is not 'free energy' (people still believe that's a thing) but rather finding a way to efficiently produce energy from resources that are readily available in a cheap, safe and consistent manner. 

Nuclear energy as it is doesn't tick all of those boxes, but probably is the closest. Solutions like solar currently rely on rare materials to construct panels, ect. 

I hear 'why don't we just use solar panels, wind farms, ect' all of the time, 

And the answer to that reminds me of a humorus little fact- making a new car consumes a lot of energy and resources. Take a prius for example- it's estimated to be more harmful to the environment to switch to a prius than to stay with a gas guzzling car, even years later (probably given you were not gonna get a new car anyway)

Or maybe a tesla. Cool as fuck, but battery technology still relies on rare materials, like Lithium. Even beyond the batteries, things like neodymium are used in electric motors. 

So just because solar works 'well' (albeit at a low efficiency still, what is it, still less than 25% or something?), it doesn't mean it's the answer to the environment. I'm sure if the whole world switched to solar in it's current state, it might affect that availability of some rarerish materials. 

 

Anyway, where I'm getting at is getting excited over a singular thing is foolish, and the thing I've learned is there are so many factors that get in the way of cost friendly and environmentally neutral/sustainable energy. There's so much more than what's n the surface, I've come to respect that fact that I know nothing about it and we should let things play out instead of pushing people/governments to use x or y solution just yet. 

Even if this 'solves' one end of the 'energy problem', how do we store and use energy cleanly, efficiently and cheaply, including the manufacturing of the batteries ect.  People look at the cost and impact of use and not the impact of production a lot. 

I see what you're saying, but fusion really is the future of energy

 

its simply the most resource-efficient energy source which produces no pollution

its not going to be cheap

these machines cost millions or billions

everyone is still going to have to pay for power for a very long time to make up for those costs

 

but the point is that it was estimated around 2050-2100 that our energy would be from fusion

if this works, that could come MUCH  sooner which would be great for the environment

[qwertywarrior]

always wondered why not go with other methods to make fusion power vs the tokamak designs

like Helion ,General fusion and Tri Alpha

 

maybe its because tokamak is more established but its bothersome but i can bet its the not the future of fusion power

 

[SurvivorNVL]

This is great for the environment, but I'm more interested in the implications of this and Thorium reactors possibly popping up in the future.  The cost of energy with the output is likely to go even further down than it is now, and coupling that with Electric Vehicles becoming popular and slowly more affordable - this may be what will be useful for making them more favorable over oil vehicles.  I like this stuff.

[Syntaxvgm]

I see what you're saying, but fusion really is the future of energy

 

its simply the most resource-efficient energy source which produces no pollution

its not going to be cheap

these machines cost millions or billions

everyone is still going to have to pay for power for a very long time to make up for those costs

 

but the point is that it was estimated around 2050-2100 that our energy would be from fusion

if this works, that could come MUCH  sooner which would be great for the environment

Right, and my point was kind of 'we should wait for solutions like fusion', cause the first solutions, like solar and wind, are not the best in this situation. 

Just because 'renewable' energy and stuff like EVs exist, doesn't mean we should use them yet. 

My next hope is a solution to this level of energy storage, batteries efficient on a different level made from gradually less rare materials- my other point, 'We need solutions up and down the whole line'

I'm no scientist, so it looks a bit bleak to me, but I know I have no idea. 

[Enderman]

always wondered why not go with other methods to make fusion power vs the tokamak designs

like Helion or General fusion

 

maybe its because tokamak is more established but its bothersome

the problem with most designs is not that they dont work, but that they use more power than they produce

 

so there isnt any point of building a billion dollar machine which will definitely not be useful to produce any power...

 

the ring reactor designs work, the only problem now is getting them to stay working for more than 30 seconds

[qwertywarrior]

the problem with most designs is not that they dont work, but that they use more power than they produce

 

so there isnt any point of building a billion dollar machine which will definitely not be useful to produce any power...

 

the ring reactor designs work, the only problem now is getting them to stay working for more than 30 seconds

waiting for ITER

[Trik'Stari]

It's called the Wendelstein?

 

[AresKrieger]

Thorium based nuclear seems like a nice stop gap if this tech takes a fair bit of time to progress, at the bear minimum we should replace the uranium reactors with it while working of fusion development, oh to add to the issues with solar, large amounts of land usage, and variability without good energy storage methods (which we don't have) those two are achilles ankles 

[Misanthrope]

Great!

I have no idea what this means, because I haven't taken to time to read about any of this.

 

I'll fumble through this explanation but bear in mind that I don't even approach layman status here: Basically this gathers the energy produced when you force 2 atoms to join into one. The inverse principle of what we understand as nuclear power (which is fission or splitting the atom into two) but it has the advantage of being a lot safer and with no dangerous byproducts left behind. Basically you're creating the same kind of reaction that happens in the sun.

 

The downside is that we don't have the (for once not an hyperbolic term) astronomical gravitational forces involved to create such process and so far it always takes more energy to create fusion than what you actually get in return. The breakthrough would be that after powering up a reactor you'd get more energy back, nearly limitless amounts in fact.

[qwertywarrior]

Thorium based nuclear seems like a nice stop gap if this tech takes a fair bit of time to progress, at the bear minimum we should replace the uranium reactors with it while working of fusion development, oh to add to the issues with solar, large amounts of land usage, and variability without good energy storage methods (which we don't have) those two are achilles ankles 

thorium is really awesome but most big companies are actually making nuclear reactors at cost and then sell u the Uranium

 

many are ignoring it because its not as profitable but out side the US mainly India and China there is a big move to Thorium power but still a bit slow

[Master Disaster]

I'm pretty certain this doesn't break the conservation of energy? So no? Someone?

Technically not, the energy it produces is already contained in the hydrogen fuel, it just needs to have the chemical reaction started off and chain reaction handles the rest.

From our POV however it is free energy as it only requires a small amount of input for a huge output, it's like the holy grial of energy creation, once we figure out how to handle the process.

[Dabombinable]

I'll fumble through this explanation but bear in mind that I don't even approach layman status here: Basically this gathers the energy produced when you force 2 atoms to join into one. The inverse principle of what we understand as nuclear power (which is fission or splitting the atom into two) but it has the advantage of being a lot safer and with no dangerous byproducts left behind. Basically you're creating the same kind of reaction that happens in the sun.

 

The downside is that we don't have the (for once not an hyperbolic term) astronomical gravitational forces involved to create such process and so far it always takes more energy to create fusion than what you actually get in return. The breakthrough would be that after powering up a reactor you'd get more energy back, nearly limitless amounts in fact.

From my understanding, if there was to be any breach in a fusion reactor and/or impurities introduced into the plasma, the reaction stops completely, which is why (apart from the lack of harmful by-products) Fusion is so much safer than fission.

[ManWithBeard1990]

I always was more of a stellarator kind of guy.

If you make it big enough it should work. The amount of emitted synchrotron radiation, which is emitted when charged particles change direction, per unit of volume decreases with increasing size. 

A stellarator is better at containing the plasma than a tokamak. Because a tokamak is a toroid shape, the windings on the inside are closer together than on the outside so the magnetic field isn't uniform, and energy is lost. It's therefore necessary to pass electricity through the plasma itself to keep it from escaping. A stellarator is different because its shape is designed such that it isn't a mere donut kind of shape, but rather has an equal amount of left, right, up and down turns. The result is a perfectly uniform magnetic field, and, more importantly, really good plasma containment.