The Stellarator reactor successfully passes a helium plasma test!

[AresKrieger]

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

Well yeah the main reason the original reactors were made to be uranium was for nuclear weapons, and yes the push for it is slow, but if people would wake up they would see the benefits of thorium over uranium, no meltdown risk, and the waste isnt hazardous for 1000s of years, only about 100 which is manageable.

 

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.

Depends on the type of fission, and depends on what they achieve with the fusion, though regardless the fusion will not produce extremely hazardous material (most likely only helium as in the diagram), of course we need to actually get there first before we can determine fusion's exact pros and cons.

[RagnarokDel]

cheaper, much more of it, and no global warming

I beg to differ, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

 

 

 

 

this one cost $1000000000 euros to build

as far as nuclear reactors go, that's cheap I think.

 

 

 

 

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

I entirely disagree, you cant tuned up and down the production that easily. That's why France only uses "75%" of it's electricity using nuclear. The quantity of nuclear plants you would need to generate enough juice for the world would be ridiculous. It would take as many reactors as there are currently worldwide just to produce enough electricity for the USA and its not like the consumption of electricity is going down.

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

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.

Actually nuclear fission power is very safe if done properly. Chernobyl was a complete fuck-up from the people working at the nuclear plant and it was stupid to build the Fukushima power plant in an area with a risk of tsunamis.

[deviant88]

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

you wish, first few years there wont be anything cheaper that thing will cost billions investement to build everywhere + recovery of R&D, the distribution of electricity is still expensive and the network maintenance is still expensive + staff etc

also global warming comes from burning of fossil fuel oil/coal/gas etc in this case you could eliminate the need of gas in industry/heating and the need or burning coal/oil for the industry but you will still have the enormous ammount of cars and machines/trucks/busses etc that burn on oil thats will be the hardest one to overcome, you might be able to replace short distance cars with electric but big machines/trucks and so on still have no options for replacement but who knows removing all the other variables mentioned might just reduce emissions enough so that we can still use oil in some niche areas

[Enderman]

you wish, first few years there wont be anything cheaper that thing will cost billions investement to build everywhere + recovery of R&D, the distribution of electricity is still expensive and the network maintenance is still expensive + staff etc

also global warming comes from burning of fossil fuel oil/coal/gas etc in this case you could eliminate the need of gas in industry/heating and the need or burning coal/oil for the industry but you will still have the enormous ammount of cars and machines/trucks/busses etc that burn on oil thats will be the hardest one to overcome, you might be able to replace short distance cars with electric but big machines/trucks and so on still have no options for replacement but who knows removing all the other variables mentioned might just reduce emissions enough so that we can still use oil in some niche areas

after the initial cost of paying off the machines, the prices will drop

of course this will take a long time, its still cheaper in the long run

 

and when you have shit tons of electricity which is made in a clean way, more and more things will change to electric instead of fossil fuels

electric busses are a thing

huge trucks like this one

are electric, they just need to be powered by a generator

but with battery technology evolving it will be easy to just put a battery instead of a generator

 

so my point is that it is cheaper, and it will stop pollution

it just takes some time, so be patient!

[Trik'Stari]

you wish, first few years there wont be anything cheaper that thing will cost billions investement to build everywhere + recovery of R&D, the distribution of electricity is still expensive and the network maintenance is still expensive + staff etc

also global warming comes from burning of fossil fuel oil/coal/gas etc in this case you could eliminate the need of gas in industry/heating and the need or burning coal/oil for the industry but you will still have the enormous ammount of cars and machines/trucks/busses etc that burn on oil thats will be the hardest one to overcome, you might be able to replace short distance cars with electric but big machines/trucks and so on still have no options for replacement but who knows removing all the other variables mentioned might just reduce emissions enough so that we can still use oil in some niche areas

Climate change is a natural occurrence that is accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels, not directly caused by it.

 

It is a problem, but it's something that is inevitably going to happen, regardless of how many clean technologies we have. All we can really do is prepare to adapt to a new climate.

[Enderman]

Climate change is a natural occurrence that is accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels, not directly caused by it.

 

It is a problem, but it's something that is inevitably going to happen, regardless of how many clean technologies we have. All we can really do is prepare to adapt to a new climate.

its actually possible to reverse it

 

like we reversed the huge ozone hole that was forming

[Trik'Stari]

its actually possible to reverse it

 

like we reversed the huge ozone hole that was forming

We might reverse the acceleration we have caused, but the climate is still going to change regardless of our input. Unless we develop an ability to control the weather.

 

The Earth's climate goes through periods of instability, and has since the earth began. We are not the sole cause of climate change.

[Enderman]

We might reverse the acceleration we have caused, but the climate is still going to change regardless of our input. Unless we develop an ability to control the weather.

 

The Earth's climate goes through periods of instability, and has since the earth began. We are not the sole cause of climate change.

im pretty sure that the constant increase in temperature that has happened ever since the industrial revolution is not "instability".....

[Trik'Stari]

im pretty sure that the constant increase in temperature that has happened ever since the industrial revolution is not "instability".....

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle 

 

Do some research. We have indeed had an effect on the climate, but to expect or assume that the climate has always been stable, is just plain ignorant.

 

It's going to change, even if we undo the damage we have done. We need to be prepared for that fact.

[Enderman]

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle 

 

Do some research. We have indeed had an effect on the climate, but to expect or assume that the climate has always been stable, is just plain ignorant.

When did I say climate change was stable??

 

the exact words I said were "global warming" which is not the same as climate change, and IS caused by humans

 

or maybe you think that this is just natural, regular changes in climate?

[Trik'Stari]

When did I say climate change was stable??

 

the exact words I said were "global warming" which is not the same as climate change, and IS caused by humans

 

or maybe you think that this is just natural, regular changes in climate?

-snip

I'm saying we have accelerated it. I'm not saying we haven't done damage or don't need to do something about it, I'm saying that even if we do manage to undo what we have done, there's still going to be more climate problems down the road.

 

And yeah, everyone knows China has screwed up their environment big time.

[minimoose]

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

This may have been answered already, but when you bind say a proton and a neutron together the collective mass is slightly smaller than the two separate particles and thanks to e=mc^2 that small mass difference means a huge energy release, it's what the sun does.

[Godlygamer23]

So... Free energy? Essentially?

There is no such thing as Free Energy.

[RagnarokDel]

Actually nuclear fission power is very safe if done properly. Chernobyl was a complete fuck-up from the people working at the nuclear plant and it was stupid to build the Fukushima power plant in an area with a risk of tsunamis.

Name one place in Japan unlikely to be hit by a tsunami... Unless you do it on top of a mountain which has it's own issues when a nuclear reactor blows up like Fukushima.

[Commander Llama]

First one to fusion is the first trillionaire!

 

Or maybe money won't exist anymore or will undergo large changes.

 

Bit of a toss up. Luckily making a star in a box is hard, so I doubt we're too close.

[Agent181]

It's called the Wendelstein?

LOL

[GoldSrc]

Yes, fucking YES, fusion looks more closer now.

Sadly, the majority of people have no idea about nuclear power or even have a layman understanding on how it works that may attempt to shut it down.

Also it looks fucking badass, SCIENCE! .

[Enderman]

Yes, fucking YES, fusion looks more closer now.

Sadly, the majority of people have no idea about nuclear power or even have a layman understanding on how it works that may attempt to shut it down.

Also it looks fucking badass, SCIENCE! .

 

lol i love how they call it "designed in hell"

[Serin]

There is no such thing as Free Energy.

The sun is free. I can't even imagine the startup costs though.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just pointing out that this particular milestone has been achieved with numerous tokamak like designs.

Look as a nuclear professional, fusion probably won't be a real thing on this side of the century with commercial use after 2100 at best unless we decide to actually start giving a shit.

Like Manhattan Project levels of giving a shit. Not the terrible halfassery that has led us to ITER being by far the biggest undertaking in the last 60 years... How pitiful.

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

The sun is free. I can't even imagine the startup costs though.

There is no free way to harvest the energy of the sun, so effectively it isn`t free.

[Enderman]

Just pointing out that this particular milestone has been achieved with numerous tokamak like designs.

Look as a nuclear professional, fusion probably won't be a real thing on this side of the century with commercial use after 2100 at best unless we decide to actually start giving a shit.

Like Manhattan Project levels of giving a shit. Not the terrible halfassery that has led us to ITER being by far the biggest undertaking in the last 60 years... How pitiful.

fusion already is a real thing...

what do you think fusion rectors do

lol

they fuse stuff

 

tokamak designs already work, they just use more power than they can produce in the short amount of time they can actually be on

if the stellarator's new computer designed plasma field can run for longer periods of time then we will be able to get a positive net power output

 

its been estimated we would have nuclear fusion power in 2050, but if this design works then it could definitely come sooner than that

 

just look how long it took to get nuclear fission, only ~60 years ago we started using it

and since technology is evolving at an exponential rate, it will take far less time to switch to fusion

 

There is no free way to harvest the energy of the sun, so effectively it isn`t free.

yeah, but plants can

[Curufinwe_wins]

fusion already is a real thing...

what do you think fusion rectors do

lol

they fuse stuff

 

tokamak designs already work, they just use more power than they can produce in the short amount of time they can actually be on

if the stellarator's new computer designed plasma field can run for longer periods of time then we will be able to get a positive net power output

 

its been estimated we would have nuclear fusion power in 2050, but if this design works then it could definitely come sooner than that

 

just look how long it took to get nuclear fission, only ~60 years ago we started using it

and since technology is evolving at an exponential rate, it will take far less time to switch to fusion

 

yeah, but plants can

Dude. I do nuclear for a living (Ph'D candidate from 2015 M.S). Please don't try to argue with me on this stuff.

 

People in the industry have been saying 25 years to fusion for well over 50 years now. I gave a real actual estimate that reflects the total lack of commitment overall by world governments. Perhaps if people gave a shit (when the estimations were made) then we those estimates would have actually been accurate. It's nearly as bad as with non-PWR reactor systems except at least with Fusion we have yet to truly regress in our research. Fission has had to deal with that (due to neglect from governments).

 

Fission took us 15 years to go from first human reactor (CP-1, 1942)) to quasi commercial (Shippingport, 1957). If ITER manages to be the first net neutral fusion reactor (which at soonest looks to be 2030), it will still take numerous decades longer to start attaching them to the grid. There is no other way to put it. 

[Serin]

There is no free way to harvest the energy of the sun, so effectively it isn`t free.

I was referring to plants and the like