/sci/ - Science & Math

20 years from now™

fortunately we are still in a safe distance and this will not change for millions of years

>>12156571
Based
>>12156661
Cringe

>The world's first fusion reactor predicted to be capable of 'breakeven' is currently underway. Based on the Tokamak reactor design, the ITER is intended to achieve fusion for a prolonged period of time before structural integrity is affected. Construction is expected to be completed in 2025.

Most optimistic projection is 5 years until a breakeven reactor is online

Its impossible to build one. Nuclear fission power has been here for fucking decades. If Fusion were possible for us to create, wed have done it. Each field seems to have this type of hopeful tech they will eventually get but in reality its impossible to attain. For CS, its general AI and the singularity, for nuclear physicists, its fusion power. Itll never happen.

>>12156571
Dude just wait 2 weeks

>>12156571
French Ninjaed me

>>12157003
We've known about atomic theory for decades. If atomic weapons were possible for us to create, we'd have done it. Each field seems to have this type of hopeful tech they will eventually get but in reality its impossible to attain. For CS, it's electronic computers, for nuclear physicists its fission. It'll never happen.

>dude what if we made a star

ITER will not be online until 2035. Then it will run for a few hours over a few years. The project leaders will declare it a successful test. Then bulldoze it and ask for more money. So they start building a new reactor. Online sometime 2070.

>>12156571

Fusion is now an engineering problem.
If someone approached with a "get it the fuck done now" attitude like Elon did with Space flight and electric cars, we could have fusion power in less than a decade.

>>12158734
yeah nah the get it the fuck done, does exist

also we have made some good leaps we have made a way to havest the bi product which is about 3 million celcius

thats quite the achivement
but i dont think its gonna get done before 2030

>>12156471
It would be more sensible to go with thorium reactors. But what billionaire is going to invest in all this anyway? They only care about solar power and oil.

>>12156471
Didn't Lockmart claim to have fusion recently?

ITT: retards and paid BP shills

ITER will work and DEMO will work too.

Fusion without hot plasma is possible. Fusion in solids is possible. Ive done it in my garage and have free power. The setup has a black-hand self-destruct mechanism. Humans are too stupid to be given more energy.

>>12156471
How are the Germans doing with their stellarator?

>>12158835
I can already hear the screeching in Germany if they ever get a fusion-reactor running, trust them to still ban the technology while the rest of the world adapts it

>>12156471
yes
probably within the next couple years

>>12158879

Sadly, you are probably correct.
Someone will see the word "nuclear" in nuclear fusion and start a movement to ban it.

>>12156471
Between 1 and 10000 years

>>12158879
Lol

>>12158742
>yeah nah the get it the fuck done, does exist
It doesn't though. ITER is so full of absolutely bullshit politicking and utterly incompetent people and planning that "get it the fuck done" is the last thing I'd use to describe the state of fusion. We can literally get delayed for years for something so simple as countries debating over who gets to handle steel for a certain component, or even just some dipshits not making shit to standard so the whole thing has to be done nearly from scratch.
Only very recently that's started to change. But before that, we've just been fucking around for decades. If we had access to proper funding AND management who really didn't fuck around and have to tolerate whiny bitch politics from the underlings then yeah fusion would probably be well ahead of where it is now.

>>12158835
hope you speak German
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URyydXqWd2k

>>12158879
I never got this nimby crap.
>Nooo my environmenterinioooo
>Nuclear power has no carbon em-
>REEEEE CLEAN COAL, CLEAN NATURAL GAS REEEEE
The duality of the casual environmentalist

>>12158757
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html

>>12156661
does the perihelion time (January) mean that summer is hotter in the southern hemisphere of Earth?

>>12159417
I mean their summer, in January, or it has a small influence?

>>12159418
>>12159417
nah the influence is tiny

>>12156471
No because we don't have the material yet to contain the plasma without melting quickly

>>12159213
It literally goes like this
>Noooo big energy corporations make a profit of nuclear!
>Nuclear power has no carbon em-
>REEEEE CLEAN (scam renewable)! CLEAN (Renewable without stable output)!
>BAN IT IN THE NAME OF MARXISM
Now they're moving on to coal, for a lot of these activists environmentalism is vehicle for political action, in this case "Sticking it" to energy corporations

>>12159213
A deliberated campaign of fear-mongering in tandem with anti-proliferation laws have consolidated all capability to a handful of ruling countries.

>>12159503
^This, whenever I discuss it I have to listen to people talk about magical new batteries that are better AND greener than Lithium ions and are this close to being mass-produced and hooked up to solar farms

>>12156471
You see, most people don't understand what ITER is.
It's not a demonstrator by any means.
It's a modular thing where they'll test various wall materials to see how they deal with high temps+neutron bombardment.
The science of making plasma is pretty much done. This is about finding the right material to build actual reactors.

>>12160068
I like the sound of this.
But when do I get my mass-produced fusion reactor that fit into a small truck? Lockheed lied to me already

>>12160491
>small
Sorry, that's not how fusion works.
In fact, real reactors are supposed to be at least twice the size of ITER to get a good yield.

>>12156471
No. Also, the better question is why aren't fusion-fission hybrids a thing already? Or at least accelerator-driven subcritical reactors? They can use materials like U-238, Thorium or even nuclear waste. Billions are invested into something that's forever 30 years away but not in something that gives us safe nuclear power right now? I swear every reasonable attempt to advance our civilization has stopped somewhere in the 70s.

>>12157003
>Nuclear fission power has been here for fucking decades.
Nuclear fission is 1950ies science and engineering. After that we outlawed innovation in that sector because we had everything we wanted, the nukes.

>>12157325
Based brain

>>12158835
Doing my phd there currently, AMA faggots

>>12160703
How soon after you finish do you intent to pack up and go somewhere where they value your work?

>>12158835
Keeps firing up every time a jew is in the chamber.

>>12160716
I will wait till OP.2 and see if we actually reach 30 mins
I have enough money to not wageslave and sailing is pretty nice around here. Berlin close by

>>12159048
Let the Germans build the whole fucking thing and be done with it, the only fuckers i trust to not cut corners, keep percision and quality.

>>12158734
Ever heard of Helion Energy? They're not telling anything, but their hiring process hints at them being kinda close to a breakthrough.

From reddit

https://www.reddit.com/user/m

>>12160874
No anon

I've talked to scientists who said the biggest problem might be pressure. The sun's fusion reactor is held together by billions of pounds of pressure. How do you recreate that here on earth?

>>12159417
It's like this

>>12159417
in theory yes, but 90% of the energy goes to the ocean so you can only feel the impact in places like central Australia

>>12162514
Cheap larp, faggot
>magnets

>>12160509
I don't care, I want my 1m^3 reactor that don't emit radiation or heat, just MW of energy for my private spaceship and its reactionless thruster.

>>12156571
The first electric motors were built in 1740s but only became practical for work in 1832.
The first photovoltaics were developed back in 1839, but only thanks to space money in the 60s they became viable technology to get energy.
The idea of Fusion Reactors was developped in 1946, in the 90s we made the first viable fusion reactions. We are expecting net-gain fusion reactions by the 30s, the timescale is nothing to sneer at.

>>12163573
Based, get a load of this anon, ideologically blind /scitters

>>12157003
Nuclear fission power has been available since the dawn of the universe, crudely understood for 80 years, but how to sustain a prolonged reaction safely and efficiently has yet to be achieved based upon present material science, manufacturing capability, and monetary limitations.

>>12160874
>generators

Holy shit

How is the energy from the reaction going to be harnessed? Another water boiler or are something to capture the neutrons or whatever

>>12164724
Probably water boiler, since it is wildly used already and it is a simple way of turning thermal energy into electricity.

>>12164724
Neutrons heat wall, it transfers thermal energy to the water...

>>12164724
Neutrons hit the wall, (and it is pretty hard to stop them from doing that since neutrons and magnets interact poorly, so unless you are doing fusion on more advanced fuels you will get lovely neutron radiation) wall heats up...
https://www.iter.org/mach/blanket

>>12158398
SPARC/MIT and Lockheed Martin will make viable fusion in the next 2-5 years,
ITER is a tax sink made by incompetent over-regulated Euro Monkeys, that's 20 years behind schedule, and already DOA and out of date before even being constructed

>>12156471
yes but its turned out to be a massive pain in the ass and not the silver bullet that was postulated in the early days

>>12165603
for sustained reactions ITER is the best bet

for actual fusion power a different approach is needed like a distributed array of smaller reactors that turn on for a short time on their own but together produce a steady level of power

>>12165612
sounds expensive, try to petition a shitty university that needs something to do (like GA tech, or CIT) to request government funds to develop that concept lel

>>12164902
>>12165587
>Create a miniature Sun on Earth
>Use its energy to boil water to spin a turbine
I understand that we don't have a better way of doing this, but still, fucking hell...

>>12166124
could there be a better way?