/sci/ - Science & Math

The joke is it's always 20 years away

>>12425805
Well, China's statement was that they hope to have a prototype out by 2035, so at least now it can be shortened to 15 years for the next couple of decades.

>>12425783
If chinks manage to obtain fusion before the West, we're fucked.
This means almost limitless energy for China, they would instantly stop being dependent on oil.

>>12425853
Bomb them and justify it by saying they stole the technology.

>>12425783
I'm not a physicist but I've read a lot around that topic and basically the shortest tl;dr is that fusion is not feasible because of the fact that all the individual components of the plant must be produced specifically for that plant and model, and that there is no standardization in them to reduce the cost of manufacturing and maintenance. There are no companies that produce fusion power plant parts but companies that specialize in anything else who offer their services with a very fat premium, which must be fat because this is literally the most complex manufacturing job that you can undertake. ITER specifically, for an example, had to R&D custom tools and cranes and all that just to install the custom parts that they needed, with custom training and custom labor. All of this exponentiates the time of a project that should otherwise take less than a decade, which drops the return on investment and inflates the risk that it would depreciate by the end of the deadline, which makes the project not monetarily feasible and definitely not attractive to any sane investor.

Now the reason I'm saying this is because thanks to us exporting the dirty manufacturing to China, China has in turn evolved to the point that they excel in that and everything is significantly cheaper than the west, not necessarily with sweated labor anymore either. It's just their economies of scale functioning better than ours thanks to us being fucking retarded. If China begins speaking of a fusion reactor you should be afraid because it won't be like ITER and it definitely wont be concerned about ROI. They have everything they need and they have it cheap. The only way out of this is if the culture of mediocrity that has infected us was to somehow go away and make us produce another GI generation, but good fucking luck with that. Pic related.

Yeah, but how much financial support does china send to 3rd world countries, huh?

>>12425932
So we need to attract a wealthy investor? I'll call Musk in a bit

>>12425932
>tl;dr is that fusion is not feasible
Stopped reading there
Fuck you
It's either possible or the technology is not good enough. Shut the fuck up

>>12425939
Musk's next company should definitely be a fusion company. I know that he knows this as well and is probably way more fascinated by it than some fucking soi batteries, so what the fuck is he waiting for? We should somehow push him to make one before the eastern menace gets there first.

>>12425942
read the rest of the post and learn what feasible means
We can do it. It's not economically feasible. There's no positive return. The dollar that goes in does not come out.

Remember reading skunkworks are trying to make a fusion reactor that fits inside a standard shipping container.

>>12425862
>bombing a nuclear-armed country

>>12425853
>before the West
>West
The only viable project that Amermutts are participating in is an European project that China is part of as well.

>>12425952
>berating people about common sense on a anon forum full of shitposters talking from their ass

>>12425853
this isn't a game of civ. If one research team makes an advance, everybody else in the world gets it as well. The ONLY thing that can be kept secret is top secret military black projects that nobody knows are even being worked on, and even then only temporarily until the world notices it exists.

>>12425948
>Musk's next company should definitely be a fusion company

Why not thorium reactors? What the fuck happened to those?

>the west is slowly degrading by focusing on soft values
>while china is focusing on technology as humanity should
>china will have moon and mars colonies powered by fusion before 2050
>while the west will drown in brown

>>12425971
Shut down by oil companies.

>>12425932
The main problem you have with it is return on investment for producing "novel" pieces correct? Theoretically a fusion plant would have a lifespan similar to nuclear reactors, so 40 years old, but I've read that fusion can give 10x energy returns for how much we pump into it. It seems across its full lifespan and energy production capacity there should be profit, or at least a complete return on investment with subsidies. Otherwise, after the first fusion reactor is built, custom parts, training, ect. wont be custom anymore, we'll already have production infrastructure for it.

Standardization will happen extremely quickly, I can see a mass takeover of fusion plants after the first functioning model gets put into use.

>>12426026
>Standardization will happen extremely quickly, I can see a mass takeover of fusion plants after the first functioning model gets put into use.
There's already functioning models out there. Where's the Fusion Parts Co?

>>12425968
>this isn't a game of civ
it is exactly a game of civ, retard. maybe you don't know, but China is an expansionist crypto-communist country.

>>12425971
if thorium is good for you, so are uranium and plutonium.

>>12425783
It wont be cheaper than fission, which already is more expensive than coal. Coal is the cheapest power and yet where is your ultra industrialized dystopia? Wheres your irrigated sahara? No, the fact that coal will run out doesnt matter because it still has not, its functionally unlimited until the precise day it runs out.
Do you think the price of fuel is all that matters? The investment in fixed capital in fission is huge and bigger in fusion. People cope with "oh once you make the investment it will provide power forever" but its more like 20-30 years, much less for solar panels which are RUINED by year 10. You gotta spent trillions covering these German sunbaked plains with solar panels and then DO IT AGAIN 10 years later because they break down.

>>12425853
Oh like fission is not already unlimited? Like coal wont be functionally unlimited for centuries?
Imagine the choice, 3 billion dollars for a 2 GW fission plant, 1 billion for a 1 GW coal plant or 30 billion for a 1 GW fusion plant. There is no point even if fusion was developed tomorrow.

>>12426143
Retard.
A single uranium pellet has the same power as 1ton of coal or 3 barrels of oil
It is literally the cheapest, cheanest, densest, and safest energy source yet

>>12426154
Who gives a fuck? You can produce electricity from a lump of uranium. You need a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT!!

>>12426154
YOU CANT PRODUCE POWER FROM A LUMP OF URANIUM, A GUSH OF WIND OR RAYS OF SUNLIGHT. YOU NEED INVESTMENT IN CAPITAL. WINDMILLS, FISSION REACTORS, NONE OFF THAT IS FREE

>>12425971

China is still developing them.

>>12426163
>>12426166
As opposed to a coal plants and fossil fuels that requires litteral deep drilling that have caused multiple eartquakes, landslides, oil spills, acid rain, and climate change?

Go fuck yourself.
Either you like nuclear or you are completely misinformed

>>12426170
Still cheaper and you know what's cheaper? Natural gas. The fuel ia more expensive than coal btu vs btu but the power plants are tiny abd cheap and fast to build. This is why even infinite free uranium will never be cheaper than pricey gas o cheap coal, and this point stronger for fusion. Fusion plants will never be cheaper than fussion plants that will never be cheaper than coal plants that will never be cheaper than natural gas plants.

>>12425853
3 gorgeous dam is already free energy, it's nothing new for china
>>12425939
No
It's a problem of industry not money
China has all the industry, US is now a service based economy
>>12425968
>china will give up its edge
It might not be a videogame but china is acting like it is
And they are playing to win it all

>>12426178
lol no
What's more is that yranium is freely abundant in space that could fuel space colonies forever

>>12426183
USA has as much industry as China.

>>12426185
>source: Nuclear energy institute
No conflict of interest at all

>>12426193
Why not pull your own source then?

>>12426200
Forgot link:
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close

>>12426167
>China is developing thorium reactors
>something that the west had dreamt of for 50 years but because nobody wanted to invest in it

God damn.

Why is every country besides China so fucking worthless?

They still haven't achieved ignition or even breakeven. There is no reason to think China is any further ahead than the west.

>>12426185
Also, your (highly biased graph) only goes to 2012. Gas is cheaper than ever thanks to the fracking revolution and coal prices have plummeted due to a drop in demand since gas turbines are cheap and quick to install.

>>12426207
Did a bit more research.

>At the 2011 annual conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was announced that "China has initiated a research and development project in thorium MSR technology."[41] In addition, Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China's former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee
>In March 2014, with their reliance on coal-fired power having become a major cause of their current "smog crisis," they reduced their original goal of creating a working reactor from 25 years down to 10. "In the past, the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog," said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project. "This is definitely a race," he added.
>Currently two reactors are under construction in the Gobi desert, with completion expected in 2020. China expects to put thorium reactors into commercial use by 2030.

So China wanted to build thorium reactors back in 2011. By 2014, they had the goal to build one by 2025. But they exceeded that timeline by 5 years, and are supposedly near completion in 2020. I guess COVID-19 threw a wrench into things. Even so, they should be finished in the next few years and test it out. We could see thorium reactors for commercial use by 2030 if everything goes well.

>>12426200
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/05/what-does-nuclear-power-really-cost/
Look im willing to accept that, once you consider the price fluctuations in the coal and gas market, that its basically has a similar price as nuclear, within fluctuations. This is not a game changer, if you get basically the same ROI from coal or gas no one will invest in nuclear. Nuclear will only dominate if coal and gas start becoming scarce in a a few centuries. And it will be cheaper than fusion, fusion will be developed for nothing. Pretty sure France or China will build a single fusion plant as a point of national pride and forget about it.

>>12425783
based and ricepilled

>>12426212
That literally depends on country

The biggest solar farm in China has a nameplate capacity of 200 MWp but already costs $500M
The Bruce Nuclear Station has a nameplate capacity of 6,430 MW and costed just $6B

The difference here is MASSIVE
Not inclkuding the abyssal death rate and environmental damages

>>12426226
Forgot to qoute>>12426236

Here's the thing about fossil fuels: It's rare in the grand scheme of the universe

There may never be a planet with coal and it is in our best interest to conserve it because once society collapsed, there may not be a second industrial revolution because no coal

>>12426236
>200 MWp
>$500M

Give it to me in human terms. With 200 MWp, how many people does it support with its energy production in 1 year?

>>12426255
That's 200MWp as it assuming it runs at its peak capacity 24/7

Realistically, it runs at 12 hours a day and only 4-8 are at its peak
And if temperature is above 25C, efficiency fluctuates

>>12426257
I'm wondering how many people 200MW at an entire year will it be able to supply.

>A May 21, 2003 article in the San Diego Union Tribune describes an agreement with Sempra that –involves 1,900 megawatts, enough to supply 1.9 million homes.

So assuming this is the case, China's 200MW solar farm can supply 200,000 homes. Assuming each home has 4 people, that's enough to supply 800,000 people.

>>12426167
Seems to good to be true. What's the catch?

>>12425932
I heard from a friend doing his PhD on thermonuclear physics in ITER project that one of the biggest issues with fusion is the lack of any known or hypothetical material which can deal with neutron bombardment. Basically, all materials wear too quickly. Also, believe me or not, he said for now fusion power is a meme mostly and not feasible in the near 50 years

>>12426271
Average house uses 30kW/h a day
200mw/30kw is 6 666.67 houses.

If it runs 24/7

>>12426279
China uses 10 times less energy than the wets. So it's about 66,000 homes or 264,000 people.

>>12425783
There's a certain state that they're looking for called alpha particle self-heating, which ITER in theory could finally achieve for brief amounts of time. But this really has nothing to do with functional fusion power plants. There's a laundry list of things that won't have been solved and for which nobody can yet give plausible solutions.
For the moment there's no reason to think it could ever be commercially viable due to the insanely parasitic nature of 200M degree plasma, but it's still an area of research that is pushing the limits of technology and engineering, so that in itself is pretty valuable.

>>12425952
Yes
The best thing for this planet is for china and the us both to be wiped off the face of the earth.
Preferably with an unfortunate stray nuke lobbed at Tel Aviv on the way.

>>12425783
If the chinks get fusion before us I'll commit a hate crime.

>>12425932
This is almost spot on. ITER is a joke because of the international collaboration part. It's a fucking shambles.
China IS most likely going to achieve fusion energy before Europe and meanwhile we're still going to be stuck polishing niggers shoes and apologizing for slavery.

>>12426352
The nu-communism of modernity takes the anger of the masses and steers it away from Wall Street and the Fed, and towards their fellow class member through identity politics and what you said.
None of this would be happening if it wasn't for it but sadly when you look at any western state you see Baizuos on one side, and caricature neo-nazi KKK skinheads on the other. There's no true ideology on either radical side anymore, just egos.

>>12425938

A lot actually, pretty sure most nations want good relationship with African countries for future economic opportunities/resource rights. Tbh, we should just level them and steal their goodies.

>>12425783
Based on the current development timeline, I think we will have actually usable fusion power plants in late 21st century - early 22nd century (if I had to guess - 2070-2130)

>>12425783
30 years. Since 150 years experts say we have it in 30 years and experts are always right.

>>12426440
>we
Hahahaha retard

>>12426275
The only catch that stopped the research and development into them was they are useless in creating nuclear weaponry, which in the middle of an arms race serves no use. By the time the cold war ended nuclear had become a byword for evil and emotions took the place of practicality.

>>12425783
>artificial sun
God, I hate journos so much. What are the specs of this reactor? All I could find is that it's using some kind of advanced containment, but there's no word on what fuel it uses, what is the ignition method and so on.

>>12426624
It's China, so you should automatically assume that it's all lying and pretending

>>12426624
presumably its fuel is hydrogen, since that is the easiest element to fuse

>>12426624
What do you think is the bigger normie grabber? A title with "fusion" or "ARTIFICIAL ---MAN MADE--- SUN!!!"?

>>12426188
Of course, of course yankee
Believe that

>>12426651
Sure, probably Deuterium + Tritium, but I want to know the specifics.

>>12426188
lol here's a perfect example of an american in denial

>>12426676

>>12425938
they heavily invest and develop in africa, africa is chinas "china" . one day most of chinas manufacturing will be in africa

I feel like fusion is just the type of thing china might get going. They aren't afraid to experiment and just build a thing and see if it works with resources to actually try. They invested into ITER a lot to acquire the practical knowledge and then they will just build it bigger back home to make it work.

>>12426236
The biggest solar farm in China is 2.2GW and the price was 2.2B which included 200MW storage, similar price to equivalent indian projects so the price isn't too bad.
Bruce nuclear station is priced at 8B and that's at 1990 dollars which is more like 16B today.
At least get the latest talking point sheet next time

>>12426255
>>12426271
Using the graph the other guy provided, you have a consumption of 3.6 kwh per day, lets's call it 5 since it's from 2010. 2.2GW capacity on the farm, with a good farm having about 25% capacity factor (e.g. it doesn't work during the night which is half and it misses about half of the daylight due to dawn, dusk and not tracking the sun). That gives 500MW effective hourly production, multiply by hours on the day so 24 -> 2GWh of production per day. Then just take the houses consumption and you can power about 500k chink homes with it. Or about 50k american/canadan households. If you wanted the people then you can probably use the 4 as you said for 2M chinese.

It's pretty good stuff all things considered, solar makes a lot of power but the issue is of course that in actuality it powers 1M homes during the day and 0M homes during the night. Batteries can help with that (the one in question has a small battery) but you need lot of battery capacity to effectively use exclusively solar. Nuclear, Hydro, Wind or even Fusion would be really good supplementary source.

>>12426279
That's not how kwh works you dunce.

>>12427329
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huanghe_Hydropower_Golmud_Solar_Park
>Nameplate capacity 200 MWp
>Annual net output 317 GWh

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Station
>Nameplate capacity 6,430 MW
>Annual net output 48,169 GW·h
Laughable. Utterly Laughable

Also, I just had a typo.
Quick google states that an average couse consumes 30kw per day

>>12427390
You do realize that's 10 years old right and not actually the latest or biggest solar power plant in China, the numbers I used were for the one that just opened this year, 2.2GW capacity.
And again the price of that nuclear station is in 1990 dollars (well earlier for the A part but whos counting).

You basically have an error of a magnitude on that and 2 magnitudes on the "kwh" calculation. It's embarrassing that you even dare to quote me after that.

>>12427404
I can't find any good source for Golmud Solar Park
It just says 2.2GW.
No info on its hourly capacity.

>>12427443
>No info on its hourly capacity.
The capacity factor of all competent solar farms is about 25%. Taking that (and taking out the battery which comes in as a freebie) puts the solar farm at 3B per GW and the nuclear plant at 2.6B per GW which is already pretty good when you consider that the price is still falling rapidly (fell by 4x from your first meme post in just 8 years). Nuclear on the other hand doesn't include the end costs from the end of the life cycle which are significant. Basically they are already on par which is why people with the money actually build solar farms. If you were at all smart you would have picked a chinese nuclear plant instead for your shilling since those are quite cheap but considering you make 100x mistakes on basic arithmetic it's not a big surprise.

>>12426333
checked
it's happening

>>12427484
Yeah, assuming that it is correct
This is USA's Solar Star updated to 2020
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star
>Nameplate capacity 747.3 MWp,[1] 579 MWAC[2]
>Annual net output 1,663 GW·h, 520 MW·h/acre
Construction cost is already at $2B

Solar Panels are expected to peak at 30% efficiency and due to the fact that it is the highest consumer of rare earth minerals, it's future is doomed

>>12427507
Again, you make 100x mistakes with basic addition. Don't trust any of your ideas or thoughts.

>>12427512
Am not

>>12427484
>which is why people with the money actually build solar farms
That's actually because of those sweet government subsidies.

>>12426236
>The Bruce Nuclear Station has a nameplate capacity of 6,430 MW and costed just $6B
$6B in 1977s dollars is almost $26B in today's dollars.

>Gonghe Solar Park, spread over 298 square kilometers—a size equal to five Manhattans
>3,450MW installed capacity
Using this, we can assume that a solar farm needed to clear 11km^2 of land per mw.

Not including the amount of rare earth consumption
Or its efficiency loss (it loses 2% efficiency in first 3 hours)
Or the fact that it has a lifespan of 20-30 years (nuclear is 80)
Or battery efficiency of less than 20%
Or energy loss in the wires (as much as 60% loss if energy source is as far as a remote desert)

>>12427631
On average, a nuclear plant costs $6B per MW
It's the fact that uranium is cheap, low rare earth consumption, and built near the cities that allows it to produce so much.

>>12426624
all magnetic confinement designs have to use deuterium-tritium to get a respectable yield
pretty sure they also all use neutron beams and radio waves for heating
in a lot of ways none of the physics have changed over the past several decades. we're just making larger and more power hungry designs in the hopes of finally reaching "large enough" platforms so as to demonstrate something useful

>>12425783
We Cold War again

>>12428284
And that's a good thing!

>>12425942
*possible* does not mean *feasible*, anon

>>12429451
I refuse to change my mind and shakes my stick against God

>>12426634
This was true a decade or 2 ago but they're rapidly improving.

>>12425811
>China's statement
How can anyone take anything the Chinese say seriously? They are proven to be chronic liars and scammers, again and again, and again and again and again.

>>12428284
SPARC sounds pretty promising.

>>12426150
The first one will be 30 billion, the next ones will be cheaper. However, you are right. We WILL keep using fossil fuels as long as they exist in a retrievable form.

>>12426440
>we should just level them and steal their goodies
You and whose army? The US couldn't defeat jungle rice farmers even while using drafted GIs. Can you imagine any western nation drafting zoomers to fight a colonial war in Africa? And even then, who will mine those African natural resources at that heat and humidity? You just got rid of their own population.
It would be much easier to just keep them """independent""" and poor so they mine those resources for peanuts, AKA the current status quo.

>>12425932
>durrrrrrrrrrrrrrr muh low value-added jerbs got sent to ChINa
>no company produces parts for a technology that does exist yet

china's manufacturing is bad, and I'm not just talking about quality, it's inefficient and poorly managed. It's also more expensive than North American labour AFTER you have paid for your industrial plant, that's just NA writ large, Mexico kicks chinas ass when it comes to both price and quality.

China also lacks a sophisticated capital base and educational base. their research efforts are floundering and they are decades behind the west when it comes to almost everything. But that's ok because they have a world-class propaganda department and friends in almost every western elected office trying to convince their people that China is a threat and that they need bigger budgets to combat this rising threat.

they also have A LOT left to steal. they also lack a meaningful value-added sector, like AT ALL. the west BLOWS china out of the part when it comes to high-value industries. this would be one of them.

so what's been driving their economic miracle?

a bottomless amount force-fed financing by the CCP to achieve whatever goal they want. In one way you are right, they do not care about ROI. but this is a bad thing. it means that they will have an ever more dysfunctional and disjointed economy.

the Chinese are far behind the west when it comes to just about everything. even the headline figures are all too easy to get fixated on, its a false boom driven by government forced lending policies that favour expansion over profitability. the flip side of this is that you get a massive over-expansion of credit, and when there is a correction a lot of people will be underwater, and their economy will cave in.

want to see the outcome of when countries tried the economic model that inspired the current one in china:
>japan 1990
>tawain 1997
>Indonesia 1998
>korea 1997
China has gone further than all these countries and will fall harder.

>>12429962
holy redditspaced miga cope

>>12429964
not an agrument chinky boy

>>12429907
I would be much, much easier to use chemical weapons to completely eradicate them without ever putting a boot on the ground and then coming back later to sweep up the goodies.

The only reason wars like Vietnam exist is to enrich the military industrial complex and their shareholders.

Civilian deaths are utterly irrelevant unless they die from direct warfare, if they die from starvation or at the hands of their own people then nobody gives a fuck.

>>12425783
There are loads of efficient fusion reactors all over the place, they're called stars. They all have one thing in common, THEY'RE MASSIVE. We get fusion reactors on the day we work out how to build stars.

>>12430081
but we already have fusion reactors and clearly they're not stars

>>12425853
They would instantly stop being dependent on oil.

How? Isn't oil usually not used in power plants? But coal is?

>>12425938
a llot

I have no idea why morons keep wasting money and the time of a massive number of scientists on this magnetic confinement fusion nonsense that has not worked in 50 years and will not work in another 50. (to make any meaningful amount of energy in comparison to the input, and the investment cost$$$ are fcking off the charts.) Well, I do know why they are doing it, It's just one of these god damn public employment schemes that they are just unwilling to give up on no matter how long it takes, how much money it costs and how useless it is

This thing called LASER has been invented. Maybe use that...? Hey just an idea...

>>12426247
Let it collapse and humans can stay in the middle ages for all eternity.

>>12429304
Fuck yeah it is. We have a shot at making cool shit again, rather than wasting time on frivolous social issues

>>12430663
You kidding?
They do use that
They have 2 prototype plants. The first uses electromagnetism to achieve temperatures high enough for fusion. The other uses laser

>>12425853
Coal would still be cheaper for them

>>12425783
China 2020 lies so far:
>Less than 90000 covid-19 infected.
>Quantum supremacy
>Fusion

What's next? That they have achieved AGI?

Fuck chinks. This belongs to >>>/x/

>>12427130
> one day most of chinas manufacturing will be in africa
Nobody's manufacturing will be done in Africa. Despite being poor for a while, the Chinese have always been capable of building things, unlike Africans. Nobody goes from poor to rich without showing at least some early signs of potential.

The hardest part about progressing fusion is proving the viability of each step. The fusion test center in France that is about to be completed doesn't have the specs to actually do fusion even on paper. It's to prove the viability of a setup. They will need to build a even bigger fusion reactor to actually make fusion. If everything goes right Fusion is gonna be 40-50 years away easily.

>>12425783
>ITER to first achieve this?
ITER is a retarded cash sink, too big to succeed.
some SPARC variant reactor will by built in 1/10th the time, for 1/10th the cost and output 10x more power.

>>12425932
>theres no production line for technology that isn't working yet

no shit

>>12431111
czech'd

>>12430663
It's not even that expensive. A pool of countries spend a total of a billion or so every year researching fusion. Even if it's just the US/China each dropping a billion a year into their own independent research, it's literally nothing.

>>12430663
I personally think that it could be that Fusion is impossible without strong gravitational fields.

>>12430138
EFFICIENT

lol

>>12425938
I can answer this since I am argentine: China is very generous to us and we unironically love them. Thanks Xi!

lol

>>12431093
>If everything goes right Fusion is gonna be 40-50 years away easily.
But they said that 40-50 years ago :(