48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone

  • Scrof@sopuli.xyz
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    6 months ago

    Can’t wait for fusion reactors to not be thing for another 50 years at the very least.

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    6 months ago

    Unfortunately the amount of helium made in fusion is so small as to be useless for anything humans need. Fusion is just that efficient.

  • fidodo@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I’d like to know more. How do you actually harness the energy produced by temperatures that high? Is the end goal to figure out how to sustain the reaction at lower temperatures or do we actually have ways to generate electricity from those temperatures without losing most of it to waste?

  • assembly@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    48 seconds at those temperatures is no joke, that is pretty amazing. I didn’t see the article elaborate on what the current limiting factors are for pushing beyond 48 seconds. Like I wonder if it’s a hard wall, a new engineering challenge, a tweak needed, etc. this is the reactor that set the last record so they are doing something really right.

    • ummthatguy@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      From what absolutely little I know, yes. Sustaining the reaction at such high temps for long is, as of now, difficult.

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, I decided to actually bother and read the article. That’s why I made my edit. This sounds like a very important technical milestone for the development of fusion reactors. Hooray!

  • Gigan@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I’d love to see an operating fusion reactor in my lifetime. Real sci-fi technology

    • virku@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet using my hand terminal. It can also understand what I am saying and excecute my spoken commands (to some extent at least). That’s some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It’s seriously insane growing up on star trek and then seeing it come to life.

        Still holding out for flying cars.

        And warp drive!

        • Soggy@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I don’t want flying cars because I don’t want 95% of the people around me to be driving regular cars. Can’t even use a turn signal and now they have carte blanche to drive over houses and shit?

          The answer is mass transit. Mag-rail, not personal aviation.

    • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      I am quite positive I’ll see reliable, sustained fusion reactions in my lifetime.

      I’m also pretty positive it’ll be useless as an energy source. Still could be useful for other things though.

        • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.

          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.

            They also used to say Man will never fly.

            Technically, just give it time. Politically, that’s a whole other matter.

            • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              They also used to say Man will never fly.

              Sure… I’m not saying fusion will never happen (it already does of course) or even that it’ll never be net positive for energy.

              Just that, for energy it’s looking to be worse than most other options.

              So I’m not saying man will never fly, I’m saying something closer to flying cars won’t happen. It’s not that we couldn’t do it, just that the alternatives are better.

              • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                just that the alternatives are better.

                I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.

                • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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                  6 months ago

                  I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.

                  Simply based on past and current trends. The advancement curve on fusion would need to really step it up and if we say that it can, then we also need to accept the same is possible for the alternatives which means fusion still lags behind.

                  Fusion would need to be extra special somehow, and from what’s happened so far, it seems less special than the rest if anything.

                  Naturally this is all speculative of course, and being wrong on this is great either way as one way or another we will continue to get better at getting energy.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Breakthroughs will bring in investment and then things can accelerate if it ends up viable.

    • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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      6 months ago

      Like it has been for the past 30 years (which, I assume, was the joke here.)

      If fusion research was funded adequately we’d probably have it by now, but I don’t know if it’s the energy lobby or what that means that it’s chronically underfunded. An actually working fusion reactor design would bring about such an upheaval in the energy markets that I wouldn’t be surprised if plutocrats had a hand in making sure the research receives orders of magnitude less money than it should.