Posted on 02/13/2022 12:34:35 PM PST by bitt
The “Holy Grail” of virtually limitless clean energy from nuclear fusion reactors is within reach after a major breakthrough, scientists believe.
An “artificial sun” burning at 150million degrees smashed the world record, helping the UK-based research team retake the lead in a global race that also involves China, the US and tycoons such as Jeff Bezos.
More than 4,800 scientists from the UK and across Europe are busy working on the Joint European Torus, or JET, an experimental reactor in Abingdon near Oxford.
Today they announced the intense ring of fire it contains – superheated to ten times hotter than the sun’s core – produced a world record 59 megajoules of energy.
Averaged over the five-second burst, this works out at 11 megawatts, enough to power 10,000 homes.
That enormous energy output, double the previous record, was generated from just two-thousandths of a gram of “heavy hydrogen” fuel.
It works by boiling the hydrogen into plasma, a state so hot even atoms can’t exist and smashing protons together to form helium.
It is the same process that happens at the center of every star including our sun – and also in H-bombs.
Fusion releases four times more energy by weight of fuel than nuclear fission – splitting heavy atoms like uranium – and four million times more energy than burning fossil fuels.
What’s more, hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, meaning we will never run out of fuel, and theoretically, there is no radioactive waste.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
what could possibly go wrong?? /s
What gas crisis? It’s a policy crisis.
There is no gas crisis. They just wasted their investment in wind and solar.
ping
China will wind up killing Jane Fonda with an “America
Syndrome.”
She and her ilk will have had it backwards...
LOL
What’s the plan or tech to transfer the heat from superhot plasma to something else than can be used to generate electricity?
This where he practicality and theoretical merge to either both die or survive.
Gas crisis? Oh, the lack of drilling. I see.
Wow... a whole five seconds. Get back to me when it works 24/7/365.
I’ve heard we’ll have fusion energy in 30 years.
When I was in engineering school (early '70s) my electrodynamics prof (who was a fusion researcher) said it was 10 years away.
Reliable fusion has to be achieved at some point as petroleum will deplete and wind/solar just won't cut it. The big issue is going to be scale up. Even if these huge machines worked, they just can't be replicated like a conventional plant. Gotta simplify.
True thirty years ago, and still true today.
Create a cri$i$ and $olve the cri$i$ you created.
A can’t-lose business plan!
Fusion Energy is the future, and always will be.
Fusion is a wet dream for the scientists and engineers working on it...unlimited employment prospects with excellent wages.
maybe they could lower it to the center of the earth as the earth’s core is cooling.
https://news.yahoo.com/earths-core-rapidly-cooling-study-145843834.html
More than 4,800 scientists from the UK and across Europe are busy working on grant proposals.
More money always solves the scientists' needs.... It's amazing that Newton, Curie, Einstein and so many more did not know that.
This is where the backward slash and the letter "s" truly belong.
They can’t even find a cure for cancer. But they can dream of creating temperatures similar to the Sun on earth in a sustained manner (necessary for fusion to work)?
Like I said it is a dream project for scientists and engineers working on it. Unending prospects for employment with excellent wages.
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