Posted on 02/21/2024 11:45:28 AM PST by Red Badger
Scientists pursuing fusion energy say they have found a way to overcome one of their biggest challenges to date — by using artificial intelligence.
Nuclear fusion has for decades been hailed as a near-limitless source of clean energy, in what would be a game-changing solution to the climate crisis. But experts have only achieved and sustained fusion energy for a few seconds, and many obstacles remain, including instabilities in the highly complex process.
There are several ways to achieve fusion energy, but the most common involves using hydrogen variants as an input fuel and raising temperatures to extraordinarily high levels in a donut-shaped machine, known as a tokamak, to create a plasma, a soup-like state of matter.
But that plasma needs to be controlled and is highly susceptible to “tearing” and escaping the machine’s powerful magnetic fields that are designed to keep the plasma contained.
On Wednesday, researchers from Princeton University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory reported in the journal Nature they found a way to use AI to forecast these potential instabilities and prevent them from happening in real time.
The team carried out their experiments at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, and found that their AI controller could forecast potential plasma tearing up to 300 milliseconds in advance. Without that intervention, the fusion reaction would have ended suddenly.
“The experiments provide a foundation for using AI to solve a broad range of plasma instabilities, which have long hindered fusion energy,” a Princeton spokesperson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Science is good.
Scientists are not.
Monckton Announces a Sustainable-Energy Startup: Invest Now!
LOL!
“Scientists are not.”
Scientists are good.
I believe that’s genuine frontier gibberish.
Just a few more billions and another 20 years and the boffins will have a working fusion reactor...really, really.
(rolls eyes)
It never ends, grant money paradise, thy name is “Fusion”.
That’s not ChatGPT.
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.
.
.
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That’s Biden.
You can’t fool me!.....................
Yep, spouted by the newest version of GabbyJohnsonGPT.
Dang...ya caught me! Can’t put nothing past you, Red.
Q: How do we solve the energy problem?
A: Fusion power.
Q: How do we make it work?
A: Tax Americans and send the money to the UN.
Signed Colossus-Guardian (from The Forbin Project)
Q: How do we solve the energy problem?
A: Fusion power.
Q: How do we make it work?
A: Tax Americans and send the money to the UN.
Signed Colossus-Guardian (from The Forbin Project)
Q: How do we solve the energy problem?
A: Fusion power.
Q: How do we make it work?
A: Tax Americans and send the money to the UN.
Signed Colossus-Guardian (from The Forbin Project)
Oops
As a side note, I read that Nvidia’s H100 AI chip uses about 700 watts, which on a yearly basis, is about 3,600 KWh a year at 61% utilization
This power consumption is equal to an average American 3-bedroom home
Nvidia has sold a million of these, which has already added a Phoenix-size city of electrical demand. Future plans to sell even more such AI chips would add even more demand - a Houston or Los Angeles size increase in power demand - EVERY YEAR.
It can be reasonably argued that fusion power is about where AI was in 2016.
imho AI will enable some compounding effects across the spectrum of fusion research. Plus it will —and is— accelerating the pace of testing.
What?
Like Mengele?
Ishii?
Gottleib?
Between power hungry computer chips and EVs the future of wind and solar is assured...................
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