The Strange History
of Fusion and
the Science of
Wishful Thinking
by Charles Seife
Posted on 03/08/2025 8:43:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A new record for maintaining plasma burning inside a fusion reactor has been set in France, beating China's previous benchmark by 25%.
France's WEST fusion reactor has shattered a nuclear fusion record set by China just a few weeks ago, marking yet another small but significant step on the road toward near-limitless clean energy.
The CEA's (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives) WEST tokamak nuclear fusion reactor maintained a steady loop of burning plasma for a record 1,337 seconds, according to a Feb. 18 announcement -- beating China's previous 1,066-second benchmark, set on Jan. 20, by 25%...
Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion -- the process that powers the stars -- for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms together under extremely high pressures and temperatures, stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste...
To reach its new milestone, the WEST reactor did just this, corralling plasma made from heavy hydrogen isotopes that was burning hotter than 50 million degrees Celsius for more than 22 minutes...
The achievement paves the way for the eventual operation of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion reactor, a project that brings together China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States to run the largest fusion reactor ever.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Way too many people underestimate the French.
A record 1,337 seconds
They are totally Leet
The bottom like is not about producing more energy than was put into the system, it’s about making it cheaper than gas or coal. ITER has costed over $20 billion to build, so any energy it produces is going to be phenomenally expensive.
ICWYDT
The Chinese got a record at 1066. The French beat that with 1337. Okay, that's great.
But nowhere does the article say WHY THEY STOPPED THERE. If it was working, why not continue on for an even higher record? Huh?
I suspect the answer is something akin to, "Something broke" or "Something overheated" or "We ran out of XYZ component" or "We blew a breaker". I doubt it was "We just felt that was enough" or "Mom called and said to stop making so much noise".
So WHY DID THEY STOP?
GREAT QUESTION- maybe they stopped for wine and cheese…
Because they cut off the power feeding the reaction, or used up all the deuterium-tritium fuel. No tokamak reactor has achieve ignition; that is, a set sustaining reaction. The National Ignition Facility did, but only in a small pellet of fuel. Poof and it was over.
There is a possibility they will cause the universe to implode, but the chances are very low, so I would not worry about it. /s
The whole fusion race is happening on a very broad front.
I’ve seen stories in the USA that two companies have already contracted to DELIVER electricity via fusion power in 2028 (for Microsoft and 2030 (for Dominion Energy in Virginia) respectively
Rather wildly ambitious. But who knows.
Note in the bottom - will not be solution for the climate crisis!
Climate dominates everything in the news. Sick.
Another technology that is always just 25 to 30 years away - we promise!
Containment fails, the process stops. I don’t think tokamaks or the z-pinch magnetic methods are going to bear fruit.
22.28 minutes slightly more than1/3 of an hour
They are creating supernova conditions, far beyond conditions in the Sun, or anywhere else in our solar system. The first fusion reactor that goes supernova, blowing radioactive waste over a large area, is the end of the fusion scam gravy train. At this point, fusion scientists know matter assembly is not even the right direction, matter disassembly is, and being too old to start over, just want to make it to retirement. They need to show progress, but not blow up their ride.
I think what’s happening is that AI is accelerating time lines.
I would guess that because this stuff is all trial and error and they can calculate how much progress they make on average per iteration—that, further, they can calculate how many iterations on average it will take them to reach their goal—judgeing by the distance they have already come on average between iteration. Then they calculate how long it takes them on average to complete each iteration. then its just multiplication.
What AI does is enable them to more rapidly complete each experimental iteration. And they’re calculating more aggressive timelines based on the acceleration speed that AI promotes.
One of them is Hydrogen Boron. Has problems, but not quite same problem with sun temperature level melting if your magnetic crucible becomes unstable and fails!
They also have this story as well. Something to counteract 3Ms chemical PFA contribution.
"Startup secures $16 million to deploy PFAS-busting tech for wastewater"
https://spectrum.ieee.org/pfas-busting-piezoelectric-catalyst
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