fusion
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
No. A different tokamak, in France, contained a plasma for 22 minutes.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
google is an idiot
Nope. It was in France and it was not fusion. They just contained a hot plasma for 22 minutes - which is way easier.
the algorithm allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff, if you choose a lot of wheat, then it delivers you more wheat, but if you continuously choose the chaff, then that's what you get.
?? Google is a search tool. It just finds matches on text. Then you decide if the link is worth pursuing.
Wait - you're not relying on what the Google AI tells you? WAY too much of that going around.
Ivan Seeking
Valued Senior Member
Sam Altman, who is CEO of OpenAI, is also chairman and a major investor in Helion. Helion uses a field-reversed configuration (FRC) approach to fusion, in which two plasmoids are accelerated and then compressed by powerful external magnetic fields to achieve the extreme pressures and temperatures needed for fusion. Helion claims it will produce fusion power for Microsoft by 2028. This company has certainly been triggering the RADAR for interesting activity. But hitting the grid by 2028 sounds impossible to me.
Zap Energy is also doing interesting work using the Z-pinch approach, in which a high current driven through a plasma stream generates its own magnetic field. The resulting J×B (Lorentz) force compresses the plasma radially inward to exceedingly high pressures. Zap's key innovation is sheared-flow stabilization, which overcomes the plasma instabilities that historically plagued Z-pinch designs.
www.zapenergy.com
I am watching both companies with great interest.
Zap Energy is also doing interesting work using the Z-pinch approach, in which a high current driven through a plasma stream generates its own magnetic field. The resulting J×B (Lorentz) force compresses the plasma radially inward to exceedingly high pressures. Zap's key innovation is sheared-flow stabilization, which overcomes the plasma instabilities that historically plagued Z-pinch designs.
Zap Energy: Fusion power. No magnets required.
Zap Energy is building a low-cost, compact and scalable Z-pinch fusion energy system that confines and compresses plasma without the need for expensive and complex magnetic coils.
www.zapenergy.com
I am watching both companies with great interest.
How did you manage to learn that somebody achieved a fusion reaction for 22 minutes (that sounds very specific) and simultaneously not manage to learn who did it?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well as they weren't in the USA but "overseas", it's probably all a bit of blur to some Midwesterners
.But this was 6 months ago, James.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
They achieved net gain December 2022
And the paper https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.065102
Just some context, I do not know that much about this, nuclear fusion.
This was from reading threads on PF after the breakthroughs.
August 2021 - from single digit % numbers to 70%
December 2022 - 100% plus.
The main takeaway I got was that they are about 50 years away from a commercial application.
And the paper https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.065102
Just some context, I do not know that much about this, nuclear fusion.
This was from reading threads on PF after the breakthroughs.
August 2021 - from single digit % numbers to 70%
December 2022 - 100% plus.
The main takeaway I got was that they are about 50 years away from a commercial application.
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Ah! Thanks.Well as they weren't in the USA but "overseas", it's probably all a bit of blur to some Midwesterners
But this was 6 months ago, James.
I hadn't noticed the thread necromancy of Ivan's post.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Which is exactly where they thought they were when I was a child in the 1960s.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Mum always ribs me about moon bases, she was hearing about it in the 1950s,
A reality within 20,30 years so by the 1980s?
Hard to give an accurate road map on projects that require that level of funding when other things crop up like, wars, oil, economic crisis and the odd pandemic.
Yes, and that's a big deal from a science perspective.
However keep in mind that this is THERMODYNAMIC breakeven; the reaction generated slightly more energy than was used to create it. However, it did not come close to generating the energy needed to run the experiment (pump the lasers, maintain the holraum etc) nor did it generate any electrical power.