Corvinus85 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 A new great achievement in the history of science & technology. https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-makes-landmark-fusion-power-191453294.html Quote On Wednesday, a team of researchers at Max Planck Institute in Greifswald switched on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator for the very first time... I think the information is not entirely accurate on the timeline, as on the institute's website, this is what it says. Quote On 10th December 2015 the first helium plasma was produced in the Wendelstein 7-X fusion device at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald. After more than a year of technical preparations and tests, experimental operation has now commenced according to plan. Wendelstein 7-X, the world’s largest stellarator-type fusion device, will investigate the suitability of this type of device for a power station. But whatever the date, this is a great step forward in creating more clean energy sources, and perhaps finding a viable power source for deep space travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Is it producing more energy than it takes to run it? Is it self sustaining? If the answer to both of these is "yes" then it is quite an achievement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loge Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Wendelstein 7-X isn't a reactor. It doesn't produce any energy. Keeping the plasma contained for a prolonged period of time has proved to be a big problem. If they can pull that off it's a big accomplishment. Still not anywhere near a working fusion reactor, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 4 minutes ago, Loge said: Wendelstein 7-X isn't a reactor. It doesn't produce any energy. Keeping the plasma contained for a prolonged period of time has proved to be a big problem. If they can pull that off it's a big accomplishment. Still not anyway near a working fusion reactor, though. Well it's a start. Baby steps. Edit: And at 80 million °C, yes it would be a challenge to say the least to keep it contained. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ded As Ned Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Both the thread title and Yahoo article are very misleading. As stated above, it's not fusion. Not even close to it. They created helium plasma at about 1 million degrees C for about a tenth of a second. ETA. the linked article above (from the 7-X website) was from December when they first tested it, so they did actually make hydrogen plasma @ 80 million C. (For actual fusion, you need hydrogen plasma at about 100 million degrees, according to their website.) Bigger Baby step in the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 Fine, title amended. So the article does say they created plasma at 80 million degrees. Was that misleading? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ded As Ned Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 22 minutes ago, Corvinus said: Fine, title amended. So the article does say they created plasma at 80 million degrees. Was that misleading? Sorry, the article you linked from the facility website was from December when they did the helium at 1 million C... I thought the article was talking about last week (and that Yahoo had exaggerated). But you are right, they did do hydrogen plasma at 80 million C this past week. I'm much more impressed now! lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 It's a good baby step, but the real threshold is whether they can scale it up and have it get net positive fusion power. "Scaling upwards" is the bane of fusion reactor designs - so many fusion reactor designs have been created where the creators are like "if we can only scale this up by a factor of 500 we'll hit breakeven", and then tons of problems show up in the process of trying to scale it upwards. Let's not romanticize fusion, either. It will produce much less radioactive waste than current fission power (and that waste won't stay dangerous for nearly as long), but it still will produce a fair amount of nuclear waste from the effects of the neutrons and brehmstralung radiation that gets out of containment on the containment vessel. And unless you're doing the far more difficult design of getting aneutronic fusion (which is both far more difficult and with far lower energy density than deuterium fusion), they're also going to require a lot of fresh water for power generation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Come on. "Let's not romanticize fusion?" Really? It is fully justified to "romanticize" it. If they can make it work, it changes the world completely. It is ridiculous to try and downplay its benefits. Fusion will solve our energy needs for a million years or more, and any freshwater needs it may have can easily be fulfilled by fusion power itself, via endless energy for ocean desalination plants. Fusion power will be one of the greatest leaps forward in human history. But first they must make it work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ded As Ned Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said: snip Fusion power will be one of the greatest leaps forward in human history. But first they must make it work. Aye, and there's the rub. Not only do they have to make it work, but they have to make it a net energy gain process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't we be using fusion to boil water to spin steam turbines if it "worked"? Does it bother anyone else that boilers are still the most efficient way to generate electical power? We can harness the power of the atom and its subatomic constituant parts... to boil water. I keep thinking that in more than a century we'd have come up with a better way to power our civilization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't we be using fusion to boil water to spin steam turbines if it "worked"? Does it bother anyone else that boilers are still the most efficient way to generate electical power? We can harness the power of the atom and it's subatomic constituant parts to boil water. I keep thinking that in more than a century we'd have come up with a better way to power our civilization. Photovoltaic power is probably the only alternative I can think of off the top of my head, which skips the whole need to use a steam turbine to generate electricity. But yeah, this is something that kind of bothers me too. Split the atom to get some heat to heat up water to turn a steam turbine. Quite sobering. That makes me wonder, though. When they talk about putting a nuclear reactor on a spaceship to power it in deep space, or to power a base on the Moon, does that concept rely on the same idea of carting along massive quantities of water to power steam turbines, or is there another direct conversion of nuclear generated heat into electricity that I'm just not thinking of right now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ded As Ned Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't we be using fusion to boil water to spin steam turbines if it "worked"? Does it bother anyone else that boilers are still the most efficient way to generate electical power? We can harness the power of the atom and it's subatomic constituant parts to boil water. I keep thinking that in more than a century we'd have come up with a better way to power our civilization. Yep that's the simplified version. Use heat from the mini-star to heat water to turn a turbine to generate electricity. I'm also a little skeptical about it being the answer to all our energy wants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 16 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't we be using fusion to boil water to spin steam turbines if it "worked"? Does it bother anyone else that boilers are still the most efficient way to generate electical power? We can harness the power of the atom and it's subatomic constituant parts to boil water. I keep thinking that in more than a century we'd have come up with a better way to power our civilization. Water is (a) really really weird and (b) really really awesome. Don't diss. I assume it's one of the peculiarities of its physical and chemical properties that makes it so useful for shit like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 FN, Photovoltaic is very inefficient. At a max only 10-20% of the photons are converted into electricity. The rest is waste heat. Steam turbines are much more efficient. That's what bothers me. It's as though we can do something but don't know enough about what we're doing to do something interesting with what we are doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 47 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: FN, Photovoltaic is very inefficient. At a max only 10-20% of the photons are converted into electricity. The rest is waste heat. Steam turbines are much more efficient. That's what bothers me. Got to ask: why would that bother you? Is it just coz water is so prosaic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 PG, Boilers are 18th century tech. You'd think we could do better in going on 3 centuries. That's what bothers me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: PG, Boilers are 18th century tech. You'd think we could do better in going on 3 centuries. That's what bothers me. If it works it works. Who cares how old it is? We use far, far older techniques everywhere in everyday life because, well, they work. I assume you've got no problem with building houses out of bricks for example. Or fertilising crops with shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altherion Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said: That makes me wonder, though. When they talk about putting a nuclear reactor on a spaceship to power it in deep space, or to power a base on the Moon, does that concept rely on the same idea of carting along massive quantities of water to power steam turbines, or is there another direct conversion of nuclear generated heat into electricity that I'm just not thinking of right now? There are mechanisms that allow for the direct conversion of heat to electricity and in fact there do exist commercially available generators based on these... but the materials are expensive and the efficiency is low. It might be possible to beat water for efficiency (though nobody has come close yet) and for something like a spaceship, it may be worthwhile, but on Earth, water is universally available and any other solution is going do be disfavored simply because of the cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 38 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: PG, Boilers are 18th century tech. You'd think we could do better in going on 3 centuries. That's what bothers me. You still walking around on 2 feet like the Babylonians? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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