Anyone in the know understands that practical Fusion is happening in our lifetimes. The only things required to make it reality 1. Material R&D- it's already happen 2. Math- it's not math that's been solved per se, but math that they know is solvable, and the simulations are running as we type. 3. Funding. And it's already there. 4. Actually building the thing.
Celebrations! right? Except not. Because this is how you're going to die. There's a hidden 5th requirement:
5. If powers that be will let the most disruptive technology happenning of happenings happen
And they won't. Or at least, they'll make things very, very messy before they do. At best, the technology will be controlled to the point that it's inaccessible- ie. nuclear weapons. At worst, we're talking entire world economies the livelihoods of billions of people held hostage by the powers that be.
Pepper your assholes, boys and girls of science. You're on Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride.
Reply with >“I want to get off Mr. Bones Wild Ride. and thank you.
1944: A war weary world convened in the Bretton Woods conference. Forty-four allied nations from across the globe met to discuss the future of the new economic world. From this meeting came an agreement to establish the U.S. dollar (then the strongest) as the global currency, which would also be backed by gold (think of it as an insurance for the financially ruined nations at the time).
From the Bretton Woods conference also came what would eventually evolve into the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
1960s: The U.S.-gold backed monetary system begins to cripple the American economy. The “pegged” fixed rate of dollar-to-gold first created a false demand for U.S. dollars, which eventually could no longer be backed in gold. Countries grew suspicious, and by the time the Vietnam War U.S. deficit (200 billion) was realized late in 1971, countries began asking for their gold. The U.S. simply no longer had it. What was once a nation that held 80 percent of the world’s gold, was almost depleted. President Nixon, at the time, had to act – and act quickly.
1971: The U.S. president at the time, Richard Nixon, delivers a speech to the world: there will be no more gold-backed U.S. currency. World currencies now “float” on the market, ending the Bretton Woods agreement.
1973: To maintain a demand – on a global scale – for the U.S. dollar, similar to that of the Woods agreement, a deal is struck with Saudi Arabia. “Oil for dollars” becomes the new world economy. The Petrodollar System is born.
>For every barrel of oil purchased from Saudi Arabia – from ANY nation – the oil would be purchased in U.S. dollars only.
>For those who have ‘foreign’ currency, they would first have to convert to USD before being able to purchase oil.
William Gonzalez
When the DoD accidentally let the Fusion cat out of the bag, and the cat's name was Robert W. Bussard
>During 2006 and 2007, Bussard sought the large-scale funding necessary to design and construct a full-scale Polywell fusion power plant. >On March 29, 2006, Bussard claimed on the fusor.net internet forum that EMC2 had developed an inertial electrostatic confinement fusion process that was 100,000 times more efficient than previous designs, but that the US Navy budget line item that supported the work was zero-funded in FY2006. >Bussard provided more details of his breakthrough and the circumstances surrounding the end of his Navy funding in a letter to the James Randi Educational Foundation internet forum on June 23. >From October 2, 2006 to October 6, 2006, Bussard presented an informal overview of the previous decade of his work at the 57th International Astronautical Congress. This was the first publication of this work in 11 years, as the U.S. Navy had put an embargo on publications of the research, in 1994. >Dr. Bussard presented further details of his IEC fusion research at a Google Tech Talk on November 9, 2006, of which a video was widely circulated. >Bussard presented more of his thoughts on the potential world impact of fusion power at a Yahoo! Tech Talk on April 10, 2007. (The video is only available internally for Yahoo employees.) He also spoke on the internet talk radio show The Space Show, Broadcast 709, on May 7, 2007.
"Somebody will build it; and when it's built, it will work; and when it works people will begin to use it, and it will begin to displace all other forms of energy."
A few places now currently working on Polywell designs: >University of Sydney >Iranian Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute >University of Wisconsin >Convergent Scientific, Inc. >Radiant Matter Research >ProtonBoron
Charles King
Professor Jaeyoung Park
The first plans are to complete the final scientific proof of principle for the polywell technology around 2019-2020, using magnetic confinement to trap a plasma superheated to 50 million degrees. Then they will then create a prototype commercial net energy gain fusion reactor. This would change the world's timetable for commercial fusion, with a first generation commercial fusion reactor being developed by 2030 and then mass production and commercialization of the technology in the 2030's. This is approximately 30 years faster than expected under the first world government-driven International Thermonuclear Energy Reactor (ITER) project.
However, neither the market nor the world's governments are presently ready for a commercial fusion reactor in the 2030's.
Bentley Morgan
His name was Robert Bussard.
Christopher Clark
>it's not math that's been solved per se, but math that they know is solvable The fuck are yout talking about. Plasma math is solved. That's how they managed to build Wendelstein. That's how they mostly know how a reactor is going to perform before they build it. Just your whacky approach with the pistons is still up in the air.
>Celebrations! right? Except not. Because this is how you're going to die. There's a hidden 5th requirement: Fuck off, /x/.
Michael Brown
>the petrodollar is /x/
oh boy this must be where the special kids play
Gabriel Morales
>practical Fusion is happening in our lifetimes Have you seen the experiments? They all either dump as much energy into a fraction of second as they can without destroying the hardware, or for a somewhat longer period, they run plasmas at energies and densities that are not useful. Now imagine that sealed chamber is given holes that have to magically constantly remove any byproducts while also inserting new fuel to be heated and still maintaining 150 million K temps and 4T magnetic fields for months at a time. Even if it 'works', every single fusion project cannot escape extreme costs, risks and competition from shit we already have now.
Jayden Turner
BTFO
Oliver Gomez
this, just because we have the technical capability to construct a sustainable fusion reactor doesnt mean its an economic or political reality. I also have yet to see any reasonable solutions for making any proposed design actually safe lol its not like most of the current fission designs, if something goes wrong it literally detonates. I am a big proponent of fusion technologies and ITER in general but people need to maintain a realistic view on it, its not going to solve the worlds energy crisis by continuing our constant expansion and consumption
Connor Price
This thread isn't about ITER OR Pistons
Read niggas, EMC2 is magneto-electrostatic fusion
Juan Morales
Fusion happened ages ago. Profitable fusion will, at the rate its going, never happen because advancements in other areas of energy are cheaper, greater, and more practical.
The bottom line is that Fusion is TOO powerful. It destroys all the things which try to convert it into usable energy. In order to make Fusion practical and profitable, it will not be a matter of funding and R&D, but will have to be the invention a completely new method of converting the power. Until that happens there's no point dumping good money into a scorched pipe dream.
Matthew Brooks
Yeah I know about them. Look at 48:45 in the vid >youtube.com/watch?v=YNE0L7nCg0k Their highest achievements aren't so impressive.
Jack Green
How does your argument not also apply to Fission? Or anything else?
Stuff gets hot. Heat flux to water. We're really good with steam and turbines. We get electricity. We do all sorts of things with electricity.
>Coal happened ages ago. Profitable coal, will, at this rate its going, never happen because advancements in logging and wood furnaces are cheaper, greater, and more practical.
>The bottom line is that Coal is TOO powerful. It destroys all the things which try to convert it into usable energy. In order to make Coal practical and profitable, it will not be a matter of funding and R&D, but will have to be the invention of a completely new method of converting the power. Until that happens, there's no point in dumping good money into a black pipe dream.
Colton Wilson
"I want to get on Mr.Bones wild ride. This is how I want to go out. Surrounded by multiple chaotic explosions."
:D
Adrian Morales
>What is steam?
Connor Thomas
How will fusion compete with solar+wind+battery when the average reactor will cost $15 billion?
Kevin Diaz
>ar+wind+battery when the average reactor will cost $15 billion?
By producing meme magic at the rate that all combined cannot keep up without spending more...
Aiden White
>wind democrats shoo!!!
Ryder King
50 years away from being 50 years away from being 50 years away.
That being said, what great works can we not currently do that would become possible with fusion power?
Cooper Watson
Orion Rockets. Retardedly powerful incinerators. Dispose of all previous harmful waste. Rediculous meme posting! !!!! ????? PROFIT!!!!!
Jaxson Howard
>What is steam? The thing that runs steam turbines in power plants?
Carter Cox
Those very humbly presented achievements move practical Fusion power timetable up by decades
Nicholas Barnes
Also, Moon Lasers and life support hubs on every planet...
Planet Eater Engines.
Isaiah Lopez
>that feel you get when you see a piece of equipment and know it's worth more than your entire life
Cameron Anderson
Also by harmful waste I do actually mean all that waste stored in the Wahabi. Radioactive waste goes bye bye...
Oh and Transmutation becomes trivial. With that much energy you can synthesise lead into gold for practical purposes.
However...There is a cost. If you really want to know it...
What do you even do with someone who fucks up this badly, the worst you can do is fire them and sully their record.
Jaxon Scott
I feel sick
Jacob Thompson
Thank you. I am now exactly 12.5 percent more suicidal than I was before.
:D
Cooper Smith
>Oh and Transmutation becomes trivial. With that much energy you can synthesise lead into gold for practical purposes.
maybe two centuries from now if we get Fusion out the door by 2030.
And I don't think we'd care about gold anymore at that point
James Phillips
>Tfw Full Metal Alchemist Was Right We just got the scale wrong.
... Which means... We don't have to sacrifice a city to make a philosopher stone...
WE HAVE TO SACRIFICE THE WHOLE PLANET
:D
STEP RIGHT UP! STEP RIGHT UP AND BECOME ONE WITH THE ILLUMINATI! REEEEEEEEEE
Xavier Thomas
lol
In all seriousness though... We are so fucked... Staticians, please calculate how fucked we are and present it to us in a nice pie chart please...
Nolan Ward
Not very fucked / 10
Michael Turner
Y-yay?
Leo Lopez
dumb! DUMB!
no more Tokamak, Stellarator idiocy
Aaron Hill
Nah, more of a m-meh. Fusion doesnt explode like fission, you should be more worried about the tax fraud
Gabriel Sullivan
so how much does that cost?
Camden Sullivan
~15 million on a good day
Henry Rodriguez
just the rotor? what about the whole turbine?
James Wright
~60 million on a good day
Aaron Howard
Ite here's an idea. Instead of stationary magnets trying to contain a swirling potential meganuclear bomb why not have magnets spinning around like crazy round the outside. That'd work right? Put it on a bunch of different gears that align with the fluctuations in energy and then have it stop n shoot out all it's hot gooey energy
Jonathan Taylor
why carry a 75000kg object worth a couple of million with a tool that can only carry 60000kg?
Leo Campbell
>says its not impressive >links almost directly to 1st ever confirmation of electron confinement enhancement during high β cusp
electron confinement enhancement during high β cusp is proven in 2016. electrostatic fusion was proven in 1995.
They're now going to combine the two and build it and they can do it in a couple of years (2019-2020). If they find it only ~30% efficiency they know they'll likely have to drop the project until something new comes up. At ~50% efficiency, everyone starts drawing up practical fusion reactor plants. At ~90% efficiency, you're talking about jumping from D-T fusion into proton-boron aneutronic fusion where all your dreams come true.
This is the real deal.
there is this crazy thing that happens when you teach a technician some engineering basics when they're not actually engineers. EX: They'll learn about a design factor, that it exists and the basics of it. Say, this crane has a design factor of 1.5! And interpret it to mean that being rated for 60000kg means it can really handle 90000kg! They don't understand the elaborate mathematical basis behind the DF. Then they'll load it with 75000kg so they don't have to setup a new crane, and destroy millions of dollars of equipment in one go.
Very sad.
Honestly that whole video makes me cringe from start to finish. Those doofuses who did it got fired but the higher ups who let it happen deserve the $ loss.
Jaxon Martinez
Are you implying that the hot, densely photon packed sun in the dark cold void of space is a higher state of entropy than the cold dark void itself?
Or can we perceive a coup of sea water as a very low entropy state in the local scheme of things?
Logan Kelly
It's about the scale of energy of Fusion that makes it such a big deal.
When any of these Fusion technologies gets down to the point that the electricity generating steamplant is more expensive than the Fusion reactor itself, these things will be economically competitive.
Here's the catch on coal and other fossil fuels- fossil fuels are limited, and chemical reaction power generation means power density of the fuel puts a hard limit to its effectiveness. If you wanted mass desalination plants to meet growing water demands using coal, you'd need to build too many coal power plants and you'd need to get too much coal from the earth, constantly getting it out and transporting it to the power plants at a rate that would be unsustainable.
Here's the catch on Fission- Fukushima. Maybe Thorium reactors fundamentally get around the inherent health risk issue at hand when the BWR/PWR of the current U-235 fuel type wanting to spill its contamination out everywhere. I don't know. But the current trend we have won't. The nuclear waste is a big big deal, 30-40 year cleanups on every accident happening every 20 years and a rise in global cancer rates isn't sustainable. These plants have only gotten more expensive as the continued need for more complex systems to provide better and better safeguards against catastrophe.
Here's the catch on solar, wind. It can't ever scale. There just isn't enough energy to obtain. You'll never run all those desalination plants, or be able to produce your own chemical fuels for transportation.
Fusion can get past all these things. It can have the power density of fission with nuclear waste concerns on the levels of medical equipment or less. It uses a fuel far beyond the limitations of fossil fuels. And it can scale energy production way past solar and wind. With that level of energy output, it becomes efficient to make your own chemical fuels or to power worldwide amounts of electric vehicles, desalination, everything.
Christopher Cooper
Does this mean we will get a margerine that is both spreadable and aceptable for baking needs?
Bentley Ramirez
He3 + He3 fusion is the way to go. No neutron radiation. Direct electricity generation.
Levi Fisher
I caused around 200k worth of damage once, I no longer feel so bad about it.
Isaiah Anderson
Whats the worst that can happen, do people get arrested for such major fuckups or is it only when someone gets hurt?
Adrian Price
Negligence has to be proven
Cameron Allen
So did you get arrested or just fired?
David Hernandez
stop using vegetable oils and go back to using lard and butter. The industry has tricked you into mass consuming an untested food product that tastes worse just so they can get better profit margins and longer shelf life.
It's very complicated and dependent on the scenario. It's tedious to even talk about.
Liam Smith
The fact remains, we shouldnt be going into space or attempting fusion until we solve the margerine crisis, there's got to be a better way. Easier to spread lards and butters maybe?
Adam Jackson
I got investigated by the insurance people, that's about it. If someone gets hurt or killed you're likely to be imprisoned.
Bentley Cox
If thats the case, then I think you actually made the company hundreds of thousands. Just be careful you dont get insurance guys carbombing you.
Joshua Lee
I'm not that guy but I think you're asking me. I didn't get in trouble, just investigated. My company was even paid to rebuild the machine. I'll explain what happened. >Installing new bearings into a machine. The bearing housings have been 'customized' for the application by someone else long ago. >seals are not available (not even existent) so make a compromise to get machine running again, lots of pressure to get machine running. >stall a 3 phase motor while testing machine, when a 3ph motor stalls it draws crazy amps. >make some adjustments until I'm happy that the motor is ok, I tested the rpm, etc. >machine runs over night and burns, huge fire.
I was able to pass the buck to whoever designed the electrical control box
Kayden Baker
I once tipped a quadbike and broke a stay post then 4 cows got out and the afternoon milking had to be cancelled so we could get them back, one got hit by a car. >I gots fired I also accedentally milked a mastitis cow when I set the test bucket up backwards, it went into the vat and went to the plant. Boss had to pay 100k to clean out the factory vat and trucks that had been contaminated, he ended up selling the farm. >I gots fired
It was at this point I stopped working dairy.
Dylan Adams
This is good. You people are people that have real-world experience on just how complicated all these practical and economic variables really are.
That's why you can understand how fusion is actually coming to fruition in the near future. The science is proven. The materials are here. The required funding levels have been dropping and the money is coming in. People have begun building the things. Because it's real, and here, and all the hurdles to make it possible are being met.
Jaxson King
What does me fucking up have to do with fusion, also forgot to mention I once backed a digger into a retaining wall, not major but still ~5k of damage and a couple hours of delay
James Long
>fusion thread >no mention of Tri-Alpha
Speaking of close, they're so close Google has latched on to them like a remora so their name will be in the announcement.
You sure thats not just so google can dick wave about clean energy?
Jeremiah Ross
They already have their solar and airborne wind shit for that.
Adrian Johnson
If google has a Fusion breakthrough, will they submit to the State and let it be regulated to the point of non-existance, or will they unleash disruptive Fusion technology on the entire world?
Sebastian Watson
>What is tax fraud?
Lincoln Parker
Isn't the objective of all companies monopoly? I suppose that's what they will aim for.
Isaac Price
Calm down Doug Coulter
Christopher Gomez
>battery Not renewable. Also, fair point, but there is no solar, wind, water, or oil in space. It's a requirement to be multiplanetary.
Justin Carter
Cant we just use space uranium or some shit? Space is already radioactive to all fuck.
Eli Reyes
yay you guessed my identity you the master of Veeky Forums
I actually have no idea who you are talking about.
He's obviously referring to battery as a synergistic component of energy storage for unreliable energy sources. You don't ALWAYS have sun, so you need battery.
Fusion fuel sources are a lot lot lot more abundant than Fissionable fuels.
Austin Cook
>no solar in space
Hudson Johnson
It's the type of radioactivity that is important. The nuclear fuel that we use is fissile; meaning that if it captures a neutron it will split and release energy and more neutrons. Cosmic radiation is primarily high energy protons with some alpha particles; these tend to ionise things, and the only harvestable energy would be their kinetic energy (which would be very difficult to harvest due to their penetration).
Eli Perry
>gathering solar energy from pluto for what purpose
Jacob Stewart
>youtube.com/watch?v=YNE0L7nCg0k >completely experimental technology >nowhere near being anywhere close to being completely understood >could still turn out to be completely unviable >still has most of the same engineering hurdles usual fusion reactors have (mostly the material science issues ITER was built to investigate) >but this will somehow happen so much faster you guyz I will admit the idea of this leading to much more fusion in a much smaller device does seems really interesting, but let's stay reasonable here. There is still both research and engineering to be done here and it would be a miracle if absolutely no new hurdles appear during that process. They actually mention several unique hurdles to this approach right in that video and even moreso there's the problem of refueling and removing waste they have to solve. And even if everything miraculously turns out to be smooth sailing, this guy outright admits he's basically waiting for ITER results in order to engineer a proper reactor. Sad to shatter people's delusions, but this is still "20 years off".
Christian Rodriguez
>refueling gas puffing is fine. magneto-electrostatic well designs have the easiest time with this issue, they can just throw the fuel in, it'll ionize and be sucked into the well.
>removing waste >proper reactor they're just playing it smart and economically focusing on the most relevant steps first. If other people are going to throw billions of dollars into ITER and find the best lithium blanket and energy extraction designs, he'll just let them do that and just make an actually viable method of creating fusion.
There's a point where the grand claims of Fusion from the 60s and 70s and the overly eager optimism was met with justified pragmatism. But the new dogma is an era of ignorance and pessimism, apparently.
