Nuclear fusion reactor in South Korea runs at 100 million degrees C for a record-breaking 48 seconds

From what absolutely little I know, yes. Sustaining the reaction at such high temps for long is, as of now, difficult.

when talking about fusion, just think the conditions of stars/the sun. In order to function correctly, it has to be ridiculously hot.

The race for fusion is how to maintain it, and eventually have a net positive transaction of energy out, to energy in ratio.

Hotter than yo mama …. Wait a minute

If Icarus won't come to the sun, the sun will come to Icarus.

I just want to know what kind of thermometer they put into the plasma to measure the temperature. It must have been made of ice or something to not burn up.

People talk about Icarus flying too close to the sun. Motherfuckers are recreating it in labs

This!

That's definitely some next-gen level magic being scienced/engineered.

Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet using my hand terminal. It can also understand what I am saying and excecute my spoken commands (to some extent at least). That's some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended

I am quite positive I'll see reliable, sustained fusion reactions in my lifetime.

I'm also pretty positive it'll be useless as an energy source. Still could be useful for other things though.

Last one I read about is just constantly and very quickly (far quicker than human abilities) adjust the magnetic field around the plasma in order to keep it stable and in place. They've been (or at least one team was) using AI to go over data and control and predict the field adjustments, because only reacting after the plasma starts to move hasn't been quick enough.

(The article touches on this bit a little) I was watching something about fusion the other day and it seems that it is super tricky to keep the magnetic field balanced in a way that keeps the plasma in a proper toroid. Not only does it need to keep the correct strength, it has to fight against random turbulence. This is critical to start the reaction, but also to maintain it.

Also, they gave some other physical limitations in the article as well:

To extend their plasma's burning time from the previous record-breaking run, the scientists tweaked aspects of their reactor's design, including replacing carbon with tungsten to improve the efficiency of the tokamak’s "divertors," which extract heat and ash from the reactor.

Basically, it's the container that has limitations as containing a pseudo-sun probably isn't easy.

They most likely ran out if liquid helium as the world is running out of the stuff at an alarming rate

Like it has been for the past 30 years (which, I assume, was the joke here.)

If fusion research was funded adequately we'd probably have it by now, but I don't know if it's the energy lobby or what that means that it's chronically underfunded. An actually working fusion reactor design would bring about such an upheaval in the energy markets that I wouldn't be surprised if plutocrats had a hand in making sure the research receives orders of magnitude less money than it should.

It's not limitless, you still need fuel. Especially tritium doesn't really occur naturally because of its extremely short half-life, current plans for ITER involve breeding tritium from lithium in the fusion reactor. The closest to limitless power we have is PV.

$10 says fusion power also ends up being the cure for Alzheimer's.

So no chipmunk voices? 😢

I can’t wait for the billionaires to increase our power bills for this.

Yes yes I know it would be cheaper, but billionaires are going to charge more money even though it’s costing them less.

You know, not everything has to be "eat the rich".

This could just be a really neat science article/discussion about a fusion test, and have no need to bring up Capitalism.

The constant complaining just gets old after a while. Be focused, if you want to be listen to, and taken seriously.

Every year the people who send you bills get together to decide how big a slice of you each of them gets.

Yes, it always adds up to 100%

Cheaper than renewables? 100 million degrees doesn't sound cheap, and frankly fusion power has been "coming in the next 10 years" at least since I was at school and I'm in my mid-forties.

Cheaper in the long run perhaps - but how expensive is it to build?

Atomic energy is only "cheap" since the cost for the power plants is heavily paid for by tax money. For the cost of one power station you could cover a huge amount of land with solar panels.

You gotta make up for the research costs.

Nah. Not that hot. Now 100 million kelvin, THAT is hot!

Same as with almost any other reactor: Steam running through turbines. The high temperatures are important to sustain the fusion process. The goal is that it practically self sustains itself while we just continue to feed it with hydrogen.

Lol ironic isn't it, considering easy access to fusion power would basically solve the climate crisis.

Only 2,543,456,495,596 steps to go

Well according to the 1993 classic, "SimCity 2000," fusion power becomes available to build in the year 2050. Since I have no other source that provides an exact date of viability, this remians the most reliable prediction we have.

Ah who am i kidding, it’ll be at least a decade, probably more like two.

To be fair, they're trying to create a miniature star and keep it controlled/contained, to use its energy. That's some next-gen level stuff.

20 years.

This is how we arrive at the "always 30 years away" trope.

Because the problem fusion reactors will solve isn't free energy. We already have that, like you suggest. Solar, wind, geo thermal, hydro power, oceanic tide harvesting, and to a certain extent nuclear...all of that is free energy waiting to be harnessed.

The problems it solves include packaging (think footprint for a solar farm power plant), radio activity (like fission power plants), predictability ( solar, wind, etc), and location (hydro). Fusion puts clean power plants anywhere you want them, safely and reliably.

All of these allow you to advocate for a functioning power plant to governments and citizens without any drawbacks besides costs to build and maintain. It's an easier sell than any other power in existence. It runs off of water.