Slashdot Mirror


China Claims Successful Fusion Power Test

SeaDour writes, "China claims to have carried out a successful test of its experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor. But what exactly made this test 'successful' is not clear. From the article: 'Xinhua cited the scientists as saying that deuterium and tritium atoms had been fused together at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds. The report did not specify whether the device... had succeeded at producing more energy than it consumed, the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable.'" China is a participant in the 10-nation ITER project to build a fusion reactor in the south of France by 2015. The article quotes the research head of ITER as saying, "It was important for China to show that it is part of the club. Here are English language versions of the Chinese news release: announcement, background.

247 comments

  1. China's definition of success by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We're pleased to announce we are still here to report the results."

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:China's definition of success by LoudMusic · · Score: 3, Funny

      "We're pleased to announce we are still here to report the results."

      Hey, nothing wrong with that. I've said it plenty of times myself.

      (:

      --
      No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
    2. Re:China's definition of success by steveo777 · · Score: 4, Funny

      It reminds me of the typical physics student's t-shirts and lab coats. On the back is something printed to the effect of, "[some school] Physics. If you see us running, try to keep up."

      --
      This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
    3. Re:China's definition of success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen that slogan before, but it's "bomb squad," not "physics."

    4. Re:China's definition of success by CthulhuDreamer · · Score: 5, Funny

      With the bomb squad, you can usually stop running after the first couple of blocks. If it involves the physics department, keep going.

    5. Re:China's definition of success by cyfer2000 · · Score: 1

      The one I saw was "Nuclear engineering..."

      --
      There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
    6. Re:China's definition of success by winphreak · · Score: 1

      How would we know they succeeded? Our spy satellites are currently being blinded.

      --
      "I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
    7. Re:China's definition of success by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      I've seen that one, and I've also seen "pyrotechnics engineer".

    8. Re:China's definition of success by otis+wildflower · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Do not look into laser with remaining eye".

    9. Re:China's definition of success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A success would be VERY bad. If they were to successfully fuse Yin (deuterium is stable) and Yang (tritium is radioactive), the universe would collapse on itself in a paradox of indeterminable (non?) oneness!

      You know: "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria."

    10. Re:China's definition of success by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Funny

      What do you think is powering the lasers? Fairy dust?!

    11. Re:China's definition of success by Mignon · · Score: 0, Redundant

      "Warning: Do not look into laser with remaining eye."

    12. Re:China's definition of success by secolactico · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Free Lasik Surgery" -- in a label next to a FC port.

      --
      No sig
    13. Re:China's definition of success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It should say, "[some school] Physics. Please stop running when you see us."

  2. Oh... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny

    100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds.

    I think someone needs a CoolerMaster for that one!

    bad news, the coolermaster consumed all the net energy

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:Oh... by RsG · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nah, you want it to get as hot as possible. Higher temperature leads to more reactions in the fuel, which in turn leads to greater effeciency. Part of the problem is getting the fuel that hot in the first place, and keeping it together long enough to fuse.

      Side note: while 100 million degrees sounds awfully hot, we're talking about a tiny amount of fuel here. The usual figure quoted for a hypothetical commercial reactor is about two grams of fuel in the core at any given time. The reactor itself doesn't get anywhere near that hot, even in the event of a full loss of containment.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    2. Re:Oh... by digismack · · Score: 1, Funny

      100 million degrees Celsuis for nearly three seconds.
      Does this not technically contribute to global warming? ;)

      --
      http://www.hollowdepth.com
    3. Re:Oh... by oc255 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I never thought about the heat. If it produces more energy than it consumes, could we cool the planet off? An A/C unit moves heat around but creates waste heat, could we overcome this by moving it off-planet? Set up reflecting discs?

      Seems to me, limitless energy trumps everything because we could use the energy to fix any problems we had with generating it.

    4. Re:Oh... by jeffmeden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not a white hole energy source, its an energy derived from atoms that fuse together (much like our sun). So no, its not limitless, you need to keep it fed with fuel. And that was the least absurd part of your question; please explain how you plan to build an air conditioner outside earth's atmosphere, where theres *NO AIR*...

    5. Re:Oh... by jacksonj04 · · Score: 2, Funny
      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    6. Re:Oh... by budgenator · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's actually one of the main engineering problems, it's as lot easier to turn some fuel into a simulated sun than than it is to poke some fresh fuel into the middle of one.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    7. Re:Oh... by oc255 · · Score: 1

      Sorry for asking an absurd question. I was thinking air handler on the ground, space copper elevator type thing, radiator in the sky. Sure, it sounds stupid. But I guess my question is, energy can do work ... so why wouldn't we be able to cool ourselves off? Fusion, I thought, was so great because it's practically limitless (or at least really great).

      Or maybe I'll get flamed more because the heat really isn't an issue compared to other global warming factors.

      Sorry.

    8. Re:Oh... by jeffmeden · · Score: 1

      It's just that if we are sufficiently advanced to build such a monstrous air conditioner, global warming will probably be well within our control. Also, I would bet that since its cold in space and hot down on earth, you could build a structure like that and have it simply work on the force of convection and not need any forced relocation of heat. I'm sorry but it just sounds like something from a Futurama episode (which i happen to find perfectly entertaining, however impractical).

    9. Re:Oh... by homer_ca · · Score: 1

      Compare the heat of all sunlight falling on the Earth to the heat output of one fusion reactor. Not even close.

  3. Containment? by gentimjs · · Score: 0

    It would be nice to know what kind of containment they used for this? I'm sure they didnt want thier nuclear pile melting through the floor or anything .....

    1. Re:Containment? by RsG · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a fusion reactor. There is no nuclear pile - that would be a feature of a fission reactor, which is a different technology altogether.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    2. Re:Containment? by spike+hay · · Score: 4, Informative

      Magnetic containment. This isn't like fission reactions. There isn't a "pile." Just a couple of grams of non-radioactive deuterium and radioactive but fairly benign tritium. In the event that the magnets somehow fail, the reaction will stop, with just a bit of erosion on the sides of the reactor.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
    3. Re:Containment? by jnaujok · · Score: 1

      RTFA. It's called the "Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamok" reactor. That means magnetic plasma confinement. It's not that hard to figure out.

      And it's a fusion reactor, so there is no "nuclear pile" since that applies only in a fission reactor.

      --
      Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
    4. Re:Containment? by LotsOfPhil · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a superconducting tokamak.
      The new part is the fact that it uses superconducting magnets. Tokamaks have been used since the 70's.

      --
      This post climbed Mt. Washington.
    5. Re:Containment? by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      or even more accurately, Tokamaks have been consuming far more energy than they put out for over 30 years. But governments still throw billions at them rather than use already operating fusion reactor in the sky.

    6. Re:Containment? by OnesAndNoughts · · Score: 1

      Guess they'd call that the "America Syndrome"

    7. Re:Containment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea... It coulden't possibly fuse into a giant sun-like device that starts to suck the machine into it... only to be stopped by the only thing that a sun could be stopped by: Drowning it in water.

    8. Re:Containment? by CthulhuDreamer · · Score: 1

      "...just a bit of erosion..."

      I can already see a government report using the same term to describe the loss of containment in a fission reactor, too. "Just a bit of erosion; it's barely visble from orbit."

    9. Re:Containment? by RsG · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you have some design for a solar power generator that can even come close to the output of a fusion reactor, then please, by all means, post it. Or patent it - I'm sure you'd make a fortune.

      Of course I somehow doubt that. After all, photoelectric solar panels are already close to their maximum possible energy effeciency. We could get far better effeciency out of them if we put them in orbit and beamed the power back, given that doing so would get around the problems associated with the atmosphere, but our current space program doesn't even come close to adequate for such a task.

      For a point of comparison, fusion is already hitting breakeven. So much for "wasted" money these past thirty years, eh? The fact that something takes time and effort does not make it worthless.

      If you seriously want power from sunlight, burn oil or coal. After all, the energy in fossil fuels comes from sunlight introduced into the biosphere millions of years ago. In fact one could argue that fossil fuels are the worlds oldest natural solar battery. And unlike solar energy, which loses much in transmission, oil is easily transportable. You can extract and use it in places where the sun doesn't shine.

      Of course, it also burns dirty as hell. Even ignoring climate change, burning fossil fuels releases all sorts of crap into the air, from heavy metals, to soot, to radioactives. But lord knows, if you want to utilize that "fusion reactor up in the sky", you can do so today for all your energy needs - no fancy new tech required.

      Plus, who ever said fusion and solar were incompatible solutions? Governments spend a pittance on both of them (yeah it sounds like a lot, but look at their overall budget for comparison), so impling that they favour one over the other is utter rubbish. If you want to get really technical, some of the budget for the space program over the past decades paid for solar panel development, as well as things like fuel cell technology, so it's hardly as though green power has been ignored.

      We can pursue solar power in the mean time without the assistance of the governement - go out and buy some for your own use, get your home off the grid (assuming you haven't done so already). No new R&D is required to make solar a viable partial solution to our energy needs, and at the same time, there is little R&D that could ever turn it into a full solution. Conversely we cannot pursue fusion power in the same fashion - the goals are too long term for the private sector to be interested in. Your point is a classic false dichotomy.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    10. Re:Containment? by Geoff+St.+Germaine · · Score: 1

      Well, I've worked on a tokamak and we've had disruptions (loss of confinement) and it does basically nothing. There's a limited risk of damage to the machine.

    11. Re:Containment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus for one dating back to 1983. I don't think anyone has gotten better then 0.75 Q (1Q being self sustaning).

    12. Re:Containment? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      I agree.
      The money spent on fusion is a pittance.
      Solar is interesting enough that it does not need much government support.
      I think more funding for both would be money well spent.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    13. Re:Containment? by walt-sjc · · Score: 1

      So what relation does the Tokamok have to the Typodong missle? :-)

    14. Re:Containment? by wall0159 · · Score: 2, Interesting


      While I agree with most of your post, I question this:
      "...photoelectric solar panels are already close to their maximum possible energy effeciency..."

      my understanding is that current PV cells are only around 30% efficient. This suggests to me that there is large room for improvement.

      'No new R&D is required....'
      This is so true. we don't need to wait for a magic bullet. We already have the technological solutions to our energy problems - we just lack the political and social will to implement the necessary changes.

    15. Re:Containment? by l0b0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If I ever invent a time machine, the first mission would be to make sure the process of fusion was renamed to hot non-bomby difficult controllable process, or HNBDCP, to make sure these concepts were never, ever, confused again!

    16. Re:Containment? by l0b0 · · Score: 4, Funny
      You can extract and use it in places where the sun doesn't shine.

      You, Sir, have just invented another way of telling people where to "stick it". I salute thee.

    17. Re:Containment? by Single+GNU+Theory · · Score: 1
      Guess they'd call that the "America Syndrome"


      <thumbsup>

      If I had mod points, I'd have modded both you and EmbeddedJanitor funny. Like Liebnitz and Newton, except with jokes!
      --
      Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
    18. Re:Containment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >oil is easily transportable. You can extract and use it in places where the sun doesn't shine.

      Hey, hey! Let's keep the tone polite, OK?

    19. Re:Containment? by bill_kress · · Score: 1

      Actually, compared to many forms of energy creation, 30% is pretty high.

      What I'd like to see is some programs that improve the ammount of surface area that is covered--maybe bring the cost down to 5% of what it is now, THEN you'd see solar take off--and that's what our governtment could be investing in.

      Even if the government were to simply buy enough solar panels to cover the roofs of all the government buildings where weather permits, the quantity would drive down the prices and we'd conserve massive ammounts of fuel and taxpayer money.

      Once the prices were lower, industry could start doing the same thing.

      Then... Well I have 10 acres I'd love to cover with solar cells (if they weren't so expensive).

      I guess the point is that the 30% efficency is not the issue here at all.

    20. Re:Containment? by RsG · · Score: 1

      Well, IANAEOS (expert on solar), but it's been my understanding that the advances in solar panel effeciency leveled off after we got past a certain point due to physical limitations imposed by thermodynamics. Moreover, I know 30% sounds cruddy, but that's 30% of the sunlight hitting the panel being converted into electricity. From a practical standpoint, that's damn good.

      I'd be inclined to wonder how effecient the other power sources we have that use energy originating from the sun compare, in terms of effeciency. For example, fossil fuels have a few million years head start to build up energy stores, and hydro power is using the planet-wide hydrological cycle - both cases where scale negates the need for effeciency.

      Direct conversion of sunlight may never reach high levels of power effeciency. In fact I'd say what matters more is economic effeciency (they don't need to be super-effecient if we can mass produce them cheaply enough). However, that isn't a problem that requires government funded R&D so much as it requires widespread adoption by the public. If we started building homes with solar roofs wherever the local climate allows, then I suspect solar will be a more useful part of the energy equation.

      This doesn't remove the need for centralized power generation though, which is where fusion would be a godsend. I'm all for a combination approach to solving our energy needs, but I can't think of anything that comes close to fusion for building a clean power plant.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    21. Re:Containment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > You can extract and use it in places where the sun doesn't shine.

      Wow, so many inappropriate things that could be said here... Where to start?

    22. Re:Containment? by budgenator · · Score: 1

      Sorry I can't resist but Hydrogen fusion would burn through the ceiling!

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    23. Re:Containment? by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Are we talking hot or cold fusion here? Cold fusion doesn't need magnetic containment. And if hot, why does the story say net energy gain is the challenge? Any garden variety H-Bomb will do that... but harnessing all that energy is a slight problem.

    24. Re:Containment? by cunina · · Score: 1

      No, cold fusion needs media containment.

    25. Re:Containment? by quanminoan · · Score: 1
      If you're interested in the science behind fusion beyond the wikipedia article I would recommend reading "The Science of JET", available for free online here.

      JET was the highly successful predecessor to ITER.

    26. Re:Containment? by b00tang · · Score: 0
      "For a point of comparison, fusion is already hitting breakeven."


      I agree with everything you posted besides this. To my knowledge the closest experiment to break even fusion is NIF (see http://www.llnl.gov/str/Powell.html or just http://www.llnl.gov/nif/). NIF still has a few years before it will be finished, inertial confinement is probably not going to be a viable energy source, and "break even" just means that you get as much out as you put into the plasma. So all that power on a magnetic confinement device going into magnet coils doesn't count. Power lost to inefficiencies doesn't count. Just what actually makes it into the plasma.


      And even once break even is reached (whether it be NIF or ITER) the real goal is not just break even but a self-sustaining (burning) plasma. I think fusion is going to be great for the world, but it has a long way to come yet.


      On topic with the article is that China's great accomplishment is in building a working experimental tokamak for less than 1/10th of the normal cost of a tokamak of its scale (around $ 37 million says wikipedia). If they are actually running shots and taking data then i think thats amazing.

    27. Re:Containment? by Lord+Apathy · · Score: 1

      If I ever invent a time machine I on the other hand I'm going to something more creative with it. I'm going to go back an put a six pack of beer in the grave with the first Neanderthal found. Then I would come back and watch the fun when they dug it up.

      --

      Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification

    28. Re:Containment? by jafac · · Score: 1

      Actually, what's needed is solar cells that have an operational life long enough that their power generation produces more money than they cost to make.

      Right now, it takes tax incentives, over the 15 year expected life of current offerings, to pretty much break even on cost.

      If those panels last 30 years instead of 15, even if their efficiency is less than 20%, there'll still be a payoff. Right now, the only payoff Solar has, is the absence of costs the petroleum energy very efficiently shifts to other areas (ie. pollution, and war over oil fields is a cost we all bear, but the petroleum industry does not factor into the cost at the pump). Solar doesn't involve any of these costs - but because the petroleum industry shifts these costs, petroleum seems cheaper.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    29. Re:Containment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      30% kind of sucks. It isn't horrible, but it's far from the theoretically obtainable limits. There's been some recent work in quantum dots of GaAs, and nanowires (and single waled carbon nanotubes of the semiconductor, not metallic type) where a single high-energy photon of light can create multiple excitons, or electron hole pairs in the sample. The problem is that Auger processes tend to result in fast recombining of these holes, and an Auger process is a nonradiative process; no electricity could be produced. This Auger recombining tends to have a lifetime of around say 1 picosecond or so... give or take. The trick would be moving those elctrons quickly, and materials bound to TiO2 particles tend to shed their electrons in about 10 femoseconds. The DOE has recently been soliciting grant proposals for improved solar energy conversion, and my research group is one of those submitting proposals.

      I might have a bit of the terminology off, since I'm a nonlinear spectroscopist by trade, and not a materials person. Other research groups have joined in on the proposal for the materials creation part, so I can't explain much concerning the materials being considered.

      Currently, as I understand things, Si is used in solar panels, and Si has a fairly high bandgap, which means that lower energy photons pass right through. Those photons make no electricity and are wasted. I don't have the numbers memorized, but I believe that Si's bandgap is actually larger than the ideal bandgap for the solar spectrum. The problem is that if your bandgap is too small, those high energy photons only create a single low energy exciton, and much energy is lost (through phonons[heat] I believe, not positive. I'm very new to this field as the current moment). These multiple excition creating materials have the potential to create more excitons than photons hitting the collector. As I understand how the 30% number is used, this means that a 100%+ collector is possible- in theory. Naturally, we're a freaking LONG way from that. Hell, this is just a grant proposal, no actual work has been done at all on this exact issue.

      That said, there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to solar energy collection.

    30. Re:Containment? by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      Also, solar power is not that green, either; the manufacturing process of photovoltaic cells generates toxic waste. It's better than burning coal but still not exactly perfect. Thus, it would be nonsense to treat solar power as the non plus ultra of power generation. It makes for a useful addition to our pool of power generation technologies, though (especially one that can be added everywhere for small increases in power generation - you just install solar panels on a building's rooftop).

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    31. Re:Containment? by jeremyp · · Score: 1
      If you have some design for a solar power generator that can even come close to the output of a fusion reactor, then please, by all means, post it. Or patent it - I'm sure you'd make a fortune.
      Yes, put an array of solar cells in a field. You will generate some electricity. This compares quite favourably with any fusion reactor in existence which uses more energy to create and contain the plasma than is generated. Solar cells are viable now. Fusion reactors may never work.
      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    32. Re:Containment? by jnaujok · · Score: 1

      Considering that I cut/pasted the name from the article and just added the bold tag, I refuse to accept responsibility for the typos.

      I nebber macke tipowgrafical mistrakes... ;-)

      --
      Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
    33. Re:Containment? by RsG · · Score: 1

      Right, because technology never improves beyond the prototype stage. Plus, while you may generate "some" electrictiy with solar, it'll never replace either fossil fuels or nuclear as a centralized means of power generation. As a distributed means of generation, it shows promise, so it is indeed a partial solution - but I must stress that it will never by itself be a full solution. Other tech is needed to have a completely green economy, particularly if we want to get rid of fossil fuels in our cars and other vehicles.

      As for "fusion reactor may never work", have you even been paying attention? They're already starting to work! Hell, RTFA, the Chinese are begining to develop them - and what they're doing today is still far less than what ITER can accomplish. Sticking your head in the sand and saying that "it'll never work", when we've already gotten past some of the hardest obstacles (namely, actually getting a controlled fusion reaction, and maintaining it for any duration under confinement) is willfully stupid. It's like claiming we're never going to put a man in space after we'd already sent unmanned vehicles up. The fact that it's taken thirty years to get this far with fusion is a testament to the slow nature of R&D, and a sign that fusion projects are badly underfunded (despite what the GP seems to think).

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  4. Chinas economic success by hsmith · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Will be tied to their ability to get away from fossil fuels and develop alternative sources. They, not the United States will be the leader in developing the "big thing" that moves us beyond our oil based economy.

    1. Re:Chinas economic success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      given their current engineering "success" revolves around what they could steal from other countries, I fear we aren't moving away from oil for a LONGGGGG time.

      Not at all. It takes a couple of generations to catch up, to get a significant number of researchers trained up to the level where they're pushing the technology, rather than just following. China is about a generation into that process, and they're already doing significant amounts of real research. Given them another 10-20 years with the sort of emphasis they're putting on it, and they're very likely to be running with the best of the world.

      Remember that you're talking about a country with 1.2 billion people. With a crop that large, the cream is very, very good.

    2. Re:Chinas economic success by Fei_Id · · Score: 1

      Yeah, a peasant class that is 1 billion of that number... they grow crops but their cream isnt going to get them into any kind of school. :) Seen any famous Mexican physicists or chemists yet? Nothing against the country; but generally high-levels of peasant classes don't contribute much to the advancement of science. One of the biggest; if not THE biggest reasons we have such an immigration problem. There isnt much of a peasant class at all in the US (not compared to the previously mentioned countries). You can't use "poverty-level" arguments either because they don't take into account cost of living in various areas. 40k/yr here, where I live, will get you a nice house, car, and a family. :) Do that in New York city and see how far you get.

    3. Re:Chinas economic success by mcguyver · · Score: 1

      Look up globalization. China's predicted to become one of the worlds most powerful countries in 10-20 years. It and much of the rest of the world is no longer limited to exporting blue collar goods.

    4. Re:Chinas economic success by Danga · · Score: 1

      "40k/yr here, where I live, will get you a nice house, car, and a family."

      You can mail-order a family now?

      --
      Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
    5. Re:Chinas economic success by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      Compare the amount of Mexicans found in any given university and the amount of Chinese in the same place. Either the Chinesehave a lot of money and don't like their own unis or China is heavily investing in their next generation of researchers. Given the fact that a lot of those future researchers are being sent to places like the MIT I think it's safe to assume that in the next decades China is going to have a lot of very smart people as their disposal.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    6. Re:Chinas economic success by fdisk3hs · · Score: 1

      What is it with you people? No matter what the headline, somebody always jumps in with, "I have seen this coming for a long time. Microsoft/U.S.A./Intel/Dell/IBM/Sun is so passe, and they have finally been dethroned. Here are the reasons why they were headed for a fall..." PUH LEEZ! Get a life and stop waiting around for some validation for your "the underground will rule" fantasies.
       
      Having said that, lots of smart people have been saying for a long time that Asia outnumbers us, which means that they have more smart people than we do, and therefore we will have to work very hard to stay ahead. Well, we're not working very hard, and nobody wants to invest in long-money power research. "Let somebody else do that, we need money now. When I'm dead somebody else will get rich on new power and I don't care."

    7. Re:Chinas economic success by OwnedByTwoCats · · Score: 1

      According to the CIA World Fact Book, when measured by purchasing power parity, China is already the second largest economy in the world.

      So it's not a matter of decades. In a decade or two (shorter if the US keeps electing Republicans), China will become the world's largest economy.

      And, speaking of the World Fact Book, I have to put this link in. It explains a lot about the run-up to the Iraq war.
      http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1281.html/

  5. I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by spike+hay · · Score: 3, Informative

    It was successful in that it fused deuterium and tritium. Of course, the break even point doesn't matter. To be economical, the reactor realistically has to hit ignition, which only the ITER could hope to do.

    --
    If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
    1. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wow. You are one serious trolling Karma whore. Cutting sentences from TFA or wikipedia and getting modded. Check all this guys posts and see what I mean!

    2. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by m0nstr42 · · Score: 1
      It was successful in that it fused deuterium and tritium. Of course, the break even point doesn't matter. To be economical, the reactor realistically has to hit ignition, which only the ITER could hope to do.
      Exactly. It's an experimental reactor, not an experimental power plant. It was successful in reacting, not necessarily in generating net power.
    3. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by kidtexas · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, it was successful in getting plasma, usually called "first plasma" in the field. I had heard it was 200kA for 1.2 seconds. I'm would be shocked if they actually were using tritium in the system at this early stage, but I could be wrong. I'm betting that was the result of the scientist media interface.

      ITER, which is designed for a Q of 5-10 I think and most definitely for DT plasmas, is supposed to reach first plasma in 2016. I think the first DT plasmas for ITER are scheduled for 2019. The other 2 tokamaks that I know of that have done DT experiments (TFTR and JET) took quite a while before they started using tritium in the system as well. Which is why I'd be very surprised if EAST was trying DT plasmas from the get go. Getting a plasma at all with a measurable plasma current is enough.

      Most hefty fusion research devices have fusion events. That in and of itself is not that ground breaking. There is a big difference between having fusion events and achieving break even though.

      EAST is a big deal because it is all super conducting and I believe designed and made entirely in China (for less than $50 million from what I heard). I would imagine it's going to be quite an amazing machine, but as far as I know, it is meant to play a support role for ITER, not to beat it to the punch.

    4. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by deglr6328 · · Score: 1

      I concur about the tritium thing. There's NO WAY they've gone DT yet, that would be nuts. Am I correct in thinking that HT-7U (also (was) in china) is the only other superconducting tokamak ever built? That can't be right. KSTAR the Korean superconducting reactor is still in the planing stages and I am unaware of any others (perhaps with the exception of the hightemp superconductor in the levitated dipole experiment but that's not a tokamak really). It seems so obvious, if you want high B fields....why are there so few of these?

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    5. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by Phanatic1a · · Score: 1

      To be economical, the reactor realistically has to hit ignition

      Ignition isn't Q=1. Breakeven is Q=1. To be economical, a D-T reactor's going to have to hit Q ~= 20; that is, 20 times as much energy coming out as you're putting in.

      Ignition is what you get when the reaction sustains itself with no input energy at all; Q = infinity, basically.

    6. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by spike+hay · · Score: 1

      Ignition isn't Q=1. Breakeven is Q=1. To be economical, a D-T reactor's going to have to hit Q ~= 20; that is, 20 times as much energy coming out as you're putting in.

      Ignition is what you get when the reaction sustains itself with no input energy at all; Q = infinity, basically.


      That's basically what I was getting at.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
    7. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by AtomicBomb · · Score: 1

      According to various chinese news media, the significant of EAST experimental reactor is two fold: first it is all super conducting, second, it adopts a toroid with a non-circular cross section. So far, EAST's reactor design is most similar to ITER. Yes, its role is kind of supportive and serves as training ground/ testbed for ITER.

    8. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by kravlor · · Score: 1

      They most certainly have not used DT in their first plasma, especially considering they were performing their intitial pumpdown/coil cooling/safety interlocks, etc. in February. (Paper) Once you put tritium in the system, it's never coming out -- and you've just made your site a regulated nuclear facility. Not to mention that you will likely need to do subsequent repairs remotely.

      EAST will certainly help out with discovering (and engineering solutions to) the unique handling of superconducting coilsets. These are a necessity for a fusion reactor; they will also help gain insight for operation of ITER.

    9. Re:I'm pretty sure it didn't hit Q=1 by Jesrad · · Score: 1

      I, for one, would not be surprised at all if the test was entirely bogus, in the sense that it did not use the EAST reactor, or DT fusion, or happened at all the way they said it has. There's also a good chance they beat ITER to sustainable fusion, and not using magnetic confinement madness.

      Fast-rewind back to last year, and this announcement of Sandia, and report by Haines, that the pinch machine was reliably making plasmas at billions of degrees.

      Around the same date as when the experiments were going on, the congress votes billions of dollars of funding for a project to replace existing nuclear warheads with "safer" ones. Hu-uh. I've heard more than one rumor of the Sandia guys placing a Li-H target in the machine for a free test while they were verifying their results. Wanna bet they had confirmation of fusion, just like last time ?

      Starting to connect dots already ? How do you make an H bomb go boom ? With an A bomb that initiates a Li-H fusion. That means having to refine Uranium, which is extremely tedious and costly, and highly visible, having a lower power limit of 300 KT, and leaving radioactive dirt behind every explosion. With a Z-pinch detonator, there's no lower power limit, you can have H bombs of any size, leaving no radioactive dirt, and you don't need fancy material that fall under international scrutiny. The billions of degrees it reaches means it can initiate Li-H fusion, or B11-H fusion, which can also be used for power generation much more safely than currently envisioned methods, for example by feeding a Li-H ions spike into the steel plasma, using MHD for controlling the input, and for generating power on the output.

      The Chinese and Russians have been building such Z-pinch fusion igniters since the original Sandia announcement, and so have the US, AFAIK. It shouldn't take very long before the first traces of all this start to emerge, until official confirmations.

      --
      Maybe we deserve this world ?
  6. Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Achieving a net energy gain is not the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable. That has been done quite successfully. There is no problem passing break-even. It is ignition we are trying to achieve now. That is, a fusion reaction which produces enough heat to cause more fusion, provided enough fuel. If you're going to write an article about fusion, at least know something about the state of the field. Journalists should all be required to read the relevant wikipedia articles before publishing something about science.

    --
    SIGSEGV caught, terminating

    wait... not that kind of sig.
    1. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by LurkerXXX · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      People posting to slashdot should all be required to cite real relavent sources. Not some website any 12-year old can change at a whim.

    2. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      although complex, if there IS a net gain, couldn't that be used to keep the reaction going, even without ignition?

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    3. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by spike+hay · · Score: 1

      although complex, if there IS a net gain, couldn't that be used to keep the reaction going, even without ignition?

      That's pretty much the definition of ignition. It turns out you need a lot of net energy to keep everything at the proper temperature. So Q=1 is not nearly sufficient.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
    4. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People complaining about websites that any 12-year-old can change on a whim should at least take the time to look up how to spell "relevant".

    5. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      net gain: more energy comes out than went in -> with a net gain, you could restart the process from scratch, repeatedly and get more energy each time, even without a self-renewing reaction.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    6. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by noidentity · · Score: 1

      Being ignorant on the matter I'd say being able to make the thing keep running for hours on end is the main requirement for viability, then you can fine-tune things to get net energy out.

    7. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Howserx · · Score: 5, Funny

      Journalists should all be required to read the relevant wikipedia articles before publishing something about science Or they should at least edit the relevant wiki articles to make sure it matches their article.

      --
      I support the troops. I pay f'ing taxes.
    8. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by RsG · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure the problem with that is commercial viability, not any physical limitation. Remember that the reaction only needs to excede it's energy input by a tiny amount in order to break even, so it's not a simple jump from a net energy positive reator to a power generator.

      I'm pretty sure that if we improved the tech to the point where producing useful levels of energy was possible, then we'd have already passed the threshold for ignition; ie making the reaction self-renewing is an intermediate step between breakeven fusion and commercial fusion regardless.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    9. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

      I think part of the problem is even though there is a net gain the energy being released needs to be contained within the fuel instead of escaping.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    10. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Achieving a net energy gain is not the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable. That has been done quite successfully. There is no problem passing break-even.

      No, actually niether has been demonstrated - ITER is intended to do so. (Among other things.)
       
       
      It is ignition we are trying to achieve now. That is, a fusion reaction which produces enough heat to cause more fusion, provided enough fuel.

      No - ignition means achieving fusion. What you call ignition is called a self sustaining burn - something else ITER is intended to investigate.
       
       
      If you're going to write an article about fusion, at least know something about the state of the field.

      That's something you might consider doing yourself - as you plainly know niether the state nor the terminology of the field.
       
       
      Journalists should all be required to read the relevant wikipedia articles before publishing something about science.

      Actually, what they should so is skip reading the articles and follow the links. Reading the articles is the fastest way to confusion that I know of.
    11. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by swarsron · · Score: 1

      colbert, you post on slashdot?

    12. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 5, Informative
      Go out and get yourself a copy of An Introduction to The Physics of Nuclei and Particles by Richard A. Dunlap, first edition, published in 2004. This is one of the standard texts for an undergraduate physics course in nuclear and particle physics. See pages 192 and 193, esp. Figures 13.12 and 13.13. Then read the text on page 192. I will reproduce it here for your benefit:

      In Figure 13.12 the broken line represents unthermalized breakeven. This refers to the situation where the energy output of the reactor is equal to the energy input but the plasma conditions have been augmented by neutral beam injection. The solid line represents thermalized breakeven where the plasma conditions themselves are sufficient for net energy production. The shaded region represents ignition where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain the plasma conditions. This is a self-sustained fusion reaction. These operating conditions refer to d-t fusion; conditions for d-d fusion would follow curves with values of n\tau about two orders of magnitude larger. The data points in the figure represent the operating conditions of a number of experimental magnetic confinement reactors. The general trend of the points from the lower left to the upper right of the figure represents the chronological development of fusion reactors from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. This line also represents an increase in reactor power from the mW range to several MW. Present results are in the breakeven region and future developments can hope to achieve ignition. The time scale for such developments is presumably in the order of several decades.
      The figure shows 2 points inside the solid line, and 15 points between the solid line and the broken line. Figure 13.13 on the facing page is a similar plot, showing inertial confinement experiments rather than magnetic confinement. However, 13.13 lacks the lines showing the two breakeven points.

      Allow me to repeat the particularly relevant phrases (emphasis mine):

      The shaded region represents ignition where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain plasma conditions. This is a self-sustained fusion reaction.
      Present results are in the breakeven region and future developments can hope to achieve ignition.
      Direct from a credible source. Now, perhaps Dunlap is wrong. Credible sources have been quite wrong in the past and will be in the future. However, you'd best have a stronger argument than "no you're a poopyhead" if you expect anyone to believe you.
      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    13. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 2

      Alright. My primary (meaning main, not firsthand) source is, as I said in another post, An Introduction to the Physics of Nuclei and Particles, written by Richard A. Dunlap of Dalhousie University, published by Brooks/Cole, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc., in 2004. See especially page 192. This is a standard text for an undergraduate course in nuclear and particle physics. Happy now?

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    14. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Hays · · Score: 1

      I think you're simply reading it wrong.

      "The shaded region represents ignition where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain plasma conditions."

      That does not imply that "ignition" = "where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain plasma conditions"

      replace the word ignition with "trial" or "test" or "experiment" or "burn" or "fusion event"

      you wouldn't now say that "trial" = "where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain plasma conditions"

      The last part of the sentence is a qualifier, not a definition.

    15. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by deglr6328 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe the GP is right. No one has actually achieved breakeven (except for Dr. Edward Teller in the 50's but those weren't exactly practical power producing devices since they tended to obliterate everything in a 20 mile radius!!). The JET in Culham UK came closest a few years back at ~70% breakeven with a 50/50 DT plasma. Those dots you are seeing on that plot are almost certainly extrapolated breakeven points. meaning they represent the DD reactions done on the Japanese JT-60 device which WOULD, if done with a DT plasma, have achieved breakeven at 125% gain. But since they have never gone to DT plasmas on that device, because they don't have the facilities to handle T, they have not strictly broken even. The first thermonuclear device to break even in the laboratory will be the national ignition facility at LLNL when it is completed in 3 years.

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    16. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are wrong, ignition is a self-sustained burn.

      Plasma physicist

    17. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. It's not online and it costs money.

    18. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1
      In that case, how do we explain the final sentence?

      future developments can hope to achieve ignition.
      Certainly this is not as the GGP said, that ignition is fusing any two nuclei. We most certainly have done this, so why should we "hope to achieve" it?

      Furthermore, the first sentence of the next paragraph reads

      In Figure 13.13 the solid region again represents ignition for a d-t reactor.
      This again seems to support my interpretation. Unfortunately, I can't quote exactly what my professor said in class, but given my interpretation, if he said anything regarding ignition (which IIRC he did) it must have supported my interpretation. But I don't expect that to be a credible argument for really anyone but me since it is so vague.

      Finally, the phrasing in the supposed description of thermalized breakeven is identical ("thermalized breakeven where ..."), and by comparing that sentence to the first and second sentences of the paragraph, which describe unthermalized breakeven, we can presume that this sentence is in fact describing thermalized breakeven, rather than describing a condition which qualifies a particular subspace of the conditions which could be called thermalized breakeven.
      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    19. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      That would certainly be an adequate explanation for those dots, however it does not agree with what Dunlap says in the text. Perhaps Dunlap is himself mistaken, but since he does not cite a source for the figure, one can presume that he (or possibly a grad student of his) made it for the text, and thus he ought to understand it and know what those points actually represent. Your explanation does not, I suppose, directly contradict "Present results are in the breakeven region", but it certainly contradicts the most obvious understanding of the sentence, especially combined with the plot. You would have to understand "in the region" to mean "they would be in the region if they were done differently (with d-t instead of d-d)", which IMO is stretching things a bit.

      At the same time, I can't find any evidence (with a couple of fairly cursory googlings) of an actual experiment achieving breakeven, thermalized or unthermalized. Perhaps I'll see if I can email Dunlap and ask him directly.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    20. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      If you look at the other post in this thread that I was referring to, you will see that I have reproduced the relevant part of the text. If you think that I would have a) changed the wikipedia article to agree with me, and then b) misquoted a published text... then I don't know what. You're unlikely to be satisfied with anything I might present as a source.

      If you want to have a look at the book yourself, make an appointment with a physics professor at your local university. Find out who teaches nuclear and particle physics. They've probably got a copy on their shelf. Beyond that, I'm not sufficiently concerned with convincing you to put forth any further effort. Most other people seem to find that my source is adequate, and I don't actually care much about one more.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    21. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      Ok, I have sent an email to Dr. Dunlap. I took the liberty of quoting the following from your comment: "the DD reactions done on the Japanese JT-60 device which WOULD, if done with a DT plasma, have achieved breakeven at 125% gain. But since they have never gone to DT plasmas on that device, because they don't have the facilities to handle T, they have not strictly broken even.". I hope that you do not mind. Hopefully he will respond soon.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    22. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by deglr6328 · · Score: 1

      No problem. I think its fine to say we're certainly within the breakeven regime, we're obviously within a factor of 2 of the mark on the best devices with DT. It is not unlike the current state of things in the ICF world where we frequently talk of being "within the 'ignition regime'" for experiments done on, for instance, petawatt laser coupled fast ignition implosion experiments which are scaled for relevancy to the NIF 'true ignition' experimental regime.

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    23. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by deglr6328 · · Score: 1

      ZOMGZ! u work at FNAL on CDF?

      --
      - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    24. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by HiddenCamper · · Score: 1

      "No - ignition means achieving fusion. What you call ignition is called a self sustaining burn - something else ITER is intended to investigate."

      We have fusion. and break even fusion for the ~1 second that it lasts. The problem is the reaction is not continuous. when you have a self sustaining continuous reaction, thats "Ignition".
      The reason we dont use fusion for commercial uses is because being able to ignite for ~1 second intervals will never be able to produce enough energy to power anything.

      IAPE (I'm a plasma engineer....had to use it after all the IAL posts from other stories^^)

    25. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by JourneyExpertApe · · Score: 1

      Oh, yeah? I'm looking at a copy of An Introduction To Why The Textbook Titled The Physics of Nuclei and Particles by Richard A. Dunlap, first edition, published in 2004 Is Wrong, Third Edition by Brainy McKnowsitall, Copyright 2005 Smartypants Press. It clearly states that, "ignition is the point where the the reactor starts to glow and shake violently and all the scientists run screaming from the building."

      --
      If you can read this sig, you're too close.
    26. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Hays · · Score: 1

      Hmm, points taken. Especially about that final sentence. It certainly seems this author is using the term ignition in the manner that you describe. And perhaps the physics community as a whole. However, it's a dumb term to use to describe "self sustained reaction" since the dictionary definition of ignition indicates that ignition is the initial step of a combustion. "the process of initiating combustion or catching fire" or "The means by which burning is started" or "The initiation of combustion."

    27. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      Yes, but only as an undergraduate. I'm graduating this May, going to probably Ohio State, and I'll probably work on ATLAS or CMS there. I've worked at CDF for two and a half years. Why do you ask?

      As a side note, your journal entry "write notes to me here" can no longer have comments added.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    28. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      Good point. Perhaps it would make more sense to think of ignition as being the initiation of a self-sustained reaction, in analogy to catching fire, rather than the self-sustained reaction itself, which would be more like "ignited". I think this is not inconsistent with Dunlap's usage.

      Geez, I feel like I'm sounding as if I think Dunlap is the Bible or something. I swear he's just the source I have at hand!

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    29. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is not that we are trying to "get energy out" in the sense of produce usable electric current in transmission lines. The net energy gain or loss is how much energy you put into the reaction (like the electricity flowing through the sparkplug in your car) vs. how much energy everything in the reacting system has after the reaction is done. So if I start a fire, I put a small amount of energy in, ie I strike a match, involving a very small amount of energy of motion of the matchhead against the box, and I get a large amount of energy out, even though most of it goes to light and to heating the air around me. Whereas if I try to strike a damp match, there will be some combustion which takes place, but in order for more combustion to take place, water has to be evaporated. The energy of evaporating the water for one combustion reaction is more than the energy released by that one combustion reaction, so the match doesn't light. It fizzles. The net energy change in this case is a loss. So, in the fusion reactor, we have to have a net energy gain before we can have a reactor that can run for hours on end, because otherwise it would just fizzle instead of running.

      My point in my original post was that a net energy gain is not enough. You also must have a sufficiently dense plasma in your reactor so that enough of the energy you produce stays in the plasma so that fusion keeps happening. Once this is achieved, then it can run for hours on end. In fact, once you reach this point, called ignition, your reactor will run for as long as you keep feeding it fuel. Once we reach that point, all the really hard problems are solved. Not that producing electricity from it will be trivial, but it will be a darn sight easier than reaching ignition.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    30. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by kravlor · · Score: 1

      This is a good analogy. Actually, one doesn't want to achieve ignition in a fusion reactor, since at that point the reaction is capable of sustaining itself entirely, running as long as fuel is present in the vessel. Why is this a bad thing? Because if the plasma entirely sustains itself, it doesn't respond to (or doesn't need to respond to) today's methods of control!

      A plausible scenario is to operate a reactor at a reasonable fusion gain factor Q = P_fusion/P_input of 5-10. (Ignition is then Q = infinity.) This way, the reaction can be rapidly quenched under operator control.

    31. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by Luyseyal · · Score: 1

      All that effort to boil a tub of water. Amazing.
      -l

      --
      Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
    32. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by RMB2 · · Score: 1

      Unless The Wilscchon == R.A. Dunlap, you are sooo getting sued

      cc: Brooks Cole Publishing

      --
      [/sarcasm]
    33. Re:Net gain not the obstacle! by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      One paragraph certainly qualifies as fair use.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
  7. Why waste time doing research... by jizziknight · · Score: 1

    ...on fusion/cold fusion when Dr. Emma Russel already knows the answer? All someone has to do is seduce her and steal the cards out of her brazier! A much simpler plan. Plus, you get some booty from a hottie while you're at it!

    --
    Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
    1. Re:Why waste time doing research... by Cryssen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just don't make her hyperventilate

      --
      "Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck." -George Carlin
    2. Re:Why waste time doing research... by jizziknight · · Score: 1

      No worries as long as you've got her heart medicine handy. Just make sure you don't drop her pills into a freezing river. Though, the end result is pretty nice, but the hypothermia might suck a bit.

      --
      Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
    3. Re:Why waste time doing research... by __aamnbm3774 · · Score: 0

      why did you send me to that link? terrible...

    4. Re:Why waste time doing research... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If all I gotta do to have Elizabeth Shue lay naked on me is fall in a freezing cold river, bring on the ice.

  8. Everyone will be doing it soon... by jbeaupre · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pretty soon even high school students will be making fusion reactors. Oh wait, they already are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_fus or

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    1. Re:Everyone will be doing it soon... by swarsron · · Score: 4, Funny

      somehow i can't help but be sceptical of a scientist named Farnsworth

    2. Re:Everyone will be doing it soon... by jeffmeden · · Score: 1

      Good news everyone! You no longer have to make the pudding and mello yello delivery to the high school dorks planet, they finally got their fusion reactor to work and it consumed the entire solar system...

      How is that good news?

      They paid us in advance!!!

    3. Re:Everyone will be doing it soon... by sankyuu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Word is that Dr. Farnsworth of Futurama was actually named after the Dr. Farnsworth who invented the CRT TV and the Fusor reactor.

  9. Xinhua? by mustafap · · Score: 1

    Xinhua have an atrocious track record for truth verses spin, worse than tony blairs pr department. I'm not going to get excited about this one.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
    1. Re:Xinhua? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In these parts pardner, only the US lies.

  10. what they are not telling us by roman_mir · · Score: 2, Funny

    Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced they had successfully tried a domestically developed fusion device in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei, Xinhua news agency said.

    The scientists called the device "the first of its kind in operation in the world", but the report did not specify what tests it had passed. ...
    Xinhua cited the scientists as saying that deuterium and tritium atoms had been fused together at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds.
    - what they are not telling us is that their sofistimacated gizmotron is based on a Yin Yang Dragon technology, which employs 500,000,000 manual workers, each one only having to heat up one atom by 1/5th of a degree by applying the power of the Chi.

    Since the labor for all the labor only cost about $5 total, the reactor was able to produce an energy surplus, a feat previously considered to be improbable.

    1. Re:what they are not telling us by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Heck 500,000 workers on bicycle generators would be enough power to warm up the reactor.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:what they are not telling us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      racist.

    3. Re:what they are not telling us by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      pffft no, a futurologist.

  11. America Syndrome by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 2, Funny

    What goes around, comes around

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:America Syndrome by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      Good one. :D

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  12. more energy than it consumed by Threni · · Score: 0, Redundant

    > producing more energy than it consumed, the main obstacle to
    > making fusion commercially viable.

    On this website we obey the laws of physics!

    1. Re:more energy than it consumed by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 3, Informative

      But that is the law of physics. The extra energy comes from the mass which is converted to energy. Had it said "producing more mass/energy than it consumed", then that would be against the laws of physics.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:more energy than it consumed by Threni · · Score: 1

      > But that is the law of physics. The extra energy comes from the mass which is converted to energy.
      > Had it said "producing more mass/energy than it consumed", then that would be against the laws of physics.

      I thought mass was energy? Otherwise, doesn't setting fire to a gallon of petrol qualify as a production of more energy than it consumes?

    3. Re:more energy than it consumed by RsG · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, you don't lose mass when you burn something. Chemical combustion converts potential chemical energy into heat, but the end products mass as much as the starting ones. All the energy in a gallon of gas is the energy that went into producing it.

      But technically yes, when you talk about fusion reactors you should say "converted more energy from mass than it took to fuse said mass". So the phrasing from the article/summary is technically in error, but most people who know their physics can grasp what they actually mean.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    4. Re:more energy than it consumed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mass is conserved (more or less) when you burn stuff. Better luck next time.

    5. Re:more energy than it consumed by pclminion · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, you don't lose mass when you burn something. Chemical combustion converts potential chemical energy into heat, but the end products mass as much as the starting ones.

      Actually, you always lose relativistic mass when you release potential energy. A gallon of gasoline is more massive than the sum of the masses of its individual atoms (but not by much), due to the electromagnetic potential energy of the chemical bonds. By general relativity, any place in space with a nonzero mass or energy density is warped. Thus, the potential energy (think of it as being contained in the electromagnetic field between the atoms) actually contributes slightly to the effective mass of the system.

      The fraction of relativistic mass lost when you burn a gallon of gas is probably so small as to be unmeasurable by any known measurement device, but it's there (at least if GR is correct).

    6. Re:more energy than it consumed by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      There's no "more or less" about it. Mass is conserved. Energy is conserved. The energy released through burning (oxidation reaction) is the energy that was stored in the chemical bonds making up the fuel.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    7. Re:more energy than it consumed by RsG · · Score: 1

      Whoops, you're right. I stand corrected.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    8. Re:more energy than it consumed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd lose about 1.3 micrograms of mass. Theoretically (but not practically) measurable.

    9. Re:more energy than it consumed by pclminion · · Score: 1

      There's no "more or less" about it. Mass is conserved. Energy is conserved.

      Nope. Mass-energy is conserved. Anywhere you have potential energy, you have mass. Energy and mass warp spacetime precisely the same way, according to the simple relationship E = mc^2. Wherever you have energy E, you have spacetime warping identical to that caused by a mass of E/c^2. The complete equivalence of the two is one of the most core concepts of relativity.

      So when you burn a gallon of gas, then cool and weigh the end products (assuming you had an infinitely accurate scale), you'd measure slightly less mass than the original gasoline.

      Of course, if you DON'T cool the end products, you'll get the exact same measurement as before, because the heat actually has a mass (twists the mind, doesn't it?)

  13. Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omega! by BeeBeard · · Score: 0

    The Chinese hate our freedom. If we launch a full-scale invasion now, we can bring democracy to China before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing!

  14. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by justice7 · · Score: 1

    the chinese will wtfpwn just about anyone...

    2 million man STANDING army?

  15. Awsome by susano_otter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good for them.

    I hope the test was practical in nature, and will lead to useful contributions from China towards the achievement of practical fusion power.

    This is good news. I look forward to following China's future progress and contributions.

    --

    Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    1. Re:Awsome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is good news. I look forward to following China's future progress and contributions.


      I too welcome our new fusion-tastic Overlords... and look forward to toiling in their soon-to-be-realized sweatshops.
    2. Re:Awsome by jazir1979 · · Score: 1

      hear, hear.

      --
      What's your GCNSEQNO?
  16. Re:2 Pages? by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of the way /.'s truncated posts with the "Read the rest of this comment" links always seem to truncate exactly 2 lines. Does it do this to everyone, or just me?

    --
    Redundancy is good And also good.
  17. Re:notepad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How bizarre, how bizarre.

  18. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by amliebsch · · Score: 1

    What is the thought process here? "China tests fusion reactor. What can I say that's topical, and witty, interesting, funny, or insightful? Of course! BASH AMERICA!"

    --
    If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
  19. A Small Step by quanminoan · · Score: 4, Informative
    A fusion reactor has so many challenges behind it that ignition is only a small step towards something useful. Assuming you ignite a plasma you then have to maintain it, keep it stable, and fuel it fast enough to keep it burning. After that you're left with "mere" engineering problems, such as removing ~ 1 MW of heat per m^2 on the walls of the tokomak, making a gun fire a pellet of solid hydrogen into the plasma at one pellet per second, and finally creating a structure that can handle the intense neutron flux so the reactor can survive long enough to break even.

    Though ITER is being built soon, it's being designed as its going up. I'm involved with creating an H- ion beam to inject the plasma (called neutral beam injection). The idea is to fire a high energy beam of neutral hydrogen into the plasma to heat it up (neutral so the atoms can travel through the containment magnets without deflection).

    So even if the Chinese managed to build a reactor that beats previous records, it's a long while before fusion powers your home. Nevertheless I consider Fusion research to be one of the most important fields; it takes no imagination to understand what it would mean if nations could be powered on water.

    1. Re:A Small Step by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nevertheless I consider Fusion research to be one of the most important fields; it takes no imagination to understand what it would mean if nations could be powered on water.

      Yes, they'd start fighting wars over access to water instead of oil.

    2. Re:A Small Step by RsG · · Score: 1

      We already do that. Flip side is, a fusion reaction would need far less water than a thirsty population, so it wouldn't contribute to scarcity. Moreover most of what we fight over is fresh water, whereas current deuterium extraction facilities use seawater IIRC.

      Plus, if we stop fouling up our water supplies once we have cleaner energy available, wouldn't that reduce the need to fight over water, instead of vice-versa?

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    3. Re:A Small Step by DragonWriter · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yes, they'd start fighting wars over access to water instead of oil.
      Water (both freshwater for agriculture, drinking, etc. and access to navigable water for trade) has been a vital resource over which wars are fought longer than oil (and, like oil, its been a big factor motivating or complicating Middle East conflicts, including providing a significant part of the motivation for Iraq's wars with Iran and Kuwait, and a complicating factor in resolving the Israel/Palestine problem.)
    4. Re:A Small Step by Ardvaark · · Score: 1
      ...it takes no imagination to understand what it would mean if nations could be powered on water.

      We'll run out of water in two hundred years?

    5. Re:A Small Step by RsG · · Score: 1

      What, at a few kilograms of deuterium per year? It would take us millenia to run out of fuel, and even then we wouldn't make a significant dent in water levels. Hell, D is only about 1 atom of hydrogen out of every 6000+, the other 5999+ being regular hydrogen, which isn't usable in this type of reactor (meaning if we ran out of D, which as I said would take millenia, we'd still have 5999/6000 of our total water supply).

      And if we did have fusion reactors capable of using up our water supply by fusing truely massive quantities of elemental hydrogen, we'd be able to use them abord spacecraft and just import the damn hydrogen from somewhere else in the solar system. It's only the most common element in the universe after all.

      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
    6. Re:A Small Step by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 1

      it takes no imagination to understand what it would mean if nations could be powered on water

      The price of water would go up. Dams would be built to keep the water within country borders. Millions would die in the water wars and droughts of the future.

      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    7. Re:A Small Step by quanminoan · · Score: 2, Informative
      I hope you're all being sarcastic about water wars erupting if fusion succeeds, but if not here's a quote:

      "Deuterium is abundant in ocean water, and one cubic kilometer of seawater could, in principle, supply all the world's energy needs for several hundred years." - According to an article in IEEE

      Add to this the fact that it's proposed Lithium be used to adsorb the neutron radiation from a reactor, which would in turn breed Tritium for use in the fusion reaction.

    8. Re:A Small Step by BytePusher · · Score: 1

      it takes no imagination to understand what it would mean if nations could be powered on water. We would all become very thirsty.

    9. Re:A Small Step by Alsee · · Score: 1

      if nations could be powered on water

      Most governments are already powered by Hot Air.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    10. Re:A Small Step by Neoncow · · Score: 1

      If there are wars to obtain water to fuel our fusion reactors many more than millions would die. ;)

  20. In Communist China.. by ch-chuck · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... do they call it The US Syndrome

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  21. Re:2 Pages? by GundamFan · · Score: 1

    I beleve you can adjust the point that the truncation takes place at in your user profile.

    --
    I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
    Mark Twain
  22. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

    Excellent! Time for another of my "who pissed in YOUR cocoa puffs this morning?" comments.

    Seriously dude,it's an obvious joke.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  23. This answers that old question by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 0

    This finally answers that old question, "What happens when everyone in China jumps onto the same pair of hydrogen atoms simultaneously?"

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    1. Re:This answers that old question by RsG · · Score: 3, Funny
      This finally answers that old question, "What happens when everyone in China jumps onto the same pair of hydrogen atoms simultaneously?"
      They collapse into a quantum singularity, obviously. All that mass in such a small place?

      A better question would be how they managed to cram everyone in China into the same place at the same time. Methinks someone used a "noclip" cheat :-P
      --
      Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  24. ATTN Scientists: Why wasn't this done before? by BeeBeard · · Score: 1

    I've read this and this and I'm still a little lost. Could someone with a science background please opine as to what significant hurdles scientists have faced in trying to implement fusion technology in the past?

    1. Re:ATTN Scientists: Why wasn't this done before? by kravlor · · Score: 1

      Funding. No, seriously.

      The ITER project will share the cost of $15B-ish of building and operating the device amongst all its international collaborators over the course of 30 years. ITER is currently the fusion research community's 'best-shot' of demonstrating realistic burning plasma characteristics. Unfortunately, we're working against nuclear cross-sections -- and they imply that the devices need to be very, very big. Hence, very, very expensive.

      It's nice to know that the quarterly profits of some of our oil companies are sufficient to entirely replicate more than 30 years' worth of work to get ITER going. As a fusion scientist, I'd be happy to work for a domestic ExxonMobil ITER-clone / burining plasma facility.

  25. Mr. Fusion? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Any mention of "Mr. Fusion" and a DeLorean in the translation?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  26. It's easy by jszep · · Score: 1

    Just make a pile of one million Sony-made lithium ion batteries.

    Fusion in no time...

  27. Re:2 Pages? by jftitan · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I had mine set to 10 bytes... so everyone's comments are truncated LIKE THI

    --
    "Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
  28. Successful Scientific Experiment by Sloppy · · Score: 1
    But what exactly made this test 'successful' is not clear.
    Perhaps it confirmed the scientists' hypothesis by matching their latest, most sophisticated model: that the reaction should generate 12% as much energy as needed to heat the plasma. ;-)
    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  29. Moneysinks by SpiritGod21 · · Score: 1

    They're just catching on to what MMORPG designers have known for centuries: moneysinks are good for the economy!

  30. ObColbert by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 1

    Not only have the Chinese created a fusion reaction, they found a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.

  31. Re:YOUR SIG IS BEYOND G A Y by Irish_Samurai · · Score: 1

    yeah, but its Rock Hudson gay - Not emo gay.

  32. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 0

    Iraq's kicking your ass, and you want to invade China?

    --

    ---
    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  33. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by Fei_Id · · Score: 1

    Yup, the $10k/unit pitchforks they gave to each member of the standing army really cost them alot... Seriously though, China doesnt have the GNP to outfit a 2 million man army with adequate supplies unless its old tech. To simply things: Assume an AK47 at government discount costs $150 per unit. Outfit this weapon as your main weapon for all troops (much like the M16 is today; I know there are diff weapons for diff branches, but we are simplifying here). 2 mil x 150 = 300 million dollars. And thats just the weapon. What about clothes? Training? Body armor? Now throw in vehicles like tanks, a navy, an air force with the super-expensive jets (And the research behind them). See where I'm going? There is a point where you lose effectiveness in your army's power based upon the cost to run it... China may have a standing army of 2 million people... but I'd bet its about the tech level of Iran, if not a little bit better. Going against something like NATO would be a stupid move by the Chinese.

  34. Purity? by phorm · · Score: 1

    How pure of water do you need, and how hard is it to purify? I'd imagine that while a plant to purify enough water for even a small city would be considerable, it wouldn't be a stretch to have a smaller plant purify water for a fusion reaction. That would mean that you can tap water sources that wouldn't be viable for human consumption, no wars needed. Plus you can power your purification systems from the reactor once it's running.

  35. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by benpark22 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The success is very likely a lie, given the recent history of science research in China.

  36. You must work for the Government. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Only the NSA would think that a spy satellite is needed in order to read a press release.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  37. Heat Pollution by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually this is a premise to a series of ecological disasters described in the Reality Dysfunction series of SF books by Peter F. Hamilton.

    It's mentioned only peripherally, but the general idea is that the widespread use of fusion power and the vastly increased energy consumption, combined with population and other types of biosphere-bashing, have led to super-storms that basically scour anything in their path.

    A little farfetched at present, but an interesting scenario. You'd really have to have "Mr. Fusions" on every car/truck/bus/lawnmower/house, all consuming gigawatts of power, before you would start to come anywhere near to the amount of heat the Earth takes in (and consequently radiates back out, since it stays at a basically fixed average temperature) from the Sun.

    However if you did manage to produce some sort of limitless energy source, and just started using it everywhere, it doesn't seem physically impossible that the average temperature of the planet would go up. It would have to -- it's a simple Newton's Law of Cooling problem. The temperature would increase until the energy flowing out into space equaled the energy flowing in from the sun and from other sources; given that the energy flows out at a rate that's proportional to the difference in temperature between the planet and the surrounding space.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    1. Re:Heat Pollution by Ironsides · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ever since I came across something mentioned in Niven's Known Space I've been trying to figure out how to cool off a planet. Trouble is, everything I think of basically generates more energy than it could ever disipate except one. Set up a reallllly long piece of metal like a space elevator, only make it out of two metals. The temperature difference would create an electric current that you could then use for energy.

      On the other hand you could just set up really really big radiator fins to help cool the earth instead.

      --
      Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
    2. Re:Heat Pollution by jafiwam · · Score: 2, Funny

      Some big fins?

      Add some "Type R" crop shapes... a few craters for sub woofers and a couple copies of Vegas for lighting and you'd have...

      RICER EARTH.

    3. Re:Heat Pollution by Original+Replica · · Score: 1

      Reduce the input from the sun. maybe giant mirror style. problem solved. where's my "saved the planet" award?

      --
      We are all just people.
    4. Re:Heat Pollution by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

      Simpsons did it!

    5. Re:Heat Pollution by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      You don't need to get anywhere close to the sun's output to heat the Earth enough to cause irreversible damage to the biosphere. If we outputted as much heat as the sun the planet would reach temperatures where no multicelled organisms can survive.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    6. Re:Heat Pollution by mfrank · · Score: 1

      You put a bigass solar sail at the LaGrange point between the Earth and Sun and reduce the number of sunlight hitting the earth.

  38. I have a question by JRGhaddar · · Score: 1

    Would it be possible to fire two neutral hydrogen beams directly at one another and upon impact drop the termperature significantly enough that the the atoms would "stick"?

    If it is not humanly possible what would be the expected result?

    1. Re:I have a question by senatorpjt · · Score: 1

      The most expensive way to generate hydrogen gas?

    2. Re:I have a question by quanminoan · · Score: 1
      There is research into fusion where hydrogen beams (generally ion beams) are shot at each other, such as the Farnsworth Fusor (there are other methods but this is a common one). Though this method can produce fusion, the process is very inefficient and is really only good for a neutron source. I'm not sure what you'd hope to achieve by cooling them right after however...

      Hope this helps.

      Justin

  39. Re:Here's an additional press release, more info by dan828 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, the "Me so horny" prostitute was Vietnamese (from the movie Full Metal Jacket), and it's the Japanese that have problems pronouncing Ls, not the Chinese. So, besides mixing up three different asian countries with distinct languages and cultures, your ethnic insult was spot on. Way to go!

  40. Re:notepad by kaysan · · Score: 1

    verily.. how strange..

  41. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by newt0311 · · Score: 1

    what do you base than statement on? any concrete data?

  42. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Iraq war certainly isn't going the way King George wants, but saying they're kicking our ass when we've:
    1) Removed their old government.
    2) Disolved their old military and police forces.
    3) Leveled their infrastructure.
    is kind of stupid, don't you think? We can topple foreign governments very well, we just can't rule foreign people worth a shit, and really, we shouldn't even be trying, but that's another topic which I'd bet we agree on.

  43. Re:2 Pages? by Pollardito · · Score: 1

    look, everybody, yet another example of fusion

  44. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by killjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Go to any elite engineering school and take a survey of the top 10% of the students there. I would be shocked if at least 50% of those students are not chinese. I don't mean chinese americans, I mean chinese from china.

    Some of the smartest people I know are chinese. What makes you think they can't do it? Is it because they are not white? Are chinese incabable of doing research? Are the chinese by nature liars?

    --
    evil is as evil does
  45. Re:notepad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Totally offtopic, but hey, it works. It's caused by IsTextUnicode failing in certain cases. See here for more.

  46. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by newt0311 · · Score: 1
    bullshit alert. Have you ever looked at any defense department reports on China??? How about any economic reports?

    Let me clear some things up for you (information from The Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2005 Annual report to congeress by the US Department of Defense):

    China's GDP: $1700 Billion

    China's Defense budget: $50 Billion (note that this is a Low end estimate.)

    Active personell: 2.3 million (note that China has mandatory military service of ~24 months from 18 to 22 years of age so if needed, anybody above 22 and below 40 would be good military material. now think about their population...)

    Total personell including reserves: >3.2 million

    More data: this time from the CIA Factbook Reserves of foriegn exchange and Gold: $825.6 billion

    Another amount for military expenditure: $81.48 billion (slightly larger because this isn't a low estimate)

    Both of these publications are available on the web. I advise you read them if you want to hae any decent info about China.

    P.S. next time you make asanine comments about something, back them up with hard data.

  47. I do. by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

    "If you have some design for a solar power generator that can even come close to the output of a fusion reactor, then please, by all means, post it."

    I do but it does have some problems.
    It is really really big. It requires a lot of parts. And tends to run a little hot.
    I do have a prototype. Look up it is one AU above your head.
    Yes I am kidding.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  48. Neutron Containment at ITER by andy314159pi · · Score: 1

    There seem to be many knowledgable people here today. Do any of you know how they plan to deal with neutron containment at the ITER reactor?

    1. Re:Neutron Containment at ITER by kravlor · · Score: 1

      The plan for ITER, as well as any future machine that will use D-T as a fusion fuel, is to utilize a lithium-contining 'blanket' on the interior of the vacuum vessel walls. Lithium can absorb the 14 MeV neutrons that will be flying around as a result of D-T fusion and convert into tritium, aiding the fueling of the reactor! The blanket, in addition to providing fuel for the reaction, will be the primary source of neutron shielding for the device.

      More information regarding the technical details of the ITER blanket design can be found here (PDF), and general technical information about ITER here.

  49. Dear China, by NalosLayor · · Score: 1

    Philo T Farnsworth called, he wants you to know that you're a little late. Please give us a call when you produce a net gain in energy. Until then, thank you for your application. Sincerely, Everyone Else.

  50. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by budgenator · · Score: 1

    Considering that it's communist philosophy "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" human nature is for people to understate the first and overstate the second, so it's not a chinese thing but a communist thing.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  51. Uncomfy by Plutonite · · Score: 0

    So China can blast our satellites with lasers and produce infinite amounts of energy any given afternoon. Is anyone else soiling themselves, or is it just yours truly?

    On another note, I find it interesting they produced "more energy" than they put in. Who gives a damn about conservation of energy and all that shit, right? Energy-mass equivalence can kiss my black ass! Einstein is burning in hell!!
    [I realize what they meant to say, just being funny; laugh]

  52. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by TheDreadSlashdotterD · · Score: 1

    we can bring democracy to China before the 2008 Olympics

    2008? I thought the Iraq war was supposed to take no more than 6 months, and now we want to invade China with that limited time period? Do you even know how BIG China is?

    --
    I have nothing to say.
  53. Anybody notice the location... by skogs · · Score: 1

    I am surprised that nobody else has taken issue with where the world's very first commercial fusion reactor will be built.

    I envision some ill-informed, or just plain stupid, french person getting upset that it will be built in his backyard. He might be afraid of high voltage power lines or something.

    I envision Spain folk complaining that they cannot differentiate between the sun coming up, and the ominous glow of their fusion brothers to the east.

    I envision German politicians wondering if any funny gasses will head their way in the atmosphere.

    I envision china, russia, and americans getting kind of upset that they have put so much time, research, and money towards GIVING AWAY the worlds first non-poluting energy source. Limitless power, research, knowledge, and experience...given to the french to control.

    I just see a lot of people complaining.

    I also envision the french complaining again...when after another 15 years Germany, Portugal, England, Russia, China, India, Sudan, USA, and Mexico all have significantly larger, and more efficient fusion reactors available to them. Then France will be jealous that they ended up being the guinnee pig and have this old fashioned albatross as an energy and administrative nightmare.

    odd.

    --
    Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
    1. Re:Anybody notice the location... by Geoff+St.+Germaine · · Score: 1

      I'm not even sure anyone knows where the first commercial fusion reactor will be built. ITER is not a prototype power station let alone a commercial one. It is merely to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power. ITER is not going to be used for power production. Ideally ITER will be proceeded by DEMO, a prototype power plant.

  54. Efficiency of photovoltaics by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Well, there are real theoretical limits to the efficiency of a photovoltaic solar cell, and they are significantly less than 100%. I found this 2002 article with a search:
    One of the most fundamental limitations on solar cell efficiency is the band gap of the semiconductor from which the cell is made. In a photovoltaic cell, negatively doped (n-type) material, with extra electrons in its otherwise empty conduction band, makes a junction with positively doped (p-type) material, with extra holes in the band otherwise filled with valence electrons. Incoming photons of the right energy -- that is, the right color of light -- knock electrons loose and leave holes; both migrate in the junction's electric field to form a current. Photons with less energy than the band gap slip right through. For example, red light photons are not absorbed by high-band-gap semiconductors. While photons with energy higher than the band gap are absorbed -- for example, blue light photons in a low-band gap semiconductor -- their excess energy is wasted as heat.

    The maximum efficiency a solar cell made from a single material can achieve in converting light to electrical power is about 30 percent; the best efficiency actually achieved is about 25 percent. To do better, researchers and manufacturers stack different band gap materials in multijunction cells.

    Dozens of different layers could be stacked to catch photons at all energies, reaching efficiencies better than 70 percent, but too many problems intervene. When crystal lattices differ too much, for example, strain damages the crystals. The most efficient multijunction solar cell yet made -- 30 percent, out of a possible 50 percent efficiency -- has just two layers.

    So. Things might theoretically get better, but you might consider just how realistic your hopes for improvement are.
    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  55. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by BeeBeard · · Score: 1

    Yes, of course it was a joke. However, I am having a lot more fun than I thought reading the posts of people who thought I was serious.

    My parent post has already been modded down, so I take it some mod was none too amused, wasn't bright enough to identify it as sarcasm, or else just thought that pithy commentary on the Iraq/Iran situation is misplaced here. It is indeed offtopic--especially considering how little technological overlap there is between fusion development and nuclear weapons development--but I'm having some pretty consistent fun nevertheless. ;)

  56. Re:2 Pages? by foxhound01 · · Score: 0

    exploding heads? that sounds more like fission than fusion.

    --


    Linux is to the internet as Duct Tape is to the Universe.
  57. Re:notepad by kdemetter · · Score: 1

    yup and here's how you can fix it :

    http://www.osix.net/modules/article/?id=793/
  58. In the meantime... by Xybot · · Score: 1

    The cold fusion cells just keep chugging along, producing excess energy indifferent to the army of physicists wishing they'd just stop making life difficult and play by the rules.

    --
    God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
  59. Obligatory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Soviet Russia, reactor fuses you!

  60. One of the stranger ideas by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 1

    >Dr. Edward Teller in the 50's but those weren't exactly practical power producing devices

    Which didn't stop Dr. Teller from suggesting generating power by producing steam in the chamber left by an underground explosion. I seem to remember that the idea was to set off additional bombs if the temperature dropped too low.

  61. That thing? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 1

    It causes a million cases of cancer a year in the US alone (more than smoking does!). We must immediately shut it down and sue the manufacturer.

  62. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by VitrosChemistryAnaly · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There was that incident a while back of a [b]North Korean[/b] scientist faking his results in a cloning experiment. That scientist then came clean and blamed the enormous pressure on scientists in that society/government. Perhaps the GP was making an assumtion based on similar political structures as opposed to racial background. I admit being extra sceptical about press releases coming out of the PRC.
    It was a South Korean scientist who admitted to faking his results.

    You may not know, but South Koreans are not Communists.

    However, I am a scientist. And, guess what, my wife is from South Korea. We've had a number of discussions about Hwang Woo-suk (the scientist in question).

    I can state, as a scientist, that there's a lot of pressure to get certain results. If you don't get some kind of results you don't get grants. You don't get grants, you can't continue your research.

    My wife states, as a South Korean, that there can be a lot of cultural pressure to succeed and that it can be quite overwhelming at times.

    I think that the GP (my GGP) was saying that due to all the cultural pressures it may be too tempting for Chinese scientists to fake results.
    --
    "It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
  63. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by Original+Replica · · Score: 0, Troll

    Thank you for correcting my mistake about Hwang Woo-suk's country of origin. And for you insight into the cultural pressures present. My original post was meant to clarify for a poster who had taken offence at a (mis)percieved insult about the ability of Chinese people to be good scientists.

    --
    We are all just people.
  64. Re:Here's an additional press release, more info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since you are modded offtopic, I will reply as AC. I didn't read the GP, but as a "telephone test fluent" speaker of Cantonese (American white-boy), and a passable speaker of Mandarin, I can state unequivocally that Chinese (from China and Taiwan) have trouble with the letter L. It is just not the problem that most people think it is (it is unrelated to the R sound). The following is my experience based on verbal interaction with ladies^W people from Guandong (Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhongshan, Taishan, Chaozhou, Xinhui, and Kaiping), Hubei(Wuhan), Shanghai, Beijing , Tianjin, and Taiwan (Xinzhu and Taibei):

    (1) as a final sound in words like "table" (tay-bo), "pool" (poo-), etc. This derives from the fact that in Cantonese/Mandarin the only voiced consonantal endings are M/N/NG.

    (2) as an initial (Southern Chinese speakers and people from Western Hubei). It sometimes comes out as the letter N (the reverse is more common, N coming out as L).

    This pattern is fading in Hong Kong Cantonese over the last 30 years. The solution was to eliminate N as an initial across the board in Cantonese (almost, everyone now says "lei5 ho2 ma3, but many still say "ni1 do6" for "here"). In English articulation the letters N and L differ little, with the significant difference being L having lateral airflow around the tongue and exiting the mouth. N is all nose. Many Cantonese speakers when they say English words being with L, the initial sound seems almost to be N and L simultaneously with the N starting a few milliseconds before the L.

    The conversion of N to L in HK leads to humorous statements from British educated Cantonese speakers saying after a tough day, "I'm completely lacquered." Of course they mean "knackered", both are funny in their way.

    Congratulation on having the wang2 ba1 removed from your dan4 (828) (inside joke to parent).

  65. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by McTaggart · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure that happens here in the capitalist west too. It's not a communist thing but a human thing.

  66. Been there, done that by maddogsparky · · Score: 1

    I got to see a laser demo in high school while attending a math competition. Assuming that low power meant "incapable of causing harm", I looked right into a lazer with both eyes to impress a friend.

    What a complete idiot.

    Amazingly, my night vision started returning about 7 years later!

    --
    science is a religion
    1. Re:Been there, done that by JonathanR · · Score: 1

      Was she good looking?

      I suppose it didn't matter after that!

    2. Re:Been there, done that by maddogsparky · · Score: 1

      Like I said, a _complete_ idiot. The friend was another guy.

      I probably should gave preambled the act with something like "hey, watch this!" (would've included ya'all, but I'm from the midwest).

      --
      science is a religion
  67. Newbie, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must be new here, eh?

  68. Everyone is familiar with his earlier invention by maddogsparky · · Score: 1

    He invented the television bebore working on table top fusion devices, a.k.a. fusors.

    Check out www.fusor.net

    --
    science is a religion
    1. Re:Everyone is familiar with his earlier invention by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Hmmm. That might just prove the guy's point. Farnsworth invented the insidious tv. Maybe he shouldn't be trusted...

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  69. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by NewsWatcher · · Score: 1

    Let's not forget that on the same topic of nuclear fusion American scientists have also been known to have spread misinformation by claiming to have perfected cold water fusion.

    --
    If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
  70. Answer by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

    The report did not specify whether the device... had succeeded at producing more energy than it consumed, the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable

    If it lasted only three seconds, it was probably not self-sufficient.

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  71. A small question by Jesrad · · Score: 1

    Since you say you're involved with the ITER project, can I ask one thing that I have never seen answered about it ? Here: how do the ITER people plan to fight the intense Bremsstrahlung cooling of the plasma due to heavy ions being ripped off the walls of the reactor ? AFAIK this cooling makes sustainable fusion in a Tokamak impossible.

    --
    Maybe we deserve this world ?
  72. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 1

    Go to any elite engineering school and take a survey of the top 10% of the students there. I would be shocked if at least 50% of those students are not chinese. I don't mean chinese americans, I mean chinese from china.

    I call bullshit (on your statistic, not your general point).

    I'm in the Stanford CS PhD program, and there are surprisingly few Chinese. Sure, there are plenty of Asians, but a reasonable fraction of them are Korean or Indian, and there are plenty of Caucasians (disproportionately many Greeks), Hispanics and Jews. I've only noticed a few Chinese from China, but I'm oblivious that way. I have no idea who the top students are, but if you count the whole PhD program, it's certainly not true.

    At Harvard it wasn't true either (of course, Harvard is not an engineering school). If anything, there were more Jews than Chinese at the top, and almost all of the Chinese were 2nd or 3rd generation; this was true both undergrad and CS grad (though not as much of math grads).

    At MIT, from what I know, it wasn't true either: most of the elite students I knew there were either Jewish or Caucasian. I didn't know that many, though.

    At my summer jobs, there have been a lot of smart Chinese people, but only a few of them were from China.

    At the math olympiad programs the years I went, half the team was Chinese, but only one or so each year from China. Of the students there in general, maybe a third were Chinese. (China wins the olympiad almost every year, though.)

    This is not to say that Chinese people are stupid. Just like you, I know plenty of really smart Chinese people, although most of them are 2nd or 3rd generation.

    --
    I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
  73. Re:Seriously? Fusion test? Invade now! Alpha..Omeg by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

    2 million man STANDING army?

    2 million man fusion powered standing army.

    --
    USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  74. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by GoatMonkey2112 · · Score: 1

    If communist propaganda is lying, then yes, they're huge liars.

  75. Hey, it was useful for me by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 1

    I was at a dinner tonight where one of my colegues was irritating our Chinese guests by making comments about the lack of a power grid in China, the chinese gentleman was getting rather defensive. I remembered this articl and mentioned it is a positive light. It seems that he was very aware of, and proud of, the test. It saved the dinner party. So, this, even if it might not be a great scientific advance, was usefull to me.

  76. ho boy, have you missed the train by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    d00d, the smallest solar cell powering an LCD calculator produces more net power than the largest fusion reactor. think about it.

  77. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by default+luser · · Score: 1

    That's just because they're the "pick of the litter." With arare execption (I knew one), only the smartest people in China get the chance to go to US colleges. The people who don't make the cut attend Chinese colleges. This is as-opposed to the US applicant pool for colleges, where some less-capable students are admitted for many possible reasons (sports, "legacy" child of alum, racial quotas, less applicants than previous year, etc.)

    You just THINK foreigners are statistically smaller, but the fact is you're not seeing a statistically random sample group.

    --

    Man is the animal that laughs.
    And occasionally whores for Karma.

  78. Peasants and Raw Material by N3Bruce · · Score: 1

    As someone who is descended at least partially from "peasant classes" here in America, I would like to point out that given the opportunity, at least some of these "peasants" will end up contributing to the advancement of science and technology. Nearly all of my great-grandparent's generation, and my father's parents were farmers. My dad worked his way up into management from being a truck driver and mechanic, my mom put herself through nursing school, and together they put me and my 3 other siblings through college. Two of us have advanced degrees, and all of us have worked in fields requiring a high degree of technical knowledge.

    One of the reasons why our "peasant class" has shrunk is that this is a typical American story. 75 years ago, most Americans worked away in factories, mines, or on the farm, for wages that provided for survival and little more. The thing that made the difference was that most children of the era got at a good enough basic education in reading and math so at least the brighter minds of the era were able to see a future beyond the meatpacking plant, coal mine, or dairy farm where many of their parents toiled away their lives.

    For China to truly be an economic powerhouse that delivers levels of prosperity to all of its people, it must break down the barriers of ignorance and cultural stratification that keep the peasant class intact. But here is some serious food for thought: If China can deliver a First-World education to only 25 percent of its population, their economic power in the world will eventually surpass ours. America, with its own educated workforce and natural resources will continue to do relatively well, but it will fade as the main focus on the world stage in a manner similar to how Western Europe has faded since WWII. Most of Western Europe is still relatively prosperous, but they are not where the action is, generally speaking.

      In the early history of the USA, Americans sent their best and brightest to the great learning centers of Europe to finish their education. Eventually, the universities and colleges here in America became good enough that Americans looked to Harvard or MIT for inspiration, instead of Oxford or Cambridge. Today, the Asians look to America for higher learning, but it is becoming less necessary to actually come to America, since research papers and other important publications are more likely to be on a university web server than tucked away on a shelf in a dusty old ivy covered building. For some things, particularly experiments in High-Energy Physics, there is no good substitute for having your own multi-billion dollar research facility on the scale of Argonne or Stanford and an educated staff to run it in order to do leading-edge research. However, for much of the training that needs to take place for the majority of engineers, physicians, IT people, and business management professionals, a classroom in Shanghai works about as well as one in Boston.

    China is still trying to find itself in the sense of what it is best able to do in the long-run. China is dabbling in Physics, but it is also a formidable force to be reckoned with in other fields as well, particularly Medicine. Manufacturing, which is carrying the economy right now, is mostly built on technology derived from other countries, and is fueled by cheap labor. For many products, making them with secondhand machinery or not quite bleeding edge tech is good enough if you have cheap enough labor, but as wages rise and newer technologies emerge, they will see their industries decline as they did here 30 years ago, unless they reinvest their current profits into research and education to create leading edge technology of their own.

  79. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by killjoe · · Score: 1

    "At Harvard it wasn't true either (of course, Harvard is not an engineering school)."

    I would not expect a lot of minorities in any of the ivy league schools. They are by and large affirmitive action for rich people, movie stars, models and such. The main criterea for entrance is fame and fortune and the main crieterea for graduation is "went to some ofo my classes and didn't stay high the entire time".

    I am not saying that there are no smart people at harvard or princeton clearly there are. It's just that they are also full of brainless dumbassess who manage to get accepted and graduate purely because they are rich or famous (see dubya).

    I remember one time watching the Howard Stern show where he as asking models questions. One of the models was asked "what is at the center of the solar system". She could not answer. Howard gave her all kinds of clues basically doing every but giving her the answer and she still couln't answer. Howard asked her if she has a degree and she said she did... from harvard!!!

    --
    evil is as evil does
  80. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 1

    I would not expect a lot of minorities in any of the ivy league schools. They are by and large affirmitive action for rich people, movie stars, models and such. The main criterea for entrance is fame and fortune...

    That may have been true 20 years ago, but it isn't true anymore.

    and the main crieterea for graduation is "went to some ofo my classes and didn't stay high the entire time"...

    Bold words from someone who can't spell "criterion". The pressure at MIT at least is pretty insane.

    --
    I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
  81. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yup, pressure at MIT certainly is a killer! (I just got my 8.012 test back...). On the main point, I don't seem to find a clear relationship between the top students and their ethnic origins. Also, most of the reeeeally smart people are a mixture of cultures; say dad Palestinian mom Japanese.

    Clearly, the above guy who said all this crap about ivy leagues has very little clue what he is talking about...

    Regards,

    (pardon the poor english)

  82. Re:China's definition of success, likely a lie. by bth0002 · · Score: 1

    Yeah right and japan has chinese enrolled too (my left shoe). No its because outsourcing to china is embarassing. Now if you had said top 15% and the most expensive I really might have thought that now do they go to grad school and teach or do they get a job making the top 1%? Hardware? No IBM CAT etc are fine. Look when I worked in software it was mathmaticians (US of course Newton duh) -> Russ (bored and cold and starving) -> Chinese (achieved hot sauce ignition) there is a flow chart. Tyan the best they got lenovo cheap lots of medium podunk. Its a density thing i'm afraid and we are distributed and we have the power of the dollar and space. Chinese extremely good at long haul technical save the cash. Family business. R&D are you joking man :) Don't give a china man some software they will smoke it (they are good at math and are excellent technically very very smart) if they think they can get hardware out of it (or vice versa). I've seen them in action scary stuff especially on our turf. They apply speed brakes when it comes to conversing over here though at least with business people its not their place? Uh uh too competitive not nice no how.

    That said if China doesn't win this argument eventually something is wrong. The US is seriously inbred and culturally inept and it shows in some ways but our heirarchy looks to be in danger (mad cow disease farms drying up etc). We are recycling decades for goodness sakes. Korea has a shot I hope, they could smoke the chinese for stretches look at japan.

    There are other pockets of highly intricate engineers in exotic locations. I'm glad I can't see them all at the same time.

    --
    Far out man -Chong