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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.
"We're pleased to announce we are still here to report the results."
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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
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.
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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
... do they call it The US Syndrome
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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.
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
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
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!
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
You, Sir, have just invented another way of telling people where to "stick it". I salute thee.
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