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US scientists achieve net energy gain for second time in a fusion reaction (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

This means we'll need capture efficiency technology above 66% for this to be a net positive in terms of power generation.

For current fission nuclear power plants: "Nuclear power plant efficiency averages around 33%, which is comparable to other fossil fuel-based generation units. This means that 77% [sic, should be 67%] of the energy produced by a nuclear plant is lost and only 33% is converted into electricity. Some modern nuclear plants may be able to achieve 45% efficiency."

from link: https://www.pcienergysolutions.com/2023/04/17/power-plant-efficiency-coal-natural-gas-nuclear-and-more/#:~:text=Nuclear%20power%20plant%20efficiency%20averages,able%20to%20achieve%2045%25%20efficiency.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This doesn't mean anything, as it's not actually overall net positive. It just makes for a nice headline. But it's just that more energy than the late deposited into the pallet came out of it.

But more energy than to run the lasers or the entire facility? Far, far, far from it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

What if you used the sun as the source of the laser?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

That's how Supermans laser eyes work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

You can! And we do! In fact, then you can skip the whole fusion step, since the sun laser is already powered by fusion, and just collect the energy. I think that tech is called soul... Soul-Harp-N-L.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Using a fusion reactor to power a solar collector to fuel a fusion reactor.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I’d say this reactor design has best chance of reaching high efficiency vs the “Lithium Blanket”.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Still used orders of magnitude more energy to perform the experiment than the experiment output - plus they have no way to harvest that energy, and they're mainly a nuclear weapon research facility. I guess the publicity for fusion power is good.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Still used orders of magnitude more energy to perform the experiment than the experiment output

The article literally explains that is not true. All you have to read the first paragraph.

they have no way to harvest that energy

Yes because it's a research reactor. The first theoretical nuclear reactors also did not have any way to retrieve the energy. That's what happens in production systems, not research systems. Adding in all of the equipment to capture the energy makes it harder to iterate on the design. It really is not a valid criticism of the research being done.

You are being somewhat disingenuous do not think.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

In the 1st paragraph is a link to the previous article of the same experiment a few months ago, that has some more details mentioned:

researchers have managed to release 2.5 MJ of energy after using just 2.1 MJ to heat the fuel with lasers.

the positive energy gain reported ignores the 500MJ of energy that was put into the lasers themselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/12/breakthrough-in-nuclear-fusion-could-mean-near-limitless-energy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The article literally does not explain that's not true, you literally have no idea what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The whole point is that they put less energy into the target material than they got out of it, however much energy they had for the rest of the experiment isn't relevant. The only part of this design that they are researching here is the fusion, everything else is supporting that research and is not been actively developed by this team.

There are other teams working on other reactor designs which increase efficiency in other areas.

It's like saying that a rocket engine demonstration model doesn't work because it doesn't fly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's a good example. I'd actually say test-firing a rocket and claiming you're almost on the moon is still misleading, though.

Energy in over energy generated at the target has no practical significance. More output is better but that's it. This is for marketing to funders.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

And the whole point of my comment is that people shouldn't be wetting their pants thinking that fusion is right around the corner. This is just further proof of concept and does nothing to actually advance fusion power.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

It's research research advances technology that's how it works you don't get big huge exciting developments most of the time you get iterative development if you want big and exciting well that's not sciences job it's not there to entertain you. I don't know what you want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Only appreciating the big flashy outcomes of science is exactly how you end up with no science funding. Iterating and improving something is important work that should be applauded.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

The article is misleading by leaving out critical details about the amount of energy actually used in the test.

That said, progress is progress.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

*Edit: OK, so this article is missing a bunch of vital context. Here's a better one: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/physicists-achieve-fusion-net-energy-gain-for-second-time/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

The key words are "delivered to the target". They use WAY, way more power than they deliver to the target, so if you take the energy generated divided by the total energy used, the number is WAY, way below 1. Probably a fair bit below 0.1 too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

The laser energy. All the energy to make the situation happen is significantly higher. It's sneaky.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

That's pure laser energy, not whole system energy. Yeah, they got a slight gain from the fusion output, but nowhere near what the whole experiment used.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I thought China already accomplished this last year?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yes but these are freedom scientists!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

US scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for the second time since a historic breakthrough in December last year in the quest to find a near-limitless, safe and clean source of energy

Scientists at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.

In December, Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers.

The Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

Fusion energy raises the prospect of plentiful clean power: the reactions release no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste byproducts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Is the assumption that the experiment takes place in a vacuum, including no external energy outside the energy introduced by the laser?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Yes. Not taking into account anything except the output of the laser verses the output of the reaction.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

A spherical vacuum consisting of free government money.

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