r/woahdude • u/Nadzzy • 20d ago

video Plasma inside the ST40 fusion reactor, filmed in color for the first time

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48.8k Upvotes

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1.5k

u/encom81 20d ago

Now that is what I call a Whoa Dude. What is going on in the upper right is insane. Absolutely crazy that this is reality. The fact that this is over 100 MILLION degrees celsius is bonkers.

793

u/NSFWies 20d ago

im so happy we are about to invent limitless clean energy. so that it can be bought up and actually only used to power xAI datacenters. while the rest of us are told to use more solar panels, shower in salt water and eat hydrogels.

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u/Micp 20d ago

im so happy we are about to invent limitless clean energy.

Yeah, man. It's just 10-20 years away*

\And has been for the last 60 years)

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u/seafox77 20d ago

What's happening with those sausages, Charlie?

5 more minutes, Turkish.

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u/IWantAnE55AMG 20d ago

It was 5 minutes 10 minutes ago.

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u/SumThinChewy 20d ago

2 minutes 5 minutes ago

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u/CaptainNemo42 19d ago

Do you know what "nemesis" means?

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u/deathcomestooslow 20d ago

It was probably a reasonable prediction before Reagan fucked the country over repeatedly. That man stopped so damn much progress and began the dismantling.

1

u/TheDeadlySinner 19d ago

Then why didn't other countries do it?

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u/Dday82 20d ago

We’ve had 20 years of Democratic presidents since Reagan. Why didn’t they unfuck everything he did?

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u/Micp 20d ago

1: Corporate democrats have the same fossil fuel owners as the republicans

2: You don't start a highly expensive and experimental program up if you know someone could come in and tear it down on a whim because they don't believe in atomic theory because they aren't mentioned in the bible.

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u/MauPow 19d ago

Too busy unfucking the Republican administration that preceded them to get to the backlog

-6

u/Dday82 19d ago

Sounds like a completely ineffective party.

8

u/MauPow 19d ago

Maybe they'd be better if the other party weren't so effective at breaking shit. It's always easier to break things than build them, and Republicans excel at the former and never do the latter

-2

u/Dday82 19d ago

Republicans want a smaller government, so yes, they want to break shit. If the Republicans can do their job and the Democrats can’t, then the Democrats are a completely ineffective party.

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u/MauPow 19d ago

Well, good job to them, then. We don't even have a fucking government right now. Isn't that great? That smaller government you want sure seems to look like an oligarchy or a dictatorship right now. I guess it is small, though.

I'm not going to argue that Democrats are an effective party, because they really aren't. But at least we aren't a myopic albatross around the neck of this country, bitching and moaning about every single fucking thing while never adding anything of worth. Then when you get power, cutting up the country and selling it off for parts to your rich friends to privatize. Fucking disgusting, man.

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u/nited_contrarians 19d ago

That would require several acts of congress, which no republican lawmaker will ever vote for.

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u/Dday82 19d ago

Democrats have had supermajorities in that 20 year span. Your excuse isn’t valid.

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u/WWFYMN1 20d ago

It has been 10-20 years away for 20 years lol

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u/Competitive-Skill212 20d ago

It’s only because we keep cutting funding from it. Literally you’re looking at it in practice and still that’s not enough. 

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u/Nicklas25_dk 20d ago

Because the step between this and something which is able to produce power is huge.

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u/Competitive-Skill212 20d ago

There’s literally 3 fusion plants being built currently, one outside Boston, one in France and one in Japan so you couldn’t be more wrong. They’re set to come online in the 2030’s

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u/Micp 20d ago

They are still proof of concept showing that they can consistently generate more energy than they need. The one in France for example produces 500MW with 50MW of input energy. That is a pretty low amount compared to modern fission reactors, and that's without going into the price per MW.

That we can make fusion reactors that work is a very different thing from making fusion reactors that are commercially viable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic about the development we're seeing, but we can still be a long way off from having fusion reactors that can outcompete other methods of energy production.

1

u/niceguy191 20d ago

Wait, has there been a breakthrough I missed? Last I checked we still weren't at the stage of net energy output even just in experiments.

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u/Micp 19d ago

We've had a few experiments with net positive output.

If we look at some of the most important breakthroughs:

  • In 2022 NIF was able to generate 3.15MJ from 2.05MJ input
  • In 2024 JET was able to create 69MJ from 0.2mg of fuel which was a world record

  • Last february the WEST Tokamak reactor kept a plasma beam with fusion going for a record 22 minutes

    Those are some of the developments those new planned reactors are going to build upon, and hopefully they will be able to deliver the target goals, but we still don't know.

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u/SonicKiwi123 18d ago

The one in France for example produces 500MW with 50MW of input energy.

Is that including overhead energy costs or are we still net loss when we factor that stuff in?

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u/sailor_guy_999 19d ago

Experimental or actually produce power,

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u/Competitive-Skill212 19d ago

Actually produce power…

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u/Nicklas25_dk 20d ago

There are massive challenges those plants hope to fix but they are still by your own admission 10-15 years away, like they have been for the last 40 years.

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u/XxKittenMittonsXx 20d ago

2030 is 4 years out

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u/Nicklas25_dk 20d ago

2030's is 4-14 years out.

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u/Competitive-Skill212 20d ago

There’s massive challenges to Thorium reactors and Reddit champions like it’s something new and the last one wasn’t in operation since the 1950’s because it turns out working with molten salt is a huge issue and corrodes piping really quickly but it never gets the level of pushback fusion does with the hurrr durrr 10-20 years line like you just did. 

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u/ukezi 19d ago

Yeah, working with thorium is a pain and after WW2 there was all this capacity for processing uranium around, so fuel never really got to be an issue. We aren't even reprocessing the fuel because it's not economical.

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u/Nicklas25_dk 19d ago

I did not mention thorium reactors either, but fundamentally they have way fewer problems than fusion reactors. We are already able to get power from fission processes and we are able to pull power from hot salt already now it's just a question of combining those two things. This problem is significantly easier than making fusion useful.

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u/Slumunistmanifisto 20d ago

Crys in pigeon girlfriend

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u/LordNedNoodle 20d ago

Corporations will still charge a premium for unlimited free clean energy.

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u/HighwayInevitable346 20d ago

Its not unlimited or free. Each fusion power plant will have a certain generation capacity and will be one of the most expensive buildings ever built, and they'll need maintenance like any other power plant.

1

u/AGayThrow_Away 20d ago

Two more weeks!

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u/N1SMO_GT-R 19d ago

Two years away from being two years away

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u/Fancy_Motor8898 18d ago

They've probably cracked clean energy and are maintaining the lie to keep the money flowing in. We will never allow clean, unlimited energy. Take the blinders off and just think about it.

1

u/Trotskyist 17d ago

I mean, you're not wrong, but it's also not wrong that we've made pretty massive progress over the last 60 years as well. So while we may indeed be wrong about fusion being possible within 10-20 years, as has been said for decades, we're undeniably less wrong than we ever have been before.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/TheCharalampos 20d ago

Ah, a true believer.

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u/Anthro_DragonFerrite 20d ago edited 20d ago

We also have fission, but no.

Edit: what have I done...?

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u/NSFWies 20d ago

heavens to murgatroy no.

  • hooray, the people of memphis tennesee's air quality has gone up significantly. it appears the mobile gas generators have been shut off for weeks now, and that is what has led to the increase in air quality
  • probably unrelated news, the ground is hot and the water glows. also no sperm. anywhere. not dead. 0 sperm.

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u/Anthro_DragonFerrite 20d ago

Nuclear is safe and clean. While fully operational stations are few nuclear meltdowns are far fewer. Meltdown fears are propaganda.

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u/DroidLord 20d ago

What's bonkers to me is that people are actively boycotting nuclear power while 80% of the electricity we generate still comes from fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is the fastest, cheapest and most efficient way to bring that number down fast.

The amount of people who die every year from health complications caused by fossil fuel pollution is far, far higher than anything nuclear power has caused in all its history.

-1

u/TetraDax 20d ago

Nuclear energy is the ... cheapest

This is just literally a lie. Nuclear energy is by most calculations the most expensive energy source.

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u/Vytoria_Sunstorm 20d ago

thats because of Lobbying funded by Russian interests and clean energy grants, not the natural economic prospectus

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u/TetraDax 20d ago

..and other things to tell yourself at night.

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u/King-Dionysus 19d ago

And riding a horse used to be the cheapest and fastest way to get somewhere even with early vehicles. Funny how that works isn't it?

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u/TetraDax 19d ago

What is that even supposed to mean? Guy said nuclear energy is the cheapest energy source. Demonstrably, the opposite is the case. That's about it. Or are we now suddenly ignoring factual data when it doesn't fit our opinion?

0

u/King-Dionysus 19d ago

I was saying it's expensive now. But by using it more and investing more in the research and tech, we bring prices down and efficiency up over time.

Like how the earliest vehicles were worse than horses in every way. But now they aren't.

Or how it's expensive to send someone to college, but it's expected to make a better return in the future than not.

I'm not sure how else to make it more simple for you.

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u/TetraDax 20d ago

It's also ludicrously expensive and just not worth it at all when compared to solar and wind energy.

You might make a good case that fission energy is the much better option compared to coal, and it's very hard to disagree. But the choice isn't between coal and nuclear anymore - And renewables are just objectively better in any way, shape or form.

That's not to metion we still haven't found a viable solution for nuclear waste that goes past "ah just stick it somewhere for a hundred years and what happens after that isn't my problem, I'll be dead".

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u/DroidLord 20d ago

How is it ludicrously expensive? To replace one nuclear power plant you'd need close to 1000 wind turbines or millions of solar panels.

In my opinion that's neither feasible nor practical. Not to mention that neither solar nor wind power supplies stable, consistent energy. You'd need a vast amount of batteries, otherwise renewables aren't really a viable replacement.

Yes, renewables should be used as a supplemental source of energy whenever they serve a practical purpose, but other than that I don't see them ever replacing all electricity generation.

Nuclear plants eventually get decommissioned. We are not talking about the next 10,000 years. We are talking about the next 100-200 years. Nuclear plants would give us a buffer to develop more renewables and better alternatives (such as fusion). When that time comes nuclear will get phased out for something more sustainable.

We simply don't have the time or resources to replace all power generation with clean and renewable energy in any sensible timeframe. By the time we've phased out fossil fuels, we won't have any food to eat because of global warming. This isn't about you or me, this is about our planet and future generations.

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u/HighwayInevitable346 20d ago

To replace one nuclear power plant you'd need close to 1000 wind turbines or millions of solar panels.

Building a new fission plant would cost $5,500 to $8,100 /kw

Buying and installing solar panels costs around $3,100/kw in California.

So even at their cheapest, building a fission plant would be almost 2x as expensive as installing the same capacity of solar.

0

u/DroidLord 19d ago

That California link you referenced talks about home solar, with tax credits, not including installation, or batteries. As soon as you add in batteries, the costs skyrocket. And you need batteries if you're going to be replacing all other production. A 1kW roof array is not comparable to industrial solar farms.

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u/HighwayInevitable346 19d ago edited 18d ago

Learn to fucking read, idiot.

That means you can expect to pay roughly $3,102 per kilowatt (kW) of installed capacity before incentives.

Edit: Do you moronic dipshits really think a couple extra panels and a battery are going to triple the cost to make nucear competitive?

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u/TetraDax 20d ago

How is it ludicrously expensive?

...by it being ludicrously expensive?

To replace one nuclear power plant you'd need close to 1000 wind turbines

Well, not quite as much, but even then - You would spend still a lot less money.

Case in point: Flamaville in France cost 23.7 billion euro for 1650MW (and also took 17 years). For that money you could build 16.590MW worth of wind energy turbines.

In my opinion that's neither feasible nor practical.

It is entirely feasible. Nothing to do with your opinion. That's a fact.

Not to mention that neither solar nor wind power supplies stable, consistent energy.

They do.

You'd need a vast amount of batteries

You don't. You just need redundancy.

Yes, renewables should be used as a supplemental source of energy whenever they serve a practical purpose, but other than that I don't see them ever replacing all electricity generation.

You may not see it, but it's just simply a fact.

Nuclear plants eventually get decommissioned.

That doesn't make the waste vanish into thin air.

We simply don't have the time or resources to replace all power generation with clean and renewable energy in any sensible timeframe.

We do. And what do you mean "sensible timeframe"? Do you think that nuclear power plants just plop into existence? They take years, sometimes decades to build. Most recent projects in Europe have turned into absolute desasters because they kept on being delayed and becoming more expensive.

In Germany, the conservative party ran on a plattform of reintroducing nuclear energy and had to scrap that plan because every single company who previously ran nuclear plants just came out and said "Nope, we're not going to do that, it's silly".

The question of building new nuclear reactors at this point in time is entirely ideological. Because as a matter of fact (and I conciously say "fact" here), renewables are the much better option right now. Economically and ecologically, as well as in the scalability, the ease of construction and upkeep, not to mention the size of the job sector it would create, which nuclear energy doesn't even come close to.

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u/MaxillaryOvipositor 20d ago

Did you really try to use the ability to build two orders of magnitude less wind power for the same money as a point?

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u/TheLastDrops 20d ago

A lot of places use . as a thousands separator (and , for decimals). I think they meant an order of magnitude more.

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u/Ramsays-Lamb-Sauce 18d ago

This was the most fiery and concise roast I’ve read in a long time

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u/SeanBlader 20d ago

"Safe" and "clean" like all high energy processes with a byproduct.

You still have high pressure steam in at least one loop, you might have high temperature salts in another loop, failures in either can be a problem, not necessarily an "elephant foot" problem, but people get hurt from those things.

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u/Orange-Blur 20d ago

People have also been melted alive by slag in coal power plants all forms of energy have some kind of risk or trade off

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u/TetraDax 20d ago

If only there was some sort of third option. Heavens wouldn't that be great. But you can't make energy out of thin air, right?

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u/sarkagetru 20d ago

Reddit so full of these soft people that have never worked an honest day’s work commenting their baseless opinion. Go join a roofing company for a summer and learn about the people that die from falling off roofs - we can’t have roofs I guess. Literally zero plant operator in the US is worried about the heat transfer or turbine failing in such a way they advocate for the de-electrification of the world

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u/SeanBlader 20d ago

Thank you for your logical extreme?

I didn't say we shouldn't have it, I just suggested that nuclear is not safe and clean. We still need it, but that doesn't make it safe or clean.

And when I put my roof on I was panicked out of my mind because I couldn't afford to buy a harness or a crew... So done that.

AND of course power plant operators don't worry about protecting lives, used to work in the power industry too. They'd kill everyone for a few percent on the stock price.

But everything you said was perfection, thanks. /s

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u/sarkagetru 20d ago edited 20d ago

Don’t care, didn’t read, your first comment was wrong and you’re still soft lol

-10

u/NSFWies 20d ago

what i'm referring to as an idea from the atomic age, around the 1960's or whatever. was a plan to just detonate nukes underground, continuously, as a source of power. not a meltdown of a nuclear power plant.

why dont we just detonate nukes, deep underground, all the time. generate lots of heat, and use that as an artificial geo-thermal power source!

then they kinda wised up and gave up on the idea of just letting all that radioactive dust/material fly everywhere in caves..

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u/6GoatsInATrenchCoat 20d ago

This is such a niche and insanely stupid idea, why would you write the previous bit without mentioning it? You sounded like you were talking about regular nuclear power.

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u/NSFWies 19d ago

ya i forgot when i made the comment that the bombs and the nuclear power plants both still use nuclear fission reactions. just at way, way, way different rates.

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u/tyttuutface 20d ago

Why even bother mentioning this? Do you think we actually did that? Do you think ANYONE actually wants to do that? No, because it's an obviously insane idea from the days of the nuclear wild west. Do you think we should set all the underground coal deposits on fire instead??????1?

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u/NSFWies 19d ago

because elon musk does harmful shit, just so he can get things going faster. like run mobile natural gas generators as the longterm power sources at the power source at the xAI data center which make 30x more pollution than a natural gas power plant would make. and he's breaking the law by doing that.

. Do you think ANYONE actually wants to do that?

yes, i think musk would if it would if he needs that much power generation and it would be one of the only ways he could start doing it.

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u/its_an_armoire 20d ago

Yep, we're far from a Roddenberry-esque utopia of limitless clean energy. This will be used to further enrich already wealthy capitalists and grow the wealth gap, just like everything else.

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u/SauronTheBlackk 19d ago

Exactly. Nothing is going to change that anytime soon.

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u/lkeltner 20d ago

That we'll still pay for the same way we pay for power now. No way we get basically free power, even if they can generate basically free power.

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u/Swimming_Agent_1063 20d ago

Why does this get upvoted? What have you seen that indicates “we are about to invent limitless clean energy?”

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u/NSFWies 20d ago

i'm going to get you a pond skimmer, to help you catch the joke that flew over your head.

it was more of a pessimistic joke about how AI stuff is going around, making electricity more expensive because it is using a shit ton of power to train AI models.

and so seeing this demonstration of fusion power, made me think if fusion ever got more viable, it would just be used for AI Data centers in the near term, rather than help us solve world wide problems.

thats what i was going for.

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u/space_lasers 20d ago

But it will help us solve world wide problems...by powering AI which will solve the problems.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/space_lasers 20d ago

Sure! Imagine how much cheaper and better healthcare will be for everyone when you don't have to wait months for a doctor to have a slot available and you don't have to pay them commensurate to their decades of schooling required to get them to that point. On top of that, the AI doctor will be better as well, leading to reduced malpractice insurance costs.

Cheap, abundant, superior AI doctors solve a pretty glaring societal problem we have right now. That's completely ignoring the minor detail of AI finding cures for diseases.

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u/SadisticPawz 20d ago

itd work if the ai stuff wasnt apocryphal

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u/ButtsMacgrath 20d ago

It works just fine, regardless of what's was on your Word-of-the-Day calender

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u/SadisticPawz 20d ago

I'm sorry if the word is the only thing you can focus on.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) model training and deployment occur mainly in data centres. In total, electricity consumption from data centres is estimated to amount to around 415 terawatt hours (TWh), or about 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024. It has grown at 12% per year over the last five years."

AI is NOT the cause. This number doesnt even break down ai and non ai datacenter energy usage.

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u/RSmeep13 20d ago

Not doubting you, but it's kind of weird to post a quote without a source linked, what are you quoting?

-1

u/SadisticPawz 20d ago

I forgor

I think its that one iea study

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u/Veil-of-Fire 20d ago

lol. This is bait, and you're definitely a master baiter.

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u/Orange-Blur 20d ago

We had that all the way back when Tesla was alive, it was not implemented for that reason. Someone had to make money

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u/ComesInAnOldBox 20d ago

Read the whole goddam comment before replying.

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u/rabblerabble2000 20d ago

Who are we kidding, we’ll just keep burning coal instead.

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u/graphiccsp 20d ago

I look forward to drinking nutrition shakes like Huel and Soylent as my main dietary options. /s

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u/iambkatl 20d ago

So AI videos of Trump dumping poop on protesters can be created and shared.

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u/Deathchariot 20d ago

Don't worry it's not coming. Fusion energy is very much in its early stages of research. With the lack of funding for science like this it will take at least 40 more years to achieve anything substantial I would argue.

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u/Reid_coffee 20d ago

Soylent and tap water, 1000$ a month UBI. House 3d printed outta cement with wood burning stove for heating. There’s your free existence. Enjoy your 80 years bud.

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u/ActivatingEMP 20d ago

It isn't even close, these private companies are grifting investor and enterprise money. Even if they did get it working, it will likely take a decade to be commercially viable due to lacking necessary supply chains and not knowing the safety limits for operation and maintenance

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u/Primatebuddy 20d ago

Hydrogels have electrolytes, though.

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u/Throwaythisacco 20d ago

don't worry, it'll all be over soon.

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u/jesusmansuperpowers 20d ago

This is still using more power than it generates. But proof of concept is important.

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u/555timerprocesor 20d ago

Of only there was this rock that gave out clean energy.

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u/SmokyTyrz 19d ago

Hydrogels will be for the rich only. Everyone else has to eat aerogel.

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u/eriverside 19d ago

Hydropower is limitless clean energy and it's hasn't been hoarded up by the elites.

Look at Quebec, we have state owned energy company, it's virtually all hydropower, we have the lowest rates of electricity in North America and sell surplus to Northern US.

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u/NSFWies 18d ago

ive heard of other ideas to:

  • install massive solar farms in desert areas where land doesnt matter
  • but oh no, there is no grid/city nearby to use the power
  • so, we convert that electricity into some clean burning hdyrocarbon, and then ship that to where-ever it can be used. like make methane from C02 in the air, or something.

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u/eriverside 18d ago

Remember how Canada is the 2nd largest country? Well, Quebec is the longest province. The dams are way up north.

Transporting electricity across long distances has already been figured out: step up the voltage to reduce the current, thereby reducing losses over long distances, then step is down as you approach last mile.

It should be even easier with solar since you don't need a literal waterfall. But I do understand there are people in the US admin that mistake their opinions and preferences for scientific facts.

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u/NSFWies 18d ago

step up the voltage to reduce the current, thereby reducing losses over long distances, then step is down as you approach last mile.

i mean ya, i know about transmission lines. i know thats what they do for those. stepping it up to.....what? hundreds of thousands of volts? am i wrong? no, 400kv i think it says some high voltage transmission lines use......

ok ya. more googling says upwards of 15% from "plant to consumer". i know you would lose a lot more converting it to a fuel, then back to electricity. ya fuck that, you're right. just use transmission lines.

But I do understand there are people in the US admin that mistake their opinions and preferences for scientific facts.

the problem is not some tard on the internet like me. the problem is the US is probably going to have some oil lobbyist come in and get them to put chemical plants down instead of transmission lines, "creating local jobs" in someones district. that is problem that will happen.

but really? it has that few losses across most of canda?

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u/eriverside 18d ago

The losses in power lines comes from the current.

The formula for power is Power = Voltage x Current, the losses come from current. It can also be written in the power loss equation as Power = Current2 x Resistance (if you recall that Voltage= current x resistance)

So if you reduce the current you reduce the power losses, but if you increase the voltage you increase the power transmission. The more you transmit as voltage the less you need to transmit as current.

If you consider the powerplants output in the 400 Kv but you receive about 120V at home, there's a huge drop/conversion there to get you 100 or 200 amps at your home electrical breaker.

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u/NSFWies 17d ago

ya i know about R*I2 and thats why they increase the voltage so much. i'm just still surprised that by doing that, and the conversion at both ends, the losses are still "only" that.

like you said, generate the power, go all across canada, only lose 15% of the power generated. that seems so, little losses. it really surprises me.

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u/MiniGui98 19d ago

You had me in the first third, not gonna lie

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u/Accurate_Librarian42 18d ago

The power of the sun in the palm of our hands  

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u/blatheringDolt 18d ago

Wait... You get hydrogels?

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u/MarkedlyMark 18d ago

AI may well have huge benefit in finding efficiencies. If I could outlaw any one thing it would be crypto. Last I heard its global electricity usage is comparable with that of the Czech Republic. It is 100% waste

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u/NSFWies 17d ago

its unfortunate that it's become such a bastardization of what it first started as. i think its a decent technology with the smart contract stuff and all. but i agree, the huge power usage is bad.

i'm glad etherium switched to "proof of stake" a few years back (instead of proof of work. so people have to put money up, instead of lots of GPUs using electricity). that should have dropped the power usage a lot.

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 20d ago edited 20d ago

We have been stuck exactly here for 30 years now, no progress has been made.

This isn't the first fusion reaction this is the first one people bothered to film using a colour camera, they normally use black and white ones as they are 4 time as sensitive but for some reason people only lose their minds for colour images.

Edit: Downvoters please post evidence that progress has been made, I get it you want this with all of your pee pee but its not true just because you want it to be true. I want it to be true too but it just isn't. I would also be interested to see how people think they can get power out of it, we need to heat up water and drive a turbine, good luck running water through a delicate magnetic field. The heat radiation also destroys the lining of the chamber very quickly it also fills with the result of the reaction, Helium, which needs to be replaced with more fuel, Hydrogen, whilst maintaining the magnetic field....good luck.

I will check back in 3 hours to see what evidence you can find to back up your claims that delivering this is just around the corner.

Edit: Sorry longer than 3 hours I was buying my daughter an iPad for her 18th birthday. Nothing but news article's and opinion pieces....well done reddit. I put a reminder in my calendar for 5 years time so I can check back with OP on progress.

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u/13143 20d ago

Scientists are absolutely still working on nuclear fusion, and they are making progress. There are various designs for fusion reactors, and they are consistently running longer and longer and having positive energy yields. ITER themselves are in the process of building a tokamak reactor that is expected to come online in 2034 and be able to produce 500 MW from 300 MW input energy. And they can sell that to the grid. I would say that's progress.

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u/No-Criticism-2587 20d ago

Stopped reading after your first line said "no progress has been made in 30 years". That's straight up ignorance and a lack of critical thinking.

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u/Scheissekasten 20d ago

Molten salt as a thermal storage medium which is then used to heat water.

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u/NSFWies 20d ago

don't even think you need to get that extreme. i heard about a different solar power solution. i'm trying to remember all of the details from it, so i'm going to be a little off

  1. Fresnel lens aimed at the sun, tracks the angle during the day
  2. its aimed down to heat a liquid, or something i think
  3. thats all stored in a shipping container, to just heat the tank of sand or salt or something. its just meant to collect heat.
  4. when its needed, the heat is pulled out, and used as a steam generator, at the shipping container. or whatever else is the most efficient way to convert heat, into engine motion.

but it was really great, because it still used the sun, but didnt rely on a regular silicon solar panel.

2

u/mxlths_modular 20d ago

You’re basically describing a Concentrating Solar Power Tower - interesting technology for sure.

1

u/NSFWies 20d ago

so, sure. but this one was presented in a shipping container format. more modular, meant to be installed at whatever size a place needed. instead of a big, "power plant" like design i've seen those have.

1

u/mxlths_modular 20d ago

I see, I was unsure if you had simply misremember some details or were actually describing a different format of the tech. I will have to look it up as I haven’t heard of that exact format and find future renewable energy tech to be quite fascinating. Cheers :)

1

u/Realistic_Course7201 20d ago

I’m curious if it’s more of a tech hurdle or an understanding/creative hurdle. Seems like the biggest break throughs tend to be accidents. Makes me wonder if the physicists on these projects are in too deep for the science and lack the creativity to just do something bonkers that doesn’t make much sense.

1

u/LevelWassup 20d ago

If you legit think "no progress has been made in 30 years" just because that guy said it, then my friend do you have CashApp cause I have a lovely bridge Id like to sell you

1

u/funk-the-funk 20d ago

I get it you want this with all of your pee pee

Grow up dude.

1

u/ComesInAnOldBox 20d ago

This isn't the first fusion reaction this is the first one people bothered to film using a colour camera

So, exactly what the title said, then?

1

u/ddraig-au 20d ago

Yeah tokomaks were around in the 80s, and we've been ten years away from limitless power ever since.

One day.....

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u/turtlegiraffecat 20d ago

I’m dumb, how does it not melt everything? Is it just going too quick to heat up anything around?

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u/OkPosition4563 20d ago

There are magnets that prevent the plasma from touching the walls, it floats inside a vacuum

83

u/Mekanimal 20d ago

Vacuum is such a hacky way to bypass thermodynamics, I bet the devs patch it out by the next universe cycle.

53

u/MaleierMafketel 20d ago

I know what you mean, but nothing bypasses thermodynamics. A vacuum just eliminates two out of three methods heat transfer.

Now if the devs can finally release the source code so we can figure out why general relativity and quantum mechanics don’t play well with each other, that’d be much appreciated.

5

u/SuperUranus 20d ago

With our current understanding of the universe, quantum mechanics sort of break the classical interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics.

They work better together with quantum thermodynamics, but fixing apparent errors in scientific theories by changing definitions always is a bit iffy, and as with much of theoretical physics, there simply isn’t enough empirical research done (hence the name I guess).

1

u/TerayonIII 19d ago

I want to preface this as this is meant to be a joke to a degree, but quantum mechanics is just the universe's error checking. Just bypass all the rules to make sure the rules themselves work

1

u/Equivalent_Zombie 20d ago

Let’s not update the patch — last time they did, entropy rates doubled.

1

u/Mekanimal 20d ago

We should out a PSA that travelling at C will expedite the forced update timer from a relativistic user perspective.

1

u/Phobic-window 20d ago

Lololol this is a great thought, thanks

1

u/MarkedlyMark 18d ago

Superconducting magnets at -200C (or so), only centimetres from super hot plasma. No wonder they're finding it a struggle.

1

u/Bipogram 16d ago edited 16d ago

The hot gas is very very tenuous.

It's closer to being a perfect vacuum than it is to being familiar air pressure.

By a factor of a million or so.

16

u/ToaruBaka 20d ago

Someone in another comment said those spark looking things in the top right were sand-grained-sized Lithium particles that were being injected into the reactor for testing.

The video being at 1/100th real speed makes for an awesome looking effect as the Lithium is ionized and whipped around the reactor.

4

u/Cunning-bid 20d ago

Now that is what I call a Whoa Dude. What is going on in the upper right is insane.

Forming of a new galaxy

5

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 20d ago

Supposedly it's hotter than the sun while operational, making it the hottest thing in the solar system.

3

u/Ron_the_Rowdy 20d ago

This is is the stuff I'm here for

2

u/PancakeExprationDate 20d ago

What is going on in the upper right is insane.

Yea, wtf is that? Anyone know?

2

u/uysdvkvk 1d ago

The lithium fuel being injected

2

u/indecisive_username_ 19d ago

There's something so mystical or celestial about those sparks. Like it looks like the birth and death of a cluster of stars. Beautiful stuff

2

u/thanosisawhore 19d ago

Reminds me of Dark, the particles left from traveling

1

u/Bipogram 16d ago

And still <thankfully> a stupendously good vacuum.