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Nuclear fusion


old'un
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As a sixth form physics student I visited the central Electricity Generating Board labs. To this day I recall the enthusiasm of the chap who told us about nuclear fusion as if it was going to be along in just a few years time, bringing unlimited cheap power.

Still waiting.     This was in I think 1961 when the biologists were still working out what DNA did.

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i remember over 40 years ago driving regular past the JET lab outside Oxford..............space age stuff eh !

the French are spending billions on a full size machine somewhere in France.....the chinese the same.............the Americans have a small test facility....(rekon they are just watching letting everybody else spend the money first)

believe last month they announced for the first time a net gain..(although very small)

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Just now, ditchman said:

i remember over 40 years ago driving regular past the JET lab outside Oxford..............space age stuff eh !

the French are spending billions on a full size machine somewhere in France.....the chinese the same.............the Americans have a small test facility....(rekon they are just watching letting everybody else spend the money first)

believe last month they announced for the first time a net gain..(although very small)

Yep,

and 1 kilogram of fusion fuel, which is made up of heavy forms of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium, provides as much energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel, that ratio is pretty impressive...https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/us-scientists-achieve-net-energy-gain-second-time-fusion-reaction

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Fusion does not work on earth for more than a few milliseconds even a labratory scale (even with massive inputs) as it cannot keep going as we have the wrong elemental forms, wrong pressures and wrong temperatures.

The Sun is not a gaseous plasma, except above its surface, below this, all the hydrogen is a form of liquid semi solid, called liquid metallic hydrogen, the fusion happens in the layers where hydrogen is in it's liquid metallic form, not gaseous plasma which we are trying to use on Earth in fusion reactors..

 

 

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1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

Fusion does not work on earth for more than a few milliseconds even a labratory scale (even with massive inputs) as it cannot keep going as we have the wrong elemental forms, wrong pressures and wrong temperatures.

The Sun is not a gaseous plasma, except above its surface, below this, all the hydrogen is a form of liquid semi solid, called liquid metallic hydrogen, the fusion happens in the layers where hydrogen is in it's liquid metallic form, not gaseous plasma which we are trying to use on Earth in fusion reactors..

 

 

so were ****ed then

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1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

Fusion does not work on earth for more than a few milliseconds even a labratory scale (even with massive inputs) as it cannot keep going as we have the wrong elemental forms, wrong pressures and wrong temperatures.

The Sun is not a gaseous plasma, except above its surface, below this, all the hydrogen is a form of liquid semi solid, called liquid metallic hydrogen, the fusion happens in the layers where hydrogen is in it's liquid metallic form, not gaseous plasma which we are trying to use on Earth in fusion reactors..

 

 

Where there's a will there's a way.

Im sure they'll crack it at some point, the only question is when.

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1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

Fusion does not work on earth for more than a few milliseconds even a labratory scale (even with massive inputs) as it cannot keep going as we have the wrong elemental forms, wrong pressures and wrong temperatures.

The Sun is not a gaseous plasma, except above its surface, below this, all the hydrogen is a form of liquid semi solid, called liquid metallic hydrogen, the fusion happens in the layers where hydrogen is in it's liquid metallic form, not gaseous plasma which we are trying to use on Earth in fusion reactors..

 

 

so why is everybody spending billions on it ?...if that is the case ?

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12 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

Where there's a will there's a way.

Im sure they'll crack it at some point, the only question is when.

Unless they can duplicate the sun's core temperature, pressure, magnetic fields, gravity etc on earth, it ain't going to work.

18 minutes ago, ditchman said:

so why is everybody spending billions on it ?...if that is the case ?

Because they have spent billions and have no wish to explain that it is not possible to commercialise.... scientists and engineers being fully funded for their entire careers..... on the promise of achieving the holy grail.....

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9 hours ago, Stonepark said:

Unless they can duplicate the sun's core temperature, pressure, magnetic fields, gravity etc on earth, it ain't going to work.

Because they have spent billions and have no wish to explain that it is not possible to commercialise.... scientists and engineers being fully funded for their entire careers..... on the promise of achieving the holy grail.....

I don't think you can predict the future, all sorts of inventions could materialise. It may be some way off but it could well be possible without your list of requirements.

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11 hours ago, Stonepark said:

Fusion does not work on earth for more than a few milliseconds even a labratory scale (even with massive inputs) as it cannot keep going as we have the wrong elemental forms, wrong pressures and wrong temperatures.

The Sun is not a gaseous plasma, except above its surface, below this, all the hydrogen is a form of liquid semi solid, called liquid metallic hydrogen, the fusion happens in the layers where hydrogen is in it's liquid metallic form, not gaseous plasma which we are trying to use on Earth in fusion reactors..

 

 

There are lots of things from the past that were said to-be impossible.

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3 hours ago, amateur said:

Nuclear fusion has worked quite a few times on Earth. The first time being "Mike" in 1952.

The major problem is controlling it.

Nuclear fusion "worked" after setting off a fission bomb "primer" to duplicate the temperatures and pressures inside the sun's core for a few milliseconds, allowing "fusion" to work for a further few milli-seconds.

 

Not only did they not have control, they confirmed that they required sun core conditions to release a substantial portion of the "fusion" energy.

 

5 hours ago, old'un said:

There are lots of things from the past that were said to-be impossible.

And there plenty that still are... We are all subject to the laws of physics....

2 hours ago, Gordon R said:

Bit like the "Green" taxes.

😁

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Just now, Stonepark said:

Nuclear fusion "worked" after setting off a fission bomb "primer" to duplicate the temperatures and pressures inside the sun's core for a few milliseconds, allowing "fusion" to work for a further few milli-seconds.

 

Not only did they not have control, they confirmed that they required sun core conditions to release a substantial portion of the "fusion" energy.

 

I don't disagree. The problem is replicating it in a controlled fashion.

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11 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

It's not my list of conditions, it's physics......

I never said it wasn't?

 

They believed many things were impossible before their invention.

Here's a list of a few

 

1. Flight: Many people believed that human flight was impossible until the Wright brothers successfully flew the first airplane in 1903.

2. Antibiotics: Before the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, it was thought that effectively treating bacterial infections with drugs was impractical or unattainable.

3. Space Travel: The idea of sending humans into space was considered fantastical until the successful launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union in 1957, and the subsequent moon landing by Apollo 11 in 1969.

4. Atomic Theory: At one point, scientists debated the existence of atoms, with some believing it was impossible to prove their existence due to their small size. However, advancements in techniques like X-ray crystallography finally provided evidence for the atomic structure of matter.

5. Telecommunications: The ability to send signals and messages wirelessly over long distances was once thought to be impossible. The development of technologies like the telegraph, telephone, and eventually wireless communication shattered this belief.

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as i still say..............

why have Billions /trilions have been spent on this machine and still are....and are making improvements and steps forward all the time...............there are many things we are not party to...........and to be dismissive and just quote the laws of physics..saying it cant be done ...all sounds a bit strange....when clearly big strides are being made...

thats why we onthis forum are all metal muppets.....if we were as clever as these people who runand design JET....and the large hadron collider....we wouldnt be wasting our time gobbing off on chat forums....

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1 hour ago, ditchman said:

as i still say..............

why have Billions /trilions have been spent on this machine and still are....and are making improvements and steps forward all the time...............there are many things we are not party to...........and to be dismissive and just quote the laws of physics..saying it cant be done ...all sounds a bit strange....when clearly big strides are being made...

thats why we onthis forum are all metal muppets.....if we were as clever as these people who runand design JET....and the large hadron collider....we wouldnt be wasting our time gobbing off on chat forums....

We perhaps might….but the subject matter would be totally different. :)

The future...

starship.jpg.8d4df3805f81024b081fdea734019a9a.jpg

 

Edited by old'un
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