General Atomics sees an end to the long road toward nuclear fusion
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- The creation of energy from nuclear fusion has been a goal for decades. And technology advances at companies like General Atomics in San Diego are bringing us closer to it. KPBS sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge tells us about this quest to put the “sun in a bottle,” and use it to provide what would be abundant power.
We've been hearing the labor pains for over 50 years now, it's time to show us the baby.
Its only 10 years away.
@@szebike Used to be "thirty" for several decades, so...
Richard Buttery and Thomas Fudge...... I don't think I even need to write the jokes, do I?
Actually, in USSR, tokamak was first built in Kharkov Theoretical Physics School. And the author of the theory and creator of tokamak became Ukrainian citizen after dissolution of the Soviet Union. So in reality tokamak is not “Russian invention”. Either Soviet Union or Ukrainian would be technically correct
Yep, that seems more than fair. We here in the US seem to forget that the USSR & Russia were different things. In some ways that sentiment holds true (funnily enough, it’s never any the good ways). In most ways, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
The fun part is once you have a sustained fusion reaction, then what? You have to convert the excess energy (usually heat) into a usable form of energy (usually electricity). So you have to figure out how to take the heat from something as hot as the sun and cool it down enough to flash water into steam (without vaporizing it at a million degrees) to then turn a conventional turbine generator. And at the same time keep that plasma hot enough and under enough pressure to sustain itself.
There's only about a 40% chance of getting it done by 2050.
don't confuse temperature with heat
@@travishartman5662 do you mean 2150?
Use double loop heat exchanger
Th eplatitudes of explaining over-and-over the basics of nuclear fusion is kind of boring. The interesting point is whether there have been any advances. Why are you making the video?
stop all this blabbering already. Build a freaking power plant that powers factories or homes. Until that happens I dont want to hear it anymore.
just just close UA-cam bro lmao
3:16 and does it weights less than an aircraft carrier ?
When I can purchase a Fusion Reactor to replace my microwave oven and heat my cold coffee, I'll believe it, or I'll be dead by then.
CONGRATULATIONS 🎉🎉
Lemme guess...its 5 years out.
Fusion has been just 5 years away for the past 60+ years
Hey but what if you have to put more energy in and just to get less energy out what is the freaking use of that ? Btw I think I saw one of my students in the video
They don't answers those questions here. You should drive over there and bring that up to them.
They may make you head of the decommissioning effort....
Have a direct to electric power fusion powered photon electron quantum converter in my back yard. Uses NO fuel whatsoever. Its been up and running for almost 4 years. 1 Kilowatt per hour, costs $600 installed.
I have a lot on my roof.
I naively asked one the old guys working on the tokamak when sustainable power would be generated while working in GA’s IT department in 1986. His answer 20 or 30 years. 😀
The Chinese seem to be well ahead of everyone else on fusion science.
50 years of promise no results.
45 or so years of chronic under-funding. What do you expect?
2048 will be so cool. Too bad aerospace military never tried this since 1943.
I loved the techonology but hold up he said Lithium is abundant?
It is, just thinly distributed.
Solar PV delivers power at 2-4 cents a KWHR you need to beat that number , Im 🤔 thinking with the multi billions spent the cost will never compare to PV .
Area in fusion beats Solar PV area requirements
If the American people invested in this fusion project then when this technology is mature we should not be paying more than half what we’re paying for for our current energy consumption that we get from this technology during or after its deployment and applications! We pay so much into it so we demand that it pay us multiple times in dividends when it is ready and on line! You regulators and scientists should not say “well it depends on where you live” that is so wrong! You people must make it available to everyone everywhere in the United States and its territories otherwise we’d rather congress pull the fundings for this right now!
Fudge
I thought there were newer, simpler fusion designs. Why still bother with tokamaks?
This project was designed and funded years ago.
There’s no shortage of questionable ideas out there, but none seem to deliver any meaningful results. Just more talk designed to attract gullible investors or politicians into funding impractical projects-very much in line with the long-standing tradition of nuclear fusion research.
Newer -- yes, simpler -- no. The tokamak is the simplest theoretical design for a fusion reactor.
The claim of no nuclear waste is not true. (Neutron activation of reactor shielding) As for the practicality of fusion, particularly of the Tokamak variety, someone tell us what the LCOE will be for it. It will never be competitive with existing clean generation options. It will be an extremely expensive parlor trick. It would be cheaper to just burn cash and heat water with that.
I remember the exact same argument being made against the photovoltaics.
These fusion journalists will buy and repeat any old nonsense to fit their anti fission agenda.
Fact all most all fission and fusion reactions involve extremely energetic neutrons or protons and gamma radiation, and neutrons released in the fusion plasma will smash into the containment vessel irradiating it. Also the lithium itself has to be fissioned into tritium and helium, the helium is wasted but the tritium is fused back with the deuterium fuel to make more waste helium and that energetic neutron for heat output. In the tokamak approach, the neutron is definitely going to irradiate the containment vessel or it's going to try and breed new tritium fuel in a lithium blanket.
We mig and tig welders would be happy with more helium. Perhaps also saturation divers.
@@howardsimpson489 The amount of helium a commercial fusion reactor would produce wouldn't even keep up with the demand from a single grocery store florist. If you really cared so much, you should've protested the US selling off it's helium reserves a year ago.
did someone say lift an aircraft carrier out of the water? 😂
All of that setup and yip-yap just to tell us these dudes shipped a magnet to ITER last year? Total non-story.
Impossible without mastering the gravity eh
LOL No
Go Fusion.
I think maybe a better thermodynamic solution using massive magnetic force together with earth's gravity might be a better solution. Just creating a magnet that massive enough to contain a plasma requires the power of an entire power plant.
Dunning-Kruger moment
This will never come to full fruition. #47 is thwarting innovation in favor of self-serving profiteering.
If it was possible, China would have it by now.
#47 is going to thwart everything.
@@richystar2001 PRC is twenty years behind on something as relatively simple as a single-aisle airliner, so... no.
Meanwhile, the Michelson-Morley interferometer continues to NOT BE ROTATED VERTICALLY.
Who cares?
@@A3Kr0n I know you don't deserve a reply but, let me ask you this: Do you even know what are the implications of a "non null" result?
You know that doing that in different latitudes practically eliminates that question, right?
Unless the universal ether has as its main reference this pale blue dot, of course...