Fusion Energy Announcement Tomorrow.
 

US DOE will announce a stated "Technology Breakthrough" in Fusion energy creation tomorrow.

If true then perhaps we can look at the sunset of toxic solar panels and bird killing windmills.

If Fusion can be scaled up it is literally no cost limitless power.

We have been told this before so I am not holding my breath for a breakthrough that is ready for scale up implementation anytime soon, but this could be revolutionary for the energy economy in the long term.

That tech is at least 30 to 50 years away from being commericalized. It has taken them 70 years to do what they did: produce more energy than the reaction consumed.

I'll bring the popcorn.....

With government and private investment only spending $10 billion in its 30-40 years of attempts of making nuclear fusion I too would expect it to take 50 years. I mean we've sent $18 billion (roughly) to Ukraine just this year.. We as a country spend $8 billion on NFL stuff. BUT the reality is if private companies and other countries are allowed to "share" this process and the technology we will see it before 2050 worldwide. Maybe even by 2030. The tree huggers and zero emissions people have been begging for something like this for how long? But with our government holding the "keys" I'd say the free and clean energy won't be as "free" as we hope. This could translate into nuclear fusion powered cars or even powering all the electric vehicles of the world as well as the homes. IIRC a tablespoon of water and the amount of lithium in a smartphone will power the energy output of 1 humans consumption for 10 years. I guess we shall see. I think we will start to see a bunch of major advancements in the next 20 years.

Serious research into nuclear fusion started in 1951. Prior to that in the UK, they fooled around with it back in 1946.

The problem as always been the same: How to generate a mangetic field "envelope" that will contain the fusion reaction. This is a hurdle not easy to overcome.

'

Below News release from 28 Min. ago...
:crazy:
~ Pete

DOE hails fusion technology breakthrough on path to achieving abundant zero-carbon energy
Published Dec. 13, 2022

Stephen Singer - Editor
Dive Brief:
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment, paving the way for a technology that could someday provide clean and plentiful energy, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday.
Physicists have sought since the 1950s to harness nuclear fusion reactions to generate energy, but no group until now has produced more energy from the reaction than it consumes, which is known as net energy gain or target gain.
Kim Budil, director of Lawrence Livermore, said at the announcement at DOE headquarters in Washington it will be years before fusion ignition will be commercially available.

Dive Insight:
Fusion works by combining light atoms, such as hydrogen, into heavier products, such as helium, releasing tremendous energy extracted as heat that holds the key to producing energy. Some waste is produced, but less than what is left behind in a nuclear power plant.

Scientists and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the development “will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

“The pursuit of fusion ignition in the laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled by humanity, and achieving it is a triumph of science, engineering, and most of all, people,” Budil said.

Research into fusion has made progress in recent years with broad applications of 3-D printing allowing low-cost production of parts used by fusion machines and numerous designs for testing.

Andrew Sowder, senior technical executive at EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, said the announcement is a “big deal” because scientists have tried for decades to draw out more energy in research than is put in. “For the first time, it really shows that a reaction can produce more power than it consumes,” he said.

“Maybe it’s anticipated, but it’s always like many things: a surprise when it actually happens,” he said in an interview Monday.

Sowder cautioned that the advance in fusion research will not lead to tangible gains in energy production for years to come.

”I would say this would be kind of like getting the first man in orbit,” he said. “You’re not to the moon yet, but you’ve shown you can get the person in space and they survived and they came back alive. This is kind of a first step.”

The real work now begins to “turn it into something that can produce economic, practical electricity for the grid and possibly other uses,” Sowder said. ”The hard part is building a machine to make something reliably and cost-effective, something that’s competitive with other sources.

“It has to be cost-competitive to make it to market,” Sowder said.”The beauty of fusion is it checks a lot of boxes,” Sowder said. “It produces energy when you want it to, it’s a small package, no carbon. It’s scaleable.

”This becomes an important tool in the toolbox for energy as well as for climate concerns. The more tools you have the better,” he said.




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Is this a Qtotal or Qplasma breakthrough? Can't find any statement on this.

Some of the diagnostic equipment used to evaluate the results were damaged but they say they have repeated the process more than once. I'm not sure they will say what the results really are until they can capture all the data.. Who knows at this point. I am curious on this being a path to a power source I am just cautious knowing how this could turn out and who will be in control of it at the end of the day. I hope they publish all their findings and procedures to allow other facilities to attempt to replicate it. Lord knows we don't need another Fleischmann and Pons experiment..

So this could be in our future?

Yep - then after that, you need to capture this thermal energy and convert it into a useful form. After 70 years we still can't do that economically with fission compared to other generation options.