China switched on its nuclear fusion device

Author: FLRW

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This week, China switched on a nuclear fusion reactor. The “artificial sun” is known as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (or EAST for short). After turning it on, China noticed record high levels for sustained temperatures. According to China’s state media, the EAST reactor ran five times hotter than the real Sun for over 17 minutes.
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Chinese didn’t learn anything from Doc Oc smh
Reece101
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I think big fusion reactor tests should be streamed like rocket launches. Might not look as cool though.

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I wouldn't trust China state media. The truth is not what they are after. 
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@FLRW
Let's hope that they know how to switch it off.
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@zedvictor4

Yes, it only ran for 17 minutes. The first viable fusion reactor could be completed in the United States as soon as 2025, and a British company hopes to be commercially generating electricity from fusion by 2030.
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@FLRW
I seem to remember that the French were building one too.

As long as they all have the off button sorted, we should be OK.

Not that I understand the science.

Would  it be OK, to just throw a load of concrete over an out of control fusion reaction, and then forget about it?
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@zedvictor4

Fusion reactors can't  get out of control. if something fails the reactor gets shut down. The reactor generates power by applying powerful magnetic fields to hydrogen to compress it until it creates a plasma that can reach temperatures of more than 150 million degrees Celsius. 
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@FLRW
That's good then.

Had a quick read, and would seem to be the answer to all human power supply issues.

Let's hope that it's really that simple.


The more interesting philosophical question for me, is why has it become necessary for a species to be dependant upon electrical energy?

A different forum perhaps.


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@zedvictor4
The more interesting philosophical question for me, is why has it become necessary for a species to be dependant upon electrical energy?

A different forum perhaps.
In the age of information pneumatic tubes only get you so far. 
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@Reece101
Nice shout.

Yep, the evolution of matter.

Why?

And I regard us as a part of the process.

Not apart from the process.
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@zedvictor4
@Reece101
The more interesting philosophical question for me, is why has it become necessary for a species to be dependant upon electrical energy?
All species are dependant upon electrical energy.
Your heart needs electrical energy.
Your heart muscle is made of tiny cells. Your heart's electrical system controls the timing of your heartbeat by sending an electrical signal through these cells.
Two different types of cells in your heart enable the electrical signal to control your heartbeat:
  • Conducting cells carry your heart's electrical signal.
  • Muscle cells enable your heart's chambers to contract, an action triggered by your heart's electrical signal.

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@FLRW
If zed said organism instead of species I would have given roughly the same answer. Though it doesn’t answer why. 
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@FLRW
For sure.

Life and the initiation of,

Is amazing.

Energy is GOD,

GOD is energy.

The processes.

Of material evolution,

Can be understood,

But the purpose,

Cannot understood.


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Depending on how truthful Chinese State Media is being, this could be ground breaking. If it is, every other world power must develop their own fusion generator soon. I can’t trust China with anything personally.
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@Mharman
There’s already an international race. There’s been a lot of news coverage within the last couple of years from what I’ve seen.
The technology is Still along way out though.

Plus fusion reactors can’t be weaponised past the extent of being used for a power source, from what I understand.
Think of nuclear reactors in submarines and carriers without the minute chance of meltdown, with more power. 
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@Reece101
Still, there is a lot of economic advancement that can be made from this and I prefer the US stays the top economy over China.

But yeah the technology is pretty cool.
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@Mharman
It will benefit everyone. Renewable energy that uses teaspoon amounts of seawater. 

FLRW
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 Dec. 21, 2021
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff in Cambridge, is using a whopping $1.8 billion it raised in recent months from investors such as Bill Gates, Google, and a host of private equity firms to build a prototype of a specially designed fusion reactor on a former Superfund site in Devens. A host of excavators, backhoes, and other heavy machinery are clearing land there and laying concrete foundations on 47 acres of newly acquired land. "It may sound like science fiction, but the science of fusion is real, and the recent scientific advancements are game-changing," said Dennis Whyte, director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and cofounder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. "These advancements aren't incremental; they are quantum leap improvements. . . . We're in a new era of actually delivering real energy systems...."
TheUnderdog
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This is what China is doing.  Meanwhile, the American military is posting woke ads and we have people in the country that don't believe Biden is the president.  The American dream is dead.

9 days later

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Produced enough energy to power New York City for 0.00016 seconds.

Still better than any fusion tests to date though, big step in the right direction.

19 days later

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@TheUnderdog
You also have people who thought that Trump was cool.

Americans still dream.
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@zedvictor4
.." Americans still dream. "...
All people have their dreams, hopes, wishes, but how many are willing to sacrifice their standard of living to help others in need?

Many if not most Ukrainians dying { scacrifice } for their culture-nation and not accept Putin rule.

USA has many who are not ready to sacrifice much  ---tho economy is going to take a hit because sanctions on Putin---  and it is similar to WW2, where USA --not Roosevelt--- were reluctant to fight the Nazi's and it took Perl Harbour to spur USA citizens to sacirifice their lives to fight facism-totalitarianism etc.

If humanity makes it to 2050 or beyond where nuclear fusion --wind-solar hydro etc--- is beginning to supply energy needs to 8 billion plus people on Earth, humans will need to sacrifice more of their standard of living, to protect the ecological systems that sustains us all.

Recently saw a news blurb of some coral reefs in Carribean{?} that were not ye being harmed by pollution or rising ocean temperatures, and the scientists are investigating why these coral reefs are doing well when others have been sufferreing.






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@ebuc
I read that article.

461 days later

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@FLRW
..."Challenges still remain

The two announcements came as the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released areport concluding fusion technology faces many challenges before it can produce commercial electricity.

......"Several challenges must be overcome to achieve commercial fusion, and stakeholders' projections of this timeline range from 10 years to several decades," GAO said. "One key scientific challenge is in the physics of plasmas, the state of matter needed for fusion."

...Researchers have made advancements in understanding the behaviour of burning plasmas but lack sufficient experimental data to validate their simulations, the report says. One key engineering challenge is the development of materials that can withstand fusion conditions for decades, such as extreme heat and neutron damage, and no facility exists where materials can be fully tested. "More generally, the task of extracting energy from fusion to provide an economical source of electric power presents several complex systems engineering problems that have yet to be solved."...

Humanity meanwhile we choose nuclear.  Desipite its seemingly low record of actual deaths or genetic cancers, the issues with it still remain of concern.  How great of concern? I just watched Netflix Fushima based true events bio-doc of the event as it occurred from ground level and japans ability to respond or lack thereof in timely manner.




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@ebuc

The Energy Department's Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program hopes to help develop pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
ebuc
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I learned new word today ' ergotropy' tho grasping it clearly will prove diffcult and not really for us amateurs  :--O--:

..." New tool to guide efficient energy extraction from quantum sources"..

...." The quantum ergotropy quantifies the maximal amount of work that can beextracted from a quantum state without changing its entropy.

..Given that theergotropy can be expressed as the difference of quantum and classical relativeentropies of the quantum state with respect to the thermal state, we define theclassical ergotropy, which quantifies how much work can be extracted fromdistributions that are inhomogeneous on the energy surfaces.

...A unified approachto treat both quantum as well as classical scenarios is provided by geometricquantum mechanics, for which we define the geometric relative entropy. Theanalysis is concluded with an application of the conceptual insight toconditional thermal states, and the correspondingly tightened maximum worktheorem."....

.."We prove that the maximum gain in the extracted work is related to the existence of quantum correlations between the two parts, quantified by either quantum discord or, for pure states, entanglement."...


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@FLRW
The Energy Department's Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program hopes to help develop pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
Wait and see game.  Proof is in the pudding ;--D