"A viable nuclear fusion reactor — one that spits out more energy than it consumes — could be here as soon as 2025.
That's the takeaway of seven new studies, published Sept. 29 in the Journal of Plasma Physics.
If a fusion reactor reaches that milestone, it could pave the way for massive generation of clean energy.
During fusion, atomic nuclei are forced together to form heavier atoms. When the mass of the resulting atoms is less than the mass of the atoms that went into their creation, the excess mass is converted to energy, liberating an extraordinary amount of light and heat. Fusion powers the sun and stars, as the mighty gravity at their hearts fuse hydrogen to create helium."
"The heat from a fusion reactor would generate steam. This steam would then drive a turbine and electrical generator, the same way most electricity is produced nowadays.
"Fusion power plants could be one-to-one replacements for fossil fuel plants, and you wouldn't have to restructure electrical grids for them," Greenwald said. In contrast, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind "are not accommodated well by the current design of electric grids."
"The researchers ultimately hope SPARC-inspired fusion power plants would generate between 250 to 1,000 megawatts of electricity. "In the current power market of the United States, power plants typically generate between 100 to 500 megawatts," Greenwald said.
SPARC would only produce heat, not electricity. Once researchers have built and tested SPARC, they plan to construct the ARC (Affordable Robust Compact) reactor, which would generate electricity from that heat by 2035.
"That's very ambitious, but that's the target we're working toward," Greenwald said. "I think it's really plausible."" Livescience
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Great! This will come along just at the right time for the Biden regime of Demopols and Marxists to take full credit for it. pl
https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor-sparc-2025.html
Re who gets credit..it can’r come on line soon enough. Reality check, even on a good day, T & B with be in the ground looking up before NFR’s will be spitting kws our way.
Joe Sixpack wants to know: So how much is my damn electric bill going to go up to pay for this?
Mike69
A lot I hope, just for you.
Will the Climate AlarMarxists actually come around to a favorable stance on nuclear power in order to embrace this development? I have my doubts. Wind and solar (non)powered rolling blackouts seem to be part of their vision for a utopian future.
AK,
The Green New Deal is neutral on nuclear power. While some supporters want to ban it all, AOC has left the door open for use of current nuclear power plants and possibly future plants. This openness to nuclear power is the reason Tulsi Gabbard did not sign on the GND as a cosponsor. She wants nothing to do with anything nuclear. Fusion is a whole other thing. The AOC crowd would clearly be open to it and may even welcome it as a renewable green energy source. Whether those who share Tulsi’s strident anti-nuclear stance would make the distinction between fission and fusion is anybody’s guess.
The article says this fusion technology could be producing electricity by 2035, but that this is an ambitious prediction. A lot could happen between now and then. There are some new small, prefab, modular reactors due to come on line very soon. They are safer and produce less radioactive waste than current technologies. I think they will be a great boon to the push towards green energy until fusion does become a reality.
What is the Law of Unintended Consequences going to do with unlimited and virtually free energy? As we slowly learn the downsides of virtually unlimited global electronic communications, unlimited AI applications … and now everything can be in someway energized …..to do what?
After seeing Better Living Through Modern Chemistry show its dark side (Big Pharm and street drugs) and the internet turn into the nefarious underground Silk Rod, 24/7 porn and worse, it is time to at least model out “unlimited clean energy”.
After the skies clear and the oceans recede stuff ….. what is the unintended dark side of such a wonderful sounding breakthrough? Will every household now be able to afford have a Hilary Clinton hologram to tell us to pick up the towels and brush our teeth? Or will the AI robot do this for us anyway. We won’ even need Hilary Clinton to scold us ever again?
Mike46,
If you live in California you won’t have to worry as the state implemented all those green energy standards long ago. Well you might worry about when the power will come back on, seems they have a bit of a base load generation capacity issue, along with transmission problems, but I’m sure decmocratic-socialist governor Newsome has a new cure for those ills.
Yet another pipedream; the containment vessel has to be replaced every few months due to damage of fast neutrons etc. This would be completely unacceptable to operating commercial electric power-generation.
This has been known since 1950s, but this White Elephant of Physics keeps on going, sucking money from other research area.
Breeder reactors or CANDU designs are more viable path to pursue, in my opinion.
All my life fusion power has been twenty years in the future. Unfortunately I’m now out of time and won’t be able to see how this ends – if it does. I would point out that there are now only ten and a half years to save the planet per those same new green dealers.
chris moffatt
Climate has been around for billions of years; it does not require cuddling by humans. The Climate Alarmists are after Power over other Human Beings.
AS long as I can remember, fusion power has been 10 years away, and attracting massive amounts of research money. The only way I will see viable fusion produced electrical power is by reading fantasy novels.
Ah, don’t worry about it, you can always import one from them slithery Russhins. Yepper, they’ve had them puppies for a while now (2018), and I hear they’re building one for Turkey. It could be all propaganda since how can a nation that’s basically a gas station with nukes possibly build something that actually works in that realm, given Chernobyl? Maybe they learned something from that disaster, or not? However, they have built their first fusion reactor in 2018. Not only that, it is a fusion-fission reactor. Ours will be done by 2025. Would that 5 years translate into Boeing F-35 years, a timeframe as yet established in the world of certainty given that the piece of Shiite is as yet completed for its’ finished form, as many military sites proclaim. If you perceive a hint or two of sarcasm in my screed All Ya’ll aint mistaken. Here’s the link.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsrussia-develops-a-fission-fusion-hybrid-reactor-6168535
I am not an optimist. Scientists today have more tools and finances at their disposal then ever before in history. Also, there are more scientist of various kind than ever. However, in physics for example, there has not been a significant breakthrough in a very long time.
According to this article physics is not the only scientific discipline that faces this problem.
https://iai.tv/articles/why-physics-has-made-no-progress-in-50-years-auid-1292
It WILL happen. Those that say its always 20 years away forget that Fusion has always had minimal funding, enough to keep a program afloat, not enough to make to make the necessary engineering and scientific breakthroughs. Of course, throwing money at the problem only works if you have the will and intention to muster the nation to support an Apollo Project type effort. It appears now that private companies will get us there. Not ideal, but I’ll take it. Because Fusion will usher in a new paradigm of clean power, skyrocketing productivity and the end of scarcity. It will, or at least make possible, the entire human race having higher living standards than currently exist (except for a few billionaires). The end of Malthusianism for good. That is a political question, not one of science.