Finally, a fusion reaction has generated more energy than absorbed by the fuel | Hacker News Reader

Finally, a fusion reaction has generated more energy than absorbed by the fuel

sciencealert.com

49 pointsthedday8 comments

Sounds like the remaining problems are with the lasers (energy lost converting to x-rays) and energy lost heating up the apparatus, i.e. not things directly related to the fundamental goal which is "to achieve ignition – a point at which the energy generated by the fusion process exceeds the total energy input."

Basically, the amount of energy that actually contributes to the fusion process is now less than the energy produced by the fusion process. That's a pretty big milestone:

> Although there's still some way to go, the result represents a significant improvement on previous yields: eight times greater than experiments conducted just a few months prior, and 25 times greater than experiments conducted in 2018. It's a huge achievement.

Pretty cool stuff.

I call BS.

Why?

You should see this video for an explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

if this is true, HOW is this not being played on every news network right now?

"The goal is to achieve ignition – a point at which the energy generated by the fusion process exceeds the total energy input.

The experiment, conducted on 8 August, fell just short of that mark"

Perhaps because it generated less energy (1.3 MJ) than was directed at it (1.9 MJ). The team calculated that the fuel capsule generated more energy than it absorbed, but the overall reactor did not generate net energy.

Maybe because that leaves it still three or more orders of magnitude away from usefulness, about like a car that maxes out at 300 ft/hr or a rooftop solar panel that generates 0.3 watts at noon.

Fusion that releases its energy by emitting hot neutrons will never, ever produce commercially viable power, no matter how big its Q gets.

Using currently proposed models, this might be true. The facilities and reaction apparatus don't scale well, so power generation plants would have to be massive, and using tempermental, super high precision, enormously complex equipment means huge infrastructure, operation, and maintenance costs.

As materials, theory, and science in general improve, designs will get better, and someone will crack the puzzle of scaling, but that's 10 to 30 years out, as always.

We might see a viable fusion engine for spacecraft before practical fusion power on earth.

I guarantee that, when that finally happens, it will not be hot-neutron fusion.

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