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Comment by legohead | Hacker News Reader

Assuming we can run an actual fusion reactor consistently, how is the power taken out? I've seen lots of comments about water/steam, but we're talking 100M°C degrees here, that's insane! Do we bury this thing in the ocean?

I'm being silly, but I'm genuinely curious if there are any plans, even speculative ones, on how to do this.

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I haven't actually read the announcement, but I assume the tremendous temperature is in a tremendously small quantity of plasma. Basically, it's a few extremely fast nuclei.

You warm up a piece of metal and pour water on it. The water keeps it cool and makes steam.

Well, when it's that much heat, you're going to need a lot of water.

Also, when dealing with that much high energy radiation, your metal has a tendency to wondrously become another metal, with all the problems that comes with.

> Well, when it's that much heat, you're going to need a lot of water.

we want a lot of water! That's a lot of energy!

> Also, when dealing with that much high energy radiation, your metal has a tendency to wondrously become another metal, with all the problems that comes with.

That's kinda problem with anything fusion or fission, wherever neutrons hit things get weird. Probably much worse for fusion tho.

It is moot: none will be built, because it would cost far, far more than other clean power sources already being built out.

By the time this could be made to work, nobody will want it at any price.

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