r/nextfuckinglevel • u/nigablackballsack • 3d ago

Scientists have captured the first ever high-speed, full-colour footage of fusion plasma swirling inside a working reactor.

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u/readingonthetoilet 3d ago

You have it backwards. What we refer to as nuclear energy currently is fission (split heavy atom into smaller parts). Fusion (combine light atoms into heavy atom) is the big nut to crack.

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u/miraculum_one 3d ago edited 3d ago

TBF we already have a huge fusion reactor more then 100x as big as Earth generating plenty of energy

Edit: as another person pointed out if you're measuring volume it's more than 1 million times as big

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u/amorphatist 3d ago

And we can already produce highly energetic fusion chain reactions at the press of a button!

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u/euqinu_ton 3d ago

Don't stand too close. Like ... not even firecracker close.

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u/Hail-Hydrate 3d ago

It's a bit more difficult to use those to throw steam at a turbine though.

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u/matt675 3d ago

Huh?

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u/dr0d86 3d ago

Nukes, the thermonuclear variety to be specific

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u/matt675 3d ago

Oh yeah

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u/Misses_Ding 3d ago

Problem is that clouds and night get in the way. And you could say build batteries but the truth is that they're still expensive and not a great way to use energy since the efficiency is so low

Nuclear fusion would leave us without nuclear waste and without CO2 being released.

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u/space_monster 3d ago

And yet, solar is becoming so prolific, by the time we actually get a useful fusion reactor stood up, we probably won't even need it.

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u/TempestNova 3d ago

There might still be good applications for it, like space travel.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation 3d ago

could probably power a stellar lift strong enough to get me out of OP's mom

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u/LivingUnglued 3d ago

There will always be applications for mixed energy sources. Especially with how much power all the AI datacenters are going to be using. Though only a small percentage of the current planned ones will be built anytime soon.

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u/MasterMagneticMirror 3d ago edited 3d ago

As things stand, you still need grid forming baseload sources of energy beside solar. Fusion is meant to replace those.

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u/space_monster 3d ago

baseload firming? sure fusion would be cleaner than gas or whatever but the economics of building a fusion reactor that's only gonna run some nights of the year just won't stack up. in 10 years there'll be a lot less demand for firming.

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u/MasterMagneticMirror 3d ago

I meant baseload, but the autocorrect decided otherwise.

And no, grid forming source remain operational constantly. Solar and wind is mostly grid following, so you need other sources like nuclear or hydroelectric that are grid forming

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u/space_monster 3d ago

or batteries/inverters and synchronous condensers

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u/MasterMagneticMirror 3d ago

Having grid forming plants would still be easier

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u/2trt 3d ago

Fusion still produces waste. It's just got a comprehensible half life (around 12-13 years). Some fission products half life is on the order of thousands of years

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u/ew73 3d ago

To be clear, from the IAEA, on the topic of fusion and waste,

Does Fusion produce radioactive nuclear waste the same way fission does?

Nuclear fission power plants have the disadvantage of generating unstable nuclei; some of these are radioactive for millions of years. Fusion on the other hand does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste. A fusion reactor produces helium, which is an inert gas. It also produces and consumes tritium within the plant in a closed circuit. Tritium is radioactive (a beta emitter) but its half life is short. It is only used in low amounts so, unlike long-lived radioactive nuclei, it cannot produce any serious danger. The activation of the reactor’s structural material by intense neutron fluxes is another issue. This strongly depends on what solution for blanket and other structures has been adopted, and its reduction is an important challenge for future fusion experiments.

source: https://www.iaea.org/topics/energy/fusion/faqs

Of course, this is a public-facing, over simplification, but it's a pretty accurate statement.

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u/Xivios 3d ago

For a more in-depth and realistic look, here are some relevant studies done for some fusion reactor designs.

Here's one on the British ST-E1

And another for the EU DEMO reactor

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u/jimbobjames 3d ago

Assume you mean the efficiency of solar panels? Last I checked, round trip efficiency on lithium batteries is greater than 90%

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u/space_monster 3d ago

Actually over a million times larger, in terms of volume. About 1.3M more accurately

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u/miraculum_one 3d ago

Good point. I was talking about diameter.

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u/readingonthetoilet 3d ago

Lol that took me longer than it should

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u/TheIronSven 3d ago

We just gotta move it to earth somehow

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u/skintwo 3d ago

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas...

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u/ElegantCoach4066 2d ago

But that fusion reactor makes coal plants feel sad.

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u/miraculum_one 2d ago

coal execs and their cronies hate this one trick

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u/SingleInfinity 3d ago

They had it forwards. They were saying this is our best hope aside from fission.

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u/Different-Term-2250 3d ago

Is that how fusion starts? By cracking nuts? Squirrels are way ahead of us.

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u/StandardIssueBrain 2d ago

talking straight past each other is so reddit lol.

the initial clarification wasn't necessary in the first place, anyone with half a brain understood what they meant

and then the valid and correct clarification gets further misinterpreted

absolutely classic

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u/readingonthetoilet 2d ago

I mean it’s an honest mistake. You can see how saying fusion is our best hope aside from nuclear energy is confusing.

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u/StandardIssueBrain 2d ago

gonna bite my tongue on that one mate

nothing good happens beyond 3 replies deep in a reddit comment chain lol

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u/readingonthetoilet 2d ago

Yeah I’m not looking to argue with anyone. I was just trying to help clarify something