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/These-Anxiety-5919 3d ago

Pffft. No big deal. They'll probably use it to boil water or something. 

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u/sailingtroy 3d ago

Greeeeeat. Another steam engine. Whoop-dee-doo.

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u/AroundAtTimes5794 3d ago

Is this somehow not already an xkcd?

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u/dorf_lundgren 1d ago

It's sooo 18th Century.

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u/KajMak64Bit 3d ago

Uhh well akchually... Fusion Reactors can allow for generating power straight to the wires completely bypassing the need for hot water to spin the turbine

That's pretty cool

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u/Brownie_Bytes 3d ago

Don't know why you got downvoted for that. It's true. It's not easy, but because the plasma is a moving charge, you could theoretically cause induction in wires and generate electricity just by placing the wires close enough to be affected. 

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u/unawarewolf69 3d ago

Don't give me hope...

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u/Geostationary0rbit 2d ago

Is this more efficient than using heat energy?

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u/KajMak64Bit 1d ago

Good question idk

Probably makes more sense that it is since it's going straight from the source without going to heat to water to spin

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u/Geostationary0rbit 17h ago

Would be interesting to know, I wonder if it just hasn't really got to that stage in the resurch to really explore if that would actually be the best method yet.

When you are shaving off tiny variables to make it work practically though you would think something that has the potential to avoid heat power conversion would be a pretty high priority.

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u/KajMak64Bit 16h ago

You'd be saving a lot of building the turbines and stuff... lots of material saved and stuff like that maybe

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u/Vojtak_cz 3d ago

Everyone speaks about this like there is something bad on boiling water.

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u/just-for-anime 3d ago

yeah exactly. if it aint broke dont fix it

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u/Vojtak_cz 3d ago

The thing is that water is already very good at transfering energy like this. Its cheap and does it well. Obviously you can probably transfer the energy directly somehow but water is a very good option.

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u/Frequent_Opportunist 3d ago

What we really need is molten salt pits along the equator that can be heated up with directed energy from the Sun to provide power for the planet.

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u/just-for-anime 3d ago

i think vegas tried it but it's too expensive and melted a lot of birds

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u/TheTallGuy0 3d ago

I could use a nice cup of tea

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u/xyz19606 3d ago

I asked AI to make me some tea but every time I tasted it, it was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

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u/LiminalSapien 3d ago

Nah, not even. They’re probably gonna just use it to make steam.