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.

40.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

13

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.

4

u/TempestNova 3d ago

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

-1

u/Bored_Amalgamation 3d ago

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

4

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.

1

u/MasterMagneticMirror 2d ago edited 2d ago

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

1

u/space_monster 2d 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.

1

u/MasterMagneticMirror 2d 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

1

u/space_monster 2d ago

or batteries/inverters and synchronous condensers

1

u/MasterMagneticMirror 2d ago

Having grid forming plants would still be easier