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Possibly the most important science breakthrough happened 2 days ago

I got an idea! What if, now bear with me. What if we used LNG to power a small engine and that engine rotated the axial of a generator that produced electrical power to an electric motor turning the wheels of a vehicle? Novel idea, ain't it? 😀
 
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RampantAndroid said:
Maybe read the article. It explicitly calls this out, and is on a slightly different topic.
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Seriously. The tokamaks rely on the magnets in the donut layout - however, the magnets on the inside are closer, and the magnetic field is stronger on the inside curve as a result.

They have to use external power to compensate for this, making them a riskier proposition. This stellarator design twists the entire thing, then twists the magnets. This eliminates that obstacle and once it is up and running, should be more stable, in that respect.

Of course, adequate cooling (helium), precise tolerances, and the stresses of hot hot heat will still be challenging. The twist makes it not a nice smooth sail for the particles inside as well - will the magnets be able to successfully contain everything? There won't be "more power! More power!" to get it under control if not.

And finally, this is simply a medium size prototype reactor, not built to be a commercial powerhouse lighting half the globe...

This is pretty exciting stuff. Hopefully they have the warp drives, energy shields, transporters, Holonet, turbolasers, and a lightsabre recharge station in my quarters on the Star Destroyer Enterprise by the time they have the reactors all worked out...
 
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Very cool breakthrough idea.
Looks like it makes the reactors safer in theory.

it may prove to be a significant step forward towards fusion power but the article doesn't imply that it is functional. It also sounds like it's still going to be consuming more power than it produces.

W7-X isn't live yet. The team is waiting on German approval to activate the reactor, which could start running in November. If it works as promised, though, it could do a lot to advance fusion energy. It would prove that stellarators are better than tokamaks for commercial-grade power plants, where you want to eliminate any significant chance of an accident. There's still the not-so-small matter of getting fusion reactors to produce more energy than they consume, but safety might not be a major issue from here on out.
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sdifox said:
They can once the technical challenges are worked out. Fusion is real, cold fusion, not so much.
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True...and once the technical challenges are worked out, fossil fuels will be completely non-polluting. Technical challenges ruin everything don't they?

-KeithP
 
KeithP said:
True...and once the technical challenges are worked out, fossil fuels will be completely non-polluting. Technical challenges ruin everything don't they?

-KeithP
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lulz. Most of the emission issues can be mitigated, problem is cost. No one is willing to foot it.
 
sdifox said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion
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Here's one of my (least) favorite fusion timelines.

fusion_funding.jpg


"Here's the minimum level where we probably won't ever end up with a practical fusion reactor."

"Hmm.....interesting. But do you think we could go.....cheaper than that?"





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