Oktay74tn
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Wendelstein 7-X Progress In Fusion Research
Oktay Yürük aka Oktay74tn, science and tech content
https://imgur.com/user/Oktay74tn
This is the schematic diagram of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), a stellerator-type fusion reactor in Greifswald, Germany. A new world record for the triple product in long plasma discharges of 43 seconds was achieved.
70 superconducting magnetic coils create a field of up to 3 teslas and confine the plasma. 90 frozen hydrogen pellets, each one millimeter in size, were injected over 43 seconds, while powerful microwaves heated the plasma. Coordination between heating with pre-programmed pulse rates and pellet injection was the key to achieve the new record.
This is an experimental visualization of the magnetic field lines in Wendelstein 7-X. The maximum plasma temperature of 30 million Kelvin is twice the sun's core temperature. The energy turnover, the product of injected heating power and plasma duration, was increased from 1.3 to 1.8 gigajoules. These results are a big step forward.
Wendelstein 7-X sets new performance records in fusion research
https://www.ipp.mpg.de/5532945/w7x
Hydrogen Pellets
https://www.ipp.mpg.de/1766042/pellets
Nuclear fusion record smashed as German scientists take 'a significant step forward' to near-limitless clean energy
Victoria Atkinson
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nuclear-fusion-record-smashed-german-135242858.html
Wikipedia articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellarator
Sub-Atomic World Series
CERN LHC Observes Conversion of Lead into Gold
https://imgur.com/gallery/cern-lhc-observes-conversion-of-lead-into-gold-cHvgEhm
Upper Neutrino Mass Limit: New Data From KATRIN
https://imgur.com/gallery/upper-neutrino-mass-limit-new-data-from-katrin-VF3KfiD
Element Carbon: Origin and Journey in the Milky Way
https://imgur.com/gallery/element-carbon-origin-journey-milky-way-HAwDF2J
Quantum Teleportation Success Via Internet
https://imgur.com/gallery/quantum-teleportation-success-via-internet-xOaZZSx
Quantum Entanglement Inside Protons - Mysteries Of The Subatomic World
https://imgur.com/gallery/quantum-entanglement-inside-protons-mysteries-of-subatomic-world-S2WGpiH
SpaceForGold
TONY STARK BUILT THIS… IN A CAVE… WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS
brazzy42
And this is Wendelstein, the mountain it's named after.
vagueluciditee
This is one of the best news I've read in many years, even if it doesn't mean the technology is ready.
dwarfinathonginacaskinthewaterwoooo
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1OGJrbHZjNXFiMXI5djFudGRxOWFldDVnbXpjaG9pdzNsenFlZDZzOSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/bKnEnd65zqxfq/200w.webp
HamFicus
Brave of them to make such a complicated device out of grey LEGO pieces
sgnight13
Ermahgerd plasmer
aerodynamit3
WhiskyBravo
so let's pretend for a moment that these things worked perfectly and didn't cost a zillion dollars. how does one extract energy from plasma? heat transfer? another crazy way to boil water to make steam?
Gracethehedgehog
we so need one of these reactors to work! world needs cheap energy
ClessAurion
Pshhh Pathetic. I can hold plasma longer on my microwave with some tinfoil!
edasm
You can hear the joy in his voice.
airbeat218
The outer vessel looks like it is made of Legos
Sallavar
The inner vessel looks like it was mangled in a wreck!
Gra55hopper
@squ1ddos I was sure this was one of your builds at first 😂
squ1ddos
Heh, what makes you say that?
Gra55hopper
From the thumbnail it looked like Lego at first and you're the only Lego builder I've seen that can seemingly create organic chaos from very structured plastic bricks! It was meant as a compliment 👍
squ1ddos
I can definitely see that, and I appreciate the compliment. :D I guess my work is starting to become that recognized that people see my "style" in other things? That makes me proud. <3
KZFDG
To quote the great Ian Dury: "There ain't half been some clever bastards"
derdax
Tesekürler! Your posts are always interesting.
tinyCabbage
Whys everyone so concerned about when it will be productionise, like theyve put money at the bookies. All that matters is, were making progress. This is limitless, cleaning energy, on demand, its worth whatever it costs.
Carl99
Because getting to the point of building out mass scale fusion would solve so many problems very quickly. You have to understand fusion power represents a level of sustainable production of near limitless, (limitless by our current standards), energy, and that enables so much.
anononanonanona
Because we've built ourselves a ticking time bomb and nobody who has the power to defuse it is willing to?
awildsforzemon
I 100% read that as wolfenstein, and was just happy they were making another game. This is still cool though.
Oktay74tn
That's so funny. It reminded me of Wolfenstein, too. :)
lazybuthappy
Beautiful piece of engineering. It would be sad if it ended like the Nord Stream 2. Really, if you work there and see a scuba diver walking in a restricted area, call security.
RooGryphon
Make sure you align your mag constrictor coils before engaging warp or you will get an unstable feild...hit up your local holodeck for advice
KittyKlimt6
Wtf is a tesla...and what is all this good for, how to use it, for what?
Oktay74tn
A Tesla is the unit of the magnetic flux density , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit) . For example, the strength of Earth's magnetic field is about 3 times 10 to the -5 Tesla.
KittyKlimt6
Oh how I wish I wouldn't have gender stereotypes come between me and my job choice. How words like these always sparked joy.
Thanks!
Oktay74tn
You are welcome :) .
dghughes
All to boil water to make electricity. I like Helion since their plan is to bypass water boilers and turbines.
Carl99
Water boilers and turbines are bloody efficient though. Thats the core problem.
DeepSpaceNetwork
But they aren't. Steam turbine efficiency is <50%. A large part of the energy just heats the environment.
Carl99
Yeah and compared to anything else we've managed to come up with thats incredible.
habslove
yes yes indubitably (i have no idea what this is)
UnlimitedTrickPony
as a German scientists: wonderful ... but production level operation is still decades away ... if we only had some kind of huge fusion reactor directly built into the sky where everybody could tap in with rather cheap technology ... that would be nice
AllMaktAtTengilVarBefriare
We barely see that thing beak over the horizon for half of the year here in the North, and when it does it's cloudy, give me the reactor please.
Nekola
I prefer renewables, but it's good to have diversity in our power generation. There are probably also situations where a reactor would make more sense.
JamesFaction
Diversity: wind and solar. The problem isn't scarcity of energy, it's the energy monopolies who profit from the status quo.
Oktay74tn
I love renewables, too. Renewable energy together with energy storage and a smart grid is the solution.
KarlRoyGabriel
On top of that a more heuristic and comprehensive understanding of mankind’s myriad relationships with our surrounding environment and resources and the full weight of the consequences of our frivolities. We waste so much time and energy pursuing our selfish little schemes…
Oktay74tn
Yes, I think the big step forward is how that they are able to control the reaction, not just the 43 seconds.
MrTenant2
Solar is great and all, but there's that pesky thing about how it's freely available to everyone. We just need to put a meter on the sun and industry will be all over it.
kirmes
TheWhiteBarry
This. The general public seems totally unaware of the energy abundance era that's already started now that solar is dirt cheap and battery costs continue to fall off a cliff. Nuclear was a nice stopgap but we're past that now.
MammaryExhibitNumberOne
Globalization allows cheaper prices for diffuse power sources. As soon as the availability of raw materials starts decreasing, this abundance will be over. Batteries should be used to power devices with no alternatives (think small EVs), not serve as regulators for a national grid.
Oktay74tn
I hope they will be able to make optical computer chips work. This would save a lot of energy.
hildr
No, definitively not, not all electricity sources are the same and can be used for the same purpose. Also why would we be past a good source of energy? Very few pollution, permanent production of energy, relatively cheap with a really small land footprint? Also your batteries are nothing compared to the production and the needs at a national level. As of today, we have really few solution to store electricity and you lose a good chunk of it doing so.
TheWhiteBarry
You're speaking like there isn't massive progress already being made on all fronts.
ShrokNil
Are we really? Because I highly doubt solar energy and batteries can hold everything together on its own. Just a gut feeling I welcome being wrong.
Waschbaerkoenig
The only thing holding us back is mainly a distribution issue.
TheWhiteBarry
Big time. https://www.rethinkx.com/disruption/in-depth/lcoe-the-great-stranding-of-assets
bricePlanetDiver
So, how's the grid-scale storage capacity? :3
TheWhiteBarry
Going extremely well. As opposed to your smug wrongness, that didn't go how you thought it would, did it?
GamiCross
I read that as Wolfenstein and got very confused why a video game was putting that much effort into something...
PaperinoVB
There was a book from the first '60s - I read it sometime in the '70s - on nuclear fusion that affirmed: "We're twenty years from commercial production of energy by fusion". I heard the same phrase every year for more than 50 years, like a song on repeat. I still hope, but don't really believe it anymore..
notsurewhattocallthis
Donut...
gayvillian
Is a stellarator different than a tokamak?
RicciFlow
Stellarators are essentially bendy tokamaks. The bendy-ness counteracts problems of particle drift inherent to a tokamak deign among other things.
SleazyBijou
You shouldn’t advise the gay villains! What havoc will be wrought?!
gayvillian
We will only use fusion for gay evil. Which is significantly less evil than straight evil.
gayvillian
Thanks!
RicciFlow
Gladly! :)
kahooki
...and they have a constant plasma not a pulsing one like the Tokamak.
I may be biased because the W7-X is located in my country but fuck I love that approach and hope it turns out to be the best solution.
RicciFlow
I would be really surprised if a larger Stellarator doesn't pull it off
Ratchet600
I studied magnetic confinement fusion and I enjoy this explanation.
RicciFlow
Thanks! I'm a mathematician who strongly enjoys channeling this kind of not-wrong explanations. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-02-24
ironymus
Other than a Tokamak, a Stellarator can uphold a plasma theoretically for unlimited time. The electricity impulse to induce the plasma's creation in a Tokamak doesn't need to be induced externally. The magnet coils themselves induce the energy to create the plasma.
BoblovesMac31415101
So another thirty years then ?
BarryTheCyborg
There's a company in Massachusetts building a tokomak reactor that is planning on generating energy within 10 years. Reactor should be done next year, followed by reactor testing before building the generator system in the early 2030s.
Okebel
More like shelved until big oil runs out.
forelle
Depends on our priorites. Wendelstein 7-x has a guesstimated annual budget of $65 M USD. The US Federal government spends roughly 40 times that just on Microsoft licenses.
RuBisCO1
Basically, the most important number is electricity in verse electricity out. A fusion reactor would need to produce >3 times heat energy out as verse electricity in to achieve greater than 1:1 electricity in verse electricity out if powering a steam turbine (~35% efficency). So when they say break even energy you need to ask if they mean electricity in verse electricity out or just energy in verse energy out without accounting for conversion inefficiency.
CrisprCAS
That's still not good enough. There's a series of break-evens, but only one matters: More energy out of the plasma than goes into it (q-plasma), more energy out of the running system than goes into it to keep it running, more energy out of the life of the plant than goes into its entire life... those don't matter. More money from selling the energy than goes into building and maintaining the plant with a sufficient profit margin to compete, that's the only break-even worth talking about.
Ronelyn
Power source of the future, and sadly may always be.
Elkarlo77
At least twenty years. Wendelstein 7-x is to small. But helped to developed a new Stellerator Design: https://www.ipp.mpg.de/5457187/SQulD_Stellarator Which would need newer Reactor. Wendelstein 7-x needed 10 years to build and 5 years to be operational. So thats 20 years to get the new Design running. Till then use Remotefusionpowerplants, i get mine installed in 3 weeks.
eetsumkaus
For a second I was really confused what Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices had to do with fusion, then I clicked the link.
RicciFlow
I got to see these results presented before the public announcement. IIRC they think they could have gone for even longer and hotter, but decided to play it safe. I've also seen the huge leaps and bounds researchers have made on all fronts of this problem. Computation and simulation, magnet manufacturing, theory for shape optimization and approximation techniques etc. I think we're a lot closer to this than thirty years. I also think it'll likely be a stellarator. Tad biased, though.
ionlyregisteredtosavelinks
So more like 50, got it.
ThatHurts
We all know what the results of hubris and pushing a demonstration past safety limits through obsession. We've all seen the documentary Spider-man 2.
RicciFlow
Fantastic reference. Thank you for that haha
Malak224
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlOGR5M3lpajU0Y21sMXljeWlvZzdkNm5laG05M200Ynp1Y2hkeDczNCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/10KIsXhwdoerHW/giphy.mp4
RickTheMarshallSelke
Also Star Trek Enterprise's A.G. Robinson.
TheWhiteBarry
kirmes
TheWhiteBarry
Because it's insanely expensive and provides zero benefit over the fusion reactor in the sky. Just put that money into solar and batteries, it would be far more effective.
kirmes
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Energy storage can get expensive as well, and not everyone gets enough sunlight. The spreadsheet jockeys have the numbers but I think the "basket" is going to vary from place to place.
TheWhiteBarry
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
TheWhiteBarry
Carl99
Completely unaffordable at full scale.
TheWhiteBarry
*sigh* educating you people is exhausting sometimes
TheWhiteBarry
Carl99
181$ per KW/h is still unworkable by at least a few orders of magnitude. Supplying 12 hours of US electricity usage would require over 2000 Trillion USD. thats the entire economic output of the USA for a 100 years just to afford the batteries for right now.
TheWhiteBarry
Cool number.
Carl99
You can lookup average US electricity usage online or is that too much for you?