Is the "Fusion Wait" Finally Over"

I

imp

Senior Member
This thing has been under construction for 19 years! Interesting article. I don't think it will work (spoil-sport!). imp

"In Germany, a team of researchers are preparing to switch on the largest nuclear fusion plant in the world. Hosted at the Max Planck Institute, the stellarator, also known as Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), is awaiting regulatory approval for a launch later this month, reports Science. When it goes online, W7-X will best the Large Helical Device (LHD) in Toki, Japan, which began operating in 1998 and is now the largest working stellarator. "

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/19-years-construction-world-largest-235253100.html

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When they start it up it's going to create a black hole into which will be sucked a major portion of the country before they are able to switch it off.
 

Shalimar said:
Hmm. For those of us who are scientifically challenged, what is the import of this?
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Harnessing of the Hydrogen Bomb reaction, taking the enormous amount of energy contained in a bit of hydrogen (water, basically), and extending the bomb's "blast" out to require perhaps a year, or more, to reach completion.

In other words, stretching the incredible amount of energy produced by a Hydrogen Bomb explosion out so that it lasts a year, or more. The implications are staggering, since unlimited amounts of energy are available as water. The huge plus is that the "fusion reaction", as compared to "fission reaction", which decimated Hiroshima, and powers all the nuclear electrical power plants, produces no, or negligible, atomic "waste". Fusion involves the combining of atoms, rather than splitting (fission). Thus, the combining of two "Heavy Hydrogen" atoms, called Deuterium atoms, forms the harmless gas Helium, and at the same time releases enormous amounts of energy in the form of heat and electromagnetic energy. That output of energy would be used to generate electricity, just as today's "Nuke" plants do. imp
 
SifuPhil said:
When they start it up it's going to create a black hole into which will be sucked a major portion of the country before they are able to switch it off.
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Ha! More likely, they will switch it on, and part of Germany will go dark, without electrical power! :D

imp
 
imp said:
Ha! More likely, they will switch it on, and part of Germany will go dark, without electrical power! :D

imp
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LOL - either way our German friends are in deep doo-doo ...

Seriously it's nice to see this technology finally being tried - we heard of it in school, but only as one of those flying-car type stories of the future.
 
So what is the purpose of trying this? IS it clean? Does it not produce the nasty nuclear waste that fission plants do? Is that the benefit?
 
I was Project Administrator for General Dynamics Energy Systems for all procurement. Here is a pic of most of our engineering and factory crew for one of our projects, the Elmo Bumpy Torus which we built for the LL National Lab in Livermore Calif.

Scan0001.jpgWe had many Fusion projects at the time. This photo was 2/1982
 
QuickSilver said:
So what is the purpose of trying this? IS it clean? Does it not produce the nasty nuclear waste that fission plants do? Is that the benefit?
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QS, fusion (of hydrogen gas nuclei, basically), creates Helium gas, harmless, and a vast amount of energy in the form of radiation, mostly heat, the rest EM, or Electromagnetic Radiation. No dangerous waste products to store for centuries.

Only problem is, it takes enormously high temperatures to cause the fusion to occur. So far, the only way known to obtain those temperatures has been to explode a regular nuclear bomb (atomic bomb) within the hydrogen, which then causes the hydrogen to fuse and the result is a Hydrogen Bomb. Basically, they want to slow down the fusion reaction so that it's heat output is controllable, to produce electric power.

Been trying to do it for decades, without much success. imp
 
SifuPhil said:
Imp, a question, if you don't mind ... how do you know so much about this? That's an impressive level of knowledge there, fella ...
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Phil, it seems I always had some kind of inner "need to know", and understand. The advisors in high school stuck me in Physics for a year, Sophomore, I did not excel, but understood enough to ask the teacher, a young guy new out of college, how could the text book claim X-Rays may be bent and diffracted by lenses, just like visible light, if X-Rays passed through solid matter largely unaffected. He tried to wiggle out of it, could not answer definitively. That incident stands out in my mind as one of early ones in which I pried into just about everything, looking for answers.

But thanks for the compliment. Not having had kids of my own to pass it all along to, I seem happy with explaining stuff, just to get it out of my system. Hope I am not coming on like some braggart, in person I am actually very shy. Ask my wife........imp
 
No, not a braggart at all - as I've often said, if it's true it isn't bragging.

Still ... impressive, from one geek to another. ;)
 

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