Posted on 12/11/2022 8:18:31 PM PST by zeestephen
The Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday that scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain...It comes as the Biden administration is prioritizing fusion energy research in its climate and energy agenda.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
In the decades scientists have been experimenting with fusion reactions, they had not until now been able to create one that produces more energy than it consumes. … …Here we go again. Conservation of energy be damned; fusion is magic because we say so.
Code for need more funding....
It’ not impossible and it’s not a scam, just technologically not feasible at this point in history.
And I have heard and read just about every 4 to 6 months “BREAKTHROUGH, SPECIAL REPORT, ENERGY NEWS FLASH”, it’s all just hype and crap until they can get a sustained reaction, ONE MICROSECOND just doesn’t count!
We have all been hearing this for the last 20 years.
Woohoo!
Now the net gain has to be enough to account for losses in generation (turbines and suchlike) and transmission (transformers to step the voltage up and down).
How conveniently unbelievable from this regime full of liars.
Great! It'll become practical in only 20 years, too!
Does it run on turkey guts?
Producing it isn’t the problem. Re-producing it is.
Now, after about a century of trying, we’re able to ignite fusion for a fraction of a second and get more energy out than was put in - sort of. that’s only counting the actual energy put into the lasers, not all of the energy to power the laboratory that did it. And all this was done to a tiny thimble of gold, the size and shape of a dime that contained a few specialty molecules of hydrogen. It’s a great start, but there’s a long way to go.
Keep in mind that this is just the effort to START a fusion reaction. The biggest problem with fission reactions back in the 1940s was to STOP them. Remember the guys with axes standing over ropes holding up boron control rods in the first fission reactors who’s job it was to quickly cut the ropes if the reaction ‘got away’. That’s what a nuclear bomb is: a fission reaction that ‘gets away’.
It really isn't perpetual motion. The energy comes from the mass difference in turning hydrogen into helium. The helium molecules weigh slightly less than the hydrogen that they came from. The energy is from Einstein's E=mC^2 equation. E is the energy, m is this change in mass of the molecules, C^2 is the speed of light squared (that's a big number!).
There is no “more” energy; that implies creation of energy. The only thing you can say is that more energy was released than was used to incite the reaction.
Also, there are no helium molecules; it exists in a monatomic state, unlike the hydrogen molecule.
How does your link legally avoid the WaPo pay wall?
The only reason I post MSN.com re-prints from major news sources is because MSN.com is legal, and it never has a paywall.
It’s an archived version.
Wonder what safety sign will be at the plant gate.
Only Homer Simpson’s need apply.
Really? Located in Vietnam?
Get serious, upchuck.
Your linked website steals copyrighted articles, posts them on a Vietnam website, runs English language ads, and gives the author and the publisher ZERO money.
You are urging FR readers to commit theft. It is likely that Free Republic itself could be sued for copyright violations.
Please ask the Administrator to remove your Vietnam link.
Thanks.
It will be in production in about fifteen years! (so they say)
This sounds hopeful, but I hope it is not just a canard intended to soften opposition to the war on energy. I will support transitioning from petroleum when they build a full scale commercial fusion power plant, and not before.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.