this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
264 points (98.9% liked)

World News

32324 readers
654 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In fusion reactors there is a lot of talk about the temperatures they reach and the time it manages to work, but all this corresponds more to propaganda publications. The real problem is achieving net energy production and at this point they are not much further ahead than the fusion reactor built by a boy in a garage a few years ago. Achieving nuclear fusion is not that complicated, it is complicated to do it by extracting more energy than invested and this is still a minimum of 10 years away.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The main parameter that determines if a fusion reactor generates net power is called its triple product, equal to the product of the plasma density, temperature, and confinement time. So setting records of time spent at operating temperatures is making important progress towards net power production.