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Cocodapuf

@ Cocodapuf @lemmy.world

Posts
2
Comments
2021
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • i'm not sure what the exact reason is why we aren't doing this already, but i suspect it has a lot to do with ease-of-use and price being significantly on the side of chemicals

    Well the reason we don't have nuclear thermal rockets boils down to budget cuts at NASA and environmental/safety concerns around nuclear. We made significant progress on two different nuclear rocket designs before they were scrapped for entirely political/budgetary reasons. And by budgetary reasons I don't mean that the program proved to be too expensive or difficult, I mean that NASA's annual budget was year after year and they simply had to drop some projects.

    That's not true for spaceships. for launch, chemicals are available and cheaper / fire up faster. for mid-flight, solar panels are available.

    Chemical propellants are great for launch, but the advantage of nuclear for deep space missions are really immense. The additional efficiency means you can make shorter trips, bring more supplies, and have more redundancy for equipment failures. It also provides the possibility of bringing the entire craft back home for future missions rather than simply expending it.

    And as a power source, solar is fine around earth. But for trips further out, like to Jupiter, well at that distance your panels would only get about 4% of what we get here around earth... That's just not going to cut it for crewed missions.

    Honestly, spacecraft are probably the absolute best use case for fusion power. They're one of the few contexts where the energy density is extremely important and the high cost is still worthwhile.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • We've done that. The ISS has been occupied for the last 25 years uninterrupted. The space station can go months between resupplies. In other words, we've shown that a crew can survive in a spacecraft without aid from earth for months. With some mission specific planning, I don't see why we couldn't manage a 6 month mission.

  • What Happens to a Star That Captures A Primordial Black Hole?

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  • Only the smallest ones.

    I believe there's an exponential relationship between size and rate of decay. So tiny black holes evaporate almost instantly, whereas anything as massive as a planet (still small for a black hole) would outlast all stars.

  • Nintendo Confirms EU‑Only Switch 2 Revision With User‑Replaceable Batteries

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  • Probably because of Mario and Zelda. Which is 100% legit.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • Power and propulsion aren't in the top 5 problems?

    Well enlighten me, what's more important that we haven't figured out?

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • That said, fusion (and fission as well) isn't really a great buffer because you don't really want to be switching it on and off. It's so expensive that it's only really economical to run it constantly 24/7. So while fusion could be an awesome and perfectly consistent base load, it doesn't solve the energy variability problems.

    Ultimately utilizing renewables just requires some amount of energy storage and/or quick to activate gas generators.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • Well, it's not really an "efficiency" number.

    For instance, we're definitely concerned with efficiency when burning gas, we want to get as much energy as we can out of it per unit of fuel. But with fusion, the fuel cost is negligible, so you can treat it as essential free and in infinite supply. And because maintaining the magnetic containment simply costs electricity, you basically just take the net excess power as the output rating of the plant.

    Probably the most useful way to compare these two technologies is by cost per MW. That said, early fusion reactors will not be in any way cheap. Working fusion may be around the corner, but it will in fact be a long time before fusion is really "a good choice" economically.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • Honestly, less. At least less for a working fusion reactor. Probably 10 - 20 before first commercial deployment.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • Well to be honest, I personally think that data centers are a huge waste of this emerging technology, but yeah, I suppose it's probably a perfect use case for fusion...

    My question, is who can miniaturize their technology sufficiently to put it in a spacecraft? When we get fusion reactors in space we'll be able to use electric propulsion to make vehicles with insane range. We could send humans to Jupiter in a matter of months and have plenty of propellant for a return trip in a perfectly reusable vehicle. We already have all the tech for this, all except a suitable power source.

  • CONTROL Resonant – Paranatural Manhattan Trailer

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  • How long until you're 18?

  • Arizona city installs new speed cameras, then sees 30,000 traffic violations in 2 months - that’s one every 3 minutes

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  • It's called a highway. Highways are fine, you just need to decide if you have a highway, a street, or a road. If you try to do it all you end up with a dangerous mess.

    And yeah, this is a situation that probably calls for 2 different throughways.

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • It's funny you should mention scaling, because fusion does not scale like that at all, it scales much better. If you can get a small reactor to work at all, a larger reactor designed with the same principles is significantly more efficient. With fusion, bigger is better.

    I do hear what you're saying though. Sometimes there are just simpler solutions. And I actually think you're right, in most use cases solar + batteries is a better solution than a fusion plant. That said, solar + batteries has only become truly economical within the last 5-10 years. At this point there's really nothing "Simple" about photovoltaic or battery technology, lifetimes of study have gone into them. And 25 years ago, solar was cute, it was pie in the sky. And you'd hear these same arguments "shouldn't we be focusing efforts on something we already know works?"

  • US firm validates 1.1-GW nuclear fusion plant design to deliver 400 MW electricity

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  • My bet has always been on Commonwealth Systems getting there first. But they aren't there yet... so time will tell.

    Helios also has a really novel reactor, it would be amazing to see that work. It's arguably a much more elegant design than a tokamak.

  • Meta putting up tents across the US to house AI servers, like ‘a scene out of the movie Mad Max’ — structures take three months to build and use jet engines for power

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  • I really love this.

  • Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss

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  • Lol wut?

    Cars may be better than horses but no horse ever exploded the way a Ford Pinto would.

    It sounds to me (and to everyone else reading it) like you're saying that the difference is that "cars can be dangerous in a way that horses can't".

    If that's not what you mean, then maybe you should change your original statement.

  • Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss

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  • Heh, my understanding is that they are affordable, assuming you're buying Chinese cars and your country hasn't levied absurd tariffs on that one country in particular.

  • Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss

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  • You think no horse ever killed his rider for inexplicable reasons?

    Living things are unpredictable. I'm not sure that argument holds up.

  • Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss

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  • Sure, but that's still a stupid complaint though. No vehicle has to spy on you, people only allow cars to spy on them. The thing is, you're an adult, you know how duct tape and screwdrivers work. If there's some offending camera, just pull it out or cover it up. If you're worried about it phoning home over a wireless connection, remove the wireless antenna. No car will prevent you from driving because an internal camera was disabled.

  • Removed

    Now that Trump is losing, conservatives are pretending they aren't MAGA chuds

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  • Agreed. Conservatism is the pursuit of stagnancy.

    When change needs to happen, for society, the main push from conservatism is to say "no". In a constantly changing world, where technology and economics are outpacing policy and law, the conservative position is denial. As human innovation accelerates more and more, conservatism becomes increasingly inappropriate and obsolete.

    It's a problem.

  • The second time you die is when spam mail stops being delivered with your name.

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  • Good news, we're all gonna live forever!

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    Cocodapuf @lemmy.world

    My child won't stop singing the "Lava Chicken" song from the Minecraft movie. How do I go on living?

  • Showerthoughts @lemmy.world
    Cocodapuf @lemmy.world

    A pizza flavored Hot Pocket is just a calzone...