So...practical fusion is solved, now?

[arthwollipot]

It's the Daily Star, with an autoplaying video and a full-screen popup ad, so I'm absolutely not going to grace it with my eyes, but it is true that humanity is getting very close to practical nuclear fusion. It's in the process of moving from "40 years away and always will be" to "5-10 years".

This is a much better source:

A lightbulb moment for nuclear fusion?

Boris Johnson’s gung-ho claims may be wide of the mark, but scientists pursuing the holy grail of energy generation are taking giant steps

They are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world,” Boris Johnson told the Conservative party conference earlier this month – “they” apparently being UK scientists. It was, at best, a rash promise for how nuclear fusion might make the UK carbon-neutral by the middle of the century – the target recommended by the Committee on Climate Change, which advises the government. “I know they have been on the verge for some time,” Johnson hedged. “It is a pretty spacious kind of verge.” But now, he assured his audience, “we are on the verge of the verge”.

It’s a familiar and bitter joke about nuclear fusion as an energy source that, ever since it was first mooted in the 1950s, it has been 30 years away. Johnson’s comments had the extra irony that Brexit could merely add to that distance.

It’s not clear what “commercially viable miniature fusion reactors” the prime minister had in mind. There are no such things either existing or planned at the main British centre for fusion research, the Joint European Torus (Jet) at Culham in Oxfordshire, which Johnson visited in August. Experiments at Jet, conducted by all partners within the 28-state Eurofusion consortium, aim to make the nuclear fusion of hydrogen – the process that powers the sun and other stars – viable for energy generation by collecting the heat released to drive turbines for electricity. When Jet is running, the temperature inside is more than 100m C, making it “the hottest place in the solar system” according to Jet’s director, Ian Chapman.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Jet is pretty old now and I'm not aware of any current development. AFAIK it's another tokamak which didn't work. Really at this time there is no reason to believe any of current prototypes will work. Much less old and already well tried approach. There is some evolution, and even those might cross the magical treshold of self-sustainability. There is certainly more thing being tried then ever. But that alone doesn't mean we are any closer.

 

[Thor 2]

The article reads like the reporter was confused about whether the system is a reactor or a military weapon. "Ooh, cool, an array of 36 plasma cannons... now we just have to figure out how to get the enemy to stand in the center of the sphere!" (The time-honored "Free Bird Seed" sign might do the trick.)

The reporter probably normally reports on celebrities and gossip, (Daily Star usual content), so it's understandable there would be some confusion when tackling a science subject.

 

[luchog]

Mid you, they're prone to overheating and causing 1 wound on the user unless they're attached to the cooling system of a vehicle. Normal saving throws apply.

Only for the crude and clumsy technology of the mon-keigh.

So far the biggest problem seems to simply be containment of the reaction for more than a few fractions of a second; and so far none of the available designs have managed much improvement there.

 

[arthwollipot]

Couple of videos from Joe Scott about how far fusion has come recently:





Edit: tl;dw - there's reason to be optimistic.

 

[Dr.Sid]

Color me unconvinced. Yes, new approaches are good. Private money are good. But it's mostly about research. Those guys are just good old inventors. They have idea. They get backing. They do their experiment. But with fusion, it's not so simple. It won't work, it never did. If NIF broke their teeth on the problem, I don't expect any of these small companies doing much better.

 

[arthwollipot]

*shrug* Come back in 5-10 years and we'll see what the state of the art is then.

 

[Mikemcc]

Jet is pretty old now and I'm not aware of any current development. AFAIK it's another tokamak which didn't work. Really at this time there is no reason to believe any of current prototypes will work. Much less old and already well tried approach. There is some evolution, and even those might cross the magical treshold of self-sustainability. There is certainly more thing being tried then ever. But that alone doesn't mean we are any closer.

The one they are on about is the MAST upgrade which is on the same site and is relatively tiny. MAST could generate the plasma required, but not fuse it. even after the upgrade it's more intended to research components, materials and techniques for ITERs follow-up, DEMO.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I was recently rereading a magazine from 1985, in which someone wrote a letter to the magazine stating "there's a researcher who says that he will have a working fusion motor that will go in a pickup in 5 years, and one for a car in 8."

I must have missed the fusion powered trucks in 1990 and fusion powered cars in 1993.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

"For present discussions," said Ziggurat.

Once again, "technically correct" means "I understand what you mean, but being trivially correct is more important to me than having a conversation."

I think in this particular case "technically correct" meant "I am making a joke".