this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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US scientists achieve net energy gain for second time in a fusion reaction (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by Pips@lemmy.film to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] uphillbothways@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This means we'll need capture efficiency technology above 66% for this to be a net positive in terms of power generation.

For current fission nuclear power plants: "Nuclear power plant efficiency averages around 33%, which is comparable to other fossil fuel-based generation units. This means that 77% [sic, should be 67%] of the energy produced by a nuclear plant is lost and only 33% is converted into electricity. Some modern nuclear plants may be able to achieve 45% efficiency."

from link: https://www.pcienergysolutions.com/2023/04/17/power-plant-efficiency-coal-natural-gas-nuclear-and-more/#:~:text=Nuclear%20power%20plant%20efficiency%20averages,able%20to%20achieve%2045%25%20efficiency.

[–] Proweruser@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago

This doesn't mean anything, as it's not actually overall net positive. It just makes for a nice headline. But it's just that more energy than the late deposited into the pallet came out of it.

But more energy than to run the lasers or the entire facility? Far, far, far from it.

[–] crow@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I’d say this reactor design has best chance of reaching high efficiency vs the “Lithium Blanket”.

[–] PM_me_your_vagina_thanks@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Still used orders of magnitude more energy to perform the experiment than the experiment output - plus they have no way to harvest that energy, and they're mainly a nuclear weapon research facility. I guess the publicity for fusion power is good.

[–] TokyoMonsterTrucker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

*Edit: OK, so this article is missing a bunch of vital context. Here's a better one: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/physicists-achieve-fusion-net-energy-gain-for-second-time/

[–] exscape@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

The key words are "delivered to the target". They use WAY, way more power than they deliver to the target, so if you take the energy generated divided by the total energy used, the number is WAY, way below 1. Probably a fair bit below 0.1 too.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

The laser energy. All the energy to make the situation happen is significantly higher. It's sneaky.

[–] PM_me_your_vagina_thanks@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That's pure laser energy, not whole system energy. Yeah, they got a slight gain from the fusion output, but nowhere near what the whole experiment used.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryUS scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for the second time since a historic breakthrough in December last year in the quest to find a near-limitless, safe and clean source of energy

Scientists at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.

In December, Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers.

The Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

Fusion energy raises the prospect of plentiful clean power: the reactions release no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste byproducts.

[–] astraeus@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is the assumption that the experiment takes place in a vacuum, including no external energy outside the energy introduced by the laser?

[–] preciouspupp@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

A spherical vacuum consisting of free government money.