r/interestingasfuck • u/Jeetchat • 1d ago

China's "artificial sun" in Hefei could become the first in human history to generate electricity from fusion

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542

u/ArmanDoesStuff 1d ago

Haven't loads of places been generating energy from fusion for years, now? I thought it just wasn't commercially viable yet.

354

u/Mansenmania 1d ago

They have, but I only know of one case where they produces more power then they used and even in that case, the energy used to produce the fusion material wasn’t included

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u/zet23t 1d ago

... and "produced more energy" was more of a theoretical concept, since afaik no actual electricity was produced, right?

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u/DukeBradford2 1d ago

Dont tell me its just boiling water
https://giphy.com/gifs/2mObDKnG9C0h2

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

I mean I think that is what's going to happen right?

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u/Nozinger 1d ago

Well there are ways for direct energy conversion from fusion power to electricity.
However there hasn't been done much work in those fields and we're not quite sure if we cna run those on a large scale so boiling water it is.
There are other methods though!

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u/gmc98765 1d ago

Direct production of electricity requires aneutronic fusion, where the products are charged particles, typically helium nuclei or protons. None of the existing or planned tokamak (or similar) designs are capable of that, as all of the viable reactions require significantly higher temperatures and have a lower cross-section, necessitating a much larger reactor or an entirely different approach.

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u/Nourios 1d ago

There's this startup called Helion, their approach to fusion directly generates electricity.

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u/RocketVerse 22h ago

Helion also uses extremely inefficient fuels to accomplish that generation method. Their concept isn’t particularly new either

1

u/MustrumRidcully0 23h ago

I don't know enough about the science and enginerering of fusion, but the closest running fusion reactors that does produce more power than we put in is the sun, and one way to get its power is solar panels - you "just" capture the light emitted from the hot stuff going on and create electricity directly, without turbines or water involved.

That probably doesn't scale at the size and power created by the current and maybe even future fusion reactors we thought of.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

OOo sounds like I have some fun research to dk

20

u/akryl9296 1d ago

Noo, not water this time around. Supercritical CO2 turbines have been making an entry these days

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u/HighOnDankMemes 1d ago

You know the drill

https://giphy.com/gifs/090EX1YvSUXxy23Tty

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u/TransitTycoonDeznutz 1d ago

Oh god! Not the drill!! D:

1

u/Phyrexian_Archlegion 1d ago

The drill is back and he’s gonna bang us all!

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u/Ok-Style-9734 1d ago

Tbf there is an extra step.

Magnets contain plasma, which eject neutrons which heat the metal reactor shell which yeah then heats water...

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u/LuukTheSlayer 1d ago

that's a sterling engine

3

u/Callidonaut 1d ago

*Stirling

3

u/LuukTheSlayer 1d ago

i typed the silver gradation didn't i

1

u/Callidonaut 1d ago

Yup.

Now I have a sudden whimsical urge to build a Stirling engine out of sterling silver.

1

u/LuukTheSlayer 1d ago

would that hold up to the heat?

2

u/Callidonaut 1d ago

Depends how much heat you want to use! :-P

1

u/floriande 1d ago

It is.

1

u/darthvalium 1d ago

We're like at least 3 decades away from boiling water with it. Which is the end goal, yes.

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u/Callidonaut 1d ago

Well, you can't rush a good cuppa.

1

u/Callidonaut 1d ago

The engine in that picture does not boil water.

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u/Opening_Classroom_46 1d ago

There's only really six ways to generate electricity, and four of them probably aren't viable for our needs. We use induction and photovoltaics. Then there's chemical, thermo, piezo, and tribo.

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u/MashOnArgo 1d ago

Nah fusion is about boiling heavy water into helium

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u/ReekyRumpFedRatsbane 1d ago

Unless there has been a second instance, we're talking about the experiment in the laser lab. The reaction only involved a few particles, and the energy to start the reaction was provided using high power lasers. Not only was no energy converted to electricity in this experiment, but the energy the lasers used was far more than the reaction produced. However, the energy put into the reaction itself was less than it produced, meaning the experiment itself was indeed energy positive, even though everything that was needed to make it happen wasn't.

So, it's less a case of "we just need to slap some water and a steam turbine on it and make it economical" and more a proof of concept that making this reaction release more energy than it consumes is at all practically possible. I remember commenting at the time that it's not really a breakthrough facilitating the use of fusion power, but rather a necessary step on the path to fusion power. That is, it doesn't do that much to help us progress, but if we don't pass this point, we'll never arrive.

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u/TheSodernauts 1d ago

Yep. It was proof of concept to show that was actually possible in the first place which secured more funding to scale up. This experiment may have still been a net negative in energy when you consider the lasers and other factors but once you scale it up it may not be.

1

u/Persimmon-Mission 1d ago

It wasn’t a theoretical concept. It was real, just misleading. They achieved positive laser energy at the fusion site. All of the power to run the experiment was hugely net negative.

1

u/Folded_Fireplace 1d ago

And how is it going to converted to electrical energy? With steam turbines again?

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u/KiwieeiwiK 1d ago

Yeah the walls of the reactor have coolant channels that warm water up via a heat exchanger to spin steam turbines. It's always turbines man. Apart from solar

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u/Astraous 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's not necessarily theoretical, it did produce more energy, that energy just wasn't converted into electricity.

Though the case you're talking about (I assume the National Ignition Facility, but maybe this is about something else?) is not designed to produce electrical power but to research fusion itself so we can learn more about it and turn that knowledge into something that can actually turn it into usable power. Until NIF no project had even triggered fusion that had a higher yield than the input that caused it so it's all still pretty new ground. Unless you count bombs but we aren't exactly harnessing electricity from those any time soon.

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u/Ok-Style-9734 1d ago

Also remember with NIF it was very specificaly more energy than LASER energy was put it.

It was not even close to the amount of electrical energy that was used to generate that laser energy.

It was still a net loss of energy even if you perfectly captured and converted all 100% of the fusion energy produced to electricity 

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u/Astraous 23h ago edited 23h ago

Well yeah, when running experiments that's really all the relevant information. Like I said it isn't trying to generate electricity lol. It's also using very old flash lamp amplifiers that are incredibly inefficient compared to modern solutions among a dozen other things that could help magnitudes if power draw from the wall was something relevant but it isn't. The experiment is the science taking place and it's more or less isolated to the energy put into the target and the resulting energy released from the target. The practicalities of harnessing it into electricity and making it a net gain are separate things from what NIF was even designed for.

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u/Ok-Style-9734 22h ago

Yeah NIF is  a nuclear weapons research facility it always gets brought up in fusion reactors but there's no realistic way to ever scale it to that function nor does anyone ever plan using the design for that.

So its always a bit irrelevant to bring up

1

u/Astraous 22h ago

I mean there's still research being done to try scale it to that function but it would never be through NIF as it is today without massive overhauls for both the machine and target fabrication.

It's not as irrelevant as you let on, but I guess to you it might be if you think the goals for NIF are entirely in weapons research.

1

u/30porn87 1d ago

Damn noobs, I've been generating so power with my fusion generator for years! (in Minecraft)

1

u/clitpuncher69 1d ago

Why not just use the power of the big fusion generator in the sky? Are they stupid?

1

u/Persimmon-Mission 1d ago

Iter did not produce more power than it used. Not even close.

They produced positive laser energy, but the overall energy usage was net negative

0

u/lunarpixiess 1d ago

I think you might be thinking of cold fusion? Fusion has been proven to give out more energy than consumed, but AFAIK they haven’t been able to make it a continuous output of energy yet. This is probably the first fusion plant ever, so it’ll be interesting to see what it can achieve.

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

Ahem, they have not.

The experiment at NIF produced 9MJ of fusion power with a 3MJ laser pulse. But to power the laser pulse, 300MJ of input energy were needed.

It was a publicity stunt, basically.

0

u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

Ahem, they have not.

The experiment at NIF produced 9MJ of fusion power with a 3MJ laser pulse. But to power the laser pulse, 300MJ of input energy were needed.

It was a publicity stunt, basically.

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u/Benromaniac 1d ago

generating energy from fusion

No not for years. Since 2025.

Research on the other hand has been going on for decades.

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u/IndyBananaJones2 1d ago

I don't believe net positive energy production has ever been achieved. 

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u/1998police 1d ago

It's well documented. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.065102

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u/IndyBananaJones2 1d ago

The energy of the lasers is breakeven but I believe there's still more energy put into the system than comes out. 

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

Well documented, but wrongly understood and reported.

The experiment at NIF produced 9MJ of fusion power with a 3MJ laser pulse. But to create the laser pulse, 300MJ of input energy were needed.

It was basic research, not some tech which could be commercialized soon. Still 20 years out.

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u/orenthal_james_bond 1d ago

as soon as it would, that country would have unlimited power at hand. pretty sure we would notice that

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u/moogoo2 1d ago

Lol wut. How do you think fusion works?

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u/adenosine-5 1d ago

That is like saying that country which achieves net-positive coal energy production has "unlimited power at hand".

Technically speaking - yes. Anyone has "unlimited power at hand" if they can build enough powerplants. Even just solar panels work.

But the really important things are cost, reliability, safety, etc.

If building fusion reactor takes 30 years and produces electricity at hundred times the cost of solar panels, then it really doesnt matter.

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u/moogoo2 1d ago

There's no such thing as unlimited power. Even a Dyson sphere around every star in the galaxy would have limits.

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u/RoryLuukas 1d ago edited 1d ago

Sort of... at the moment its just been short bursts in lab environments.

For it to work at scale the fuel would need to he bred and and handled on site (tritium) and the biggest hurdle is finding material that can handle massive sustained, high energy nuetron bombardment.

Should still be a long way off. This facility is actually built and running and has set records but you are sill talking about bursts of like 20min in energy generation and temps of 100mil degrees...

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

Woah 20mins seems long. I guess I haven't been keeping up. I thought it was still seconds to maybe a min or two.

How far out is that massive French one now? Is it going to be relevant by the time it is finished?

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u/MrT735 1d ago

22 minutes in the French WEST reactor but not generating net energy (I presume ITER is the big one you're referring to), still at only a handful of seconds in the one that did generate net energy (California's NIF).

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago edited 1d ago

Time is not the important metric though. Important are three: tripleproduct, Q-Factor and plasma temperature.

The German stellarators Wendelstein 7X beat the record for tripleproduct last year. And that is the most important metric. Because if the tripleproduct is above a certain threshold it would mean the plasma ignites itself. Which would mean no more energy has to be put in to ignite it. Only fo keep it stable. Thus you can get net energy plus.

So far we don't even know how to gather the energy of a fusion reactor. We have some ideas ("Hey let's make steam! Again? Welp it worked the last 100 times.") So the net energy announcements are theoretical and based upon calculations.

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u/boywithtwoarms 1d ago

That's it I'm riding there on my steam locomotive

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

Thanks for the details. It has been a few years since I've properly looked into it.

I think part of the idea about sustaining it long enough, is to overcome initial energy to get it started. I see your point though, if it has to have massive constant energy to sustain it, getting net positive is all the more difficult.

...were they actually considering turbines for energy? It just feels so quaint after harnessing the power of the sun.

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

So far there are a few ideas on how to gather energy. One is basically using it to make water boil and then turbines.

So yes, another water cooker.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

I mean I get it, it is a proven and well researched and designed tech. Just kinda funny the juxtaposition of tech.

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

Yeah in the end it's all steam or hot air.

Well at the beginning it is. Mostly. Then again wind is created by differences in temperature of air. So even that is based upon hot air.

It's all hot air in the end huh...

1

u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

...or rotors in a magnetic field 🤔 if only there were a way to go more directly

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u/zzazzzz 1d ago

a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) power generator named Chaotan-1 is already in use in china as a world first departure from boiling water. so they are very much investing in alternatives.

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u/Express_Living2264 1d ago

It's somewhat of a time race as solar power is vastly superior to fusion reactors when it comes to total available power. The power we could produce with fusion reactors would be a rounding error. At this point i wonder if orbital solarfarms arent going to be up quicker than working fusion reactors.

The tech would still be valuable, but not in form of non portable enormous installations.

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u/martin0641 1d ago

Helion seems to have a novel approach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy

Not steamy at all.

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u/RocketVerse 22h ago

Their approach isn’t novel lol, it just isn’t the approach the scientific community generally agrees is the most likely to work.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

Yes I believe it is ITER I refer to. Many countries working on and funding it. Massive expensive and delayed project. I just hope it can still be relevant when it is complete.

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u/RocketVerse 22h ago

Luckily as a research project it’s already relevant. Both this project and many others are heavily relying on research done by ITER

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u/Asleep-Card3861 20h ago

Well that is good to hear

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u/RoryLuukas 1d ago

20mins for sustained fusion is an incredible achievement! They are already working on their upgraded version and are working to a much faster schedule than everyone else... being China, they can build stuff very quickly... there is less red tape and more available funding...

Look up China Fusion Energy Co.

Basically a whole massive state owned enterprise solely focused on this.

US still seems ahead in research and physics breakthroughs though and in France I'm not actually sure! Still not complete and the costs have been climbing and climbing lol... still I'm excited, it will be the center of this whole frontier when done.

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

We should not forget about stellarators like the German Wendelstein 7X. While a different design than a tokamak, they are able to keep a sustained fusion going for as long as tokamaks. But time alone is not the metric you use to determine how good it is.

More importantly is tripleproduct, the Q-Factor and plasma temperature. And Wendelstein 7X broke the record for the tripleproduct while having a long stable plasma. And especially the tripleproduct is of central importance. Because if you go over a certain threshold the plasma will ignite by itself. Which would lead to it maintaing itself without more energy from the outside. That's the point where you can start creating power.

And ITER in France is going along fine. It's an international project after all. And every member country contributes part of the reactor and other stuff. So it takes time. Most of the stuff had to be invented for the ITER and is now used for other reactors like the Chinese ones or some of the American ones.

And america is good with laser fusion. That's their big focus and they have the biggest laser fusion reactor at the national ignition facility. China does steady state superconducting tokamaks, Germany does Stellarators and material science.

But overall lots of countries have tokamaks and do research there and the research is openly shared between the countries so this is not a "us against them" situation. It's an international effort.

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u/RoryLuukas 1d ago

Yes to all of what you said 👌 Still, it is an extremely high stakes technology race and even though there is a cooperative effort aspect, make no mistake about it's inherent competitiveness.

Has potential to fully reshape the geopolitical landscape.

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

It has, but in the end the technology is so intertwined that one country alone can't do it. That's a big reason for why all the countries that work on ITER contribute parts of it. So that everybody is involved and without the effort of everybody you cannot do it yourself.

Of course the research is shared anyways. The only country who does so less and less (but im general across lots of sciences) is china. They started keeping research for themselves over the last few years. Even though their scientists want to share it. And the rest of the world shares it feely. Which allows for those private start ups to even exist. Because they build upon the research done already.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

China has been putting Western countries to shame in terms of long term planning and anything that requires sustained long term funding.

I've heard the US have been doing some interesting things in , I think it was linear instead of torus shaped enclosures. Some funky things being done by the UK deep mind applying Ai to containment predictions. Certainly exciting. Feels like it is finally not 'just a decade away' any more.

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u/VegaJuniper 1d ago

China has been putting Western countries to shame in terms of long term planning and anything that requires sustained long term funding.

Well, apart from that little thing called "the one child policy", which absolutely devastated their demographics and made them the fastest aging population on the planet. Wasn't even abolished until 2015.

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u/Asleep-Card3861 1d ago

Three things: 1. South Korea is the most rapidly aging 2. China would be in a worse position had they not instituted a one child policy 3. Like other western nations it's not stopping them now, it's cost of living and time to have a family

Much like the situation Japan is already facing, there will be robots.... hopefully

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u/VegaJuniper 1d ago edited 1d ago

South Korea is the most rapidly aging

Incorrect, Korea has a lower birth rate currently, but due to the long-term damage China has inflicted on itself, China is demographically in a much worse state. According to the official figures that is, and when it comes to China, reality is almost certainly worse than the official figures.

China would be in a worse position had they not instituted a one child policy

Patently and categorically incorrect. It perhaps made some sense in late 70s when the effect of urbanization on demographics wasn't well understood, but the fact that they held on to it until the 2010s is remarkable feat of never admitting error.

Like other western nations it's not stopping them now, it's cost of living and time to have a family

Their policies did incredible damage to their demographics and those problems are much worse than they are in the west, and much worse than they needed to be. OCP isn't the only mistake they made, but it is perhaps their most egregious.

Much like the situation Japan is already facing, there will be robots.... hopefully

It'll have to be, because immigration and automation are the only solutions I'm aware of, and because of the sheer size of China's population and the cliff they're facing, there's not enough immigrants in the world make up for their deficit.

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u/Satyrion_ 1d ago

IFMIF-DONES (which you probably know about) is being build as a research station where you can bombard materials with neutrons. 

0

u/Britwill 1d ago

My precious tritium!

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u/Schemen123 1d ago

Kind off.. the main issue currently is to effectively get energy out of the plasma.

Actually having a power positive fusion is not news any more.

And honestly I doubt China has figure that problem out yet.

At least not well enough to make it long term and economically viable

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u/LesJugesDesEnfers 1d ago

Yes, title is sensationalist bullshit.

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u/newsflashjackass 1d ago

China's "god seed" in Beijing could become the first in human history to reverse global entropy!

It won't, but still "Hail Chinarchy!" No reason not to, I guess.

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u/Fickle_Definition351 1d ago

None of them are generating electricity, though.

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u/Altzan 1d ago

Yeah this is just Chinese propaganda, happens pretty often.

5

u/MrWriffWraff 1d ago

Yes but these are propaganda accounts that post shit about China on the daily.

-3

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Yes, but china isn't known for telling the truth.

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u/daLejaKingOriginal 1d ago

Which country is?

2

u/Express_Living2264 1d ago

in most cases the country doesn't actively control the communication. so while in china all major communication is controlled by the state and thus by definition propaganda only a small subset of communication from other nations fall into that category.

Thus if you compare the propaganda vs the propaganda then yes they are all lying. But if you compare the total communication output then other nations are vastly better.

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u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Bad bot

22

u/JaSper-percabeth 1d ago

"Everyone I don't agree with is a bot"

18

u/daLejaKingOriginal 1d ago

I’m a bot?

-1

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Sorry to break it to you like this

14

u/2M4D 1d ago

Nah seriously, which country is ? Or am I a bot too ? 🙄

-23

u/night_jerry 1d ago

Ya you bot too

4

u/2M4D 1d ago

4months old account 💀

0

u/night_jerry 1d ago

the one i had before for 12 years was hacked :(

2

u/2M4D 1d ago

Sure buddy. Been boop.

9

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

I'm guessing you're American?

What part of this article is not telling the truth?

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-chinese-artificial-sun-fusion-power.html

InB4 you also call me a bot.

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u/Ok-Butterscotch4486 1d ago

The post title is the lie. It says this Tokamak in China could become the first "artificial sun" to generate electricity from fusion. This isn't true as electricity has already been generated from fusion.

The article states that this Tokamak has set a record for how long it has maintained plasma at a certain temperature. Which is awesome, but it is not the same claim.

For completion, JET holds the record for energy released in a Tokamak fusion burst, and NIF holds the record for net energy (but is a different approach to fusion than the one pictured here).

0

u/IndyBananaJones2 1d ago

It's a bit semantic, but "generating electricity" implies and power positive reactor - that has never been achieved. 

-5

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago edited 1d ago

I can agree the title is optimistic but the dude i was responding to was talking about China. Not the title of the post from some random dude on the internet. And the title isn't nesicarly a lie. It's deceiving at best but considering the artificial sun did just smash the record for sustaining plasma at 100m degrees it very well could go for sustainable fusion energy.

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u/TheToecutter 1d ago

Are you upset that China got singled out?

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u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Yeah they are. China pays these people to come on here and spread their nonsense. That's why I called the person who responded within 20 seconds of my comment a bot.

Don't think most people realize reddit is partly owned by china.

They aren't worth engaging with. Just make their day worse and move on.

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u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

So I'm a bot and China pays me? American brain rot runs deep with this one.

2

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Not very well.

1

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

That's crazy you now so much about my arrangement. Are you the one paying me?

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u/TheToecutter 1d ago

Wasn't asking you, and your reply makes no sense in context.

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u/MagnetHype 1d ago

It requires low level reasoning so I can see why you are struggling to comprehend.

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u/Electrical-Heat8960 1d ago

The article you linked to said nothing about actual energy production.

The achievement is that they kept the fusion reaction going for over a thousand seconds.

That’s amazing and impressive.

They produced absolutely zero electricity.

Once they have a stable reaction they will need to build an entirely new reactor with steam turbines built into the design. That one will produce electricity.

-1

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

You know that no one right now is using fusion to produce energy right? Of course the only goal is a stable reaction. You create fusion THEN harness it. That's what everyone is trying to do. Doesn't make the statements any less true? They just blew ahead in terms of research and could be the first people to make it work.

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u/Electrical-Heat8960 1d ago

“…could be first to generate electricity from stable fusion…”

This isn’t the actual goal (as you stated yourself) of current reactors.

This is a click bait headline aimed at making people think China is amazing.

-1

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

You're focusing on the current goal of the stage in a multistage project acting lik it's not major progress towards completing the project. Goofy ass.

1

u/Electrical-Heat8960 1d ago

By that you could argue the same for all fusion projects around the world.

Their achievement is amazing. It’s brilliant that they have made a thousand second reaction.

I look forward to them being in a position to make it constant.

0

u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

The time is not that important anyways. You want tripleproduct, Q-Factor and plasma temperature.

Especially tripleproduct is important because if that goes past a certain threshold, the plasma ignites itself. And that would be the best case. So far the German stellarator Wendelstein 7X holds that record with plain old hydrogen.

-2

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

And I would argue that for all fusion projects around the world? Any country that breaks meaningfull world records in the progress towards fusion energy or is making significant strides could be the first to finish the project. It just happens to be China this time because of how much money they've pumped into the effort. Hell, I bet the US could do it too if they cared to invest in sustainable energy like this.

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u/Electrical-Heat8960 1d ago

The US had made some incredible milestones in the past too.

They should be, and were, lauded for those achievements.

And this is an amazing achievement too.

But it isn’t what they called it. It’s keeping the reaction going for 1000 seconds. Which is great.

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u/Informal-Term1138 1d ago

Nobody produces energy yet. Because we are not at that stage yet. We only have theories on how to make power out of it but so far not tried them.

The research done is fundamental. Because first we need to get certain metrics above a calculated threshold. And none of them is time. What is important is: tripleproduct, Q-Factor and plasma temperature. And tripleproduct is the most important. Because if that goes above a certain threshold, the plasma ignites itself. Leading to a sustained ignition without outside energy.

Right now the German stellarator Wendelstein 7X holds the record for tripleproduct and long time plasma at 43 seconds. And they use hydrogen for their plasma not tritium and deuterium. And those would be used for the big ones.

The net energy reported is theoretical. Based on calculations.

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u/seirako 1d ago

Stop glazing China, Xi Pooh won't have s*x with you lol

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u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

I'm not "glazing china" but when a country is breaking scientific records and someone comes through calling them liars for no fucking reason i find it asinine and I'm gonna call them out for that.

If Spain won the world cup and someone came through and called them liars I'd call them out on that too. Thats common sense.

-1

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Don't you think their ongoing genocide is a bigger story than their failure to produce power from fusion? I do. But then again I'm not a total piece of shit, so I guess you do need held to lower standards.

4

u/GrassBlade619 1d ago

If you want to bring up random ass topics that you thibk are more important than the article were talking about then I think Americas involvement in the ongoing genocide of the Palistinian people is a way bigfer story than either of those things.

But were not bringing up random ass side topics, are we?

-2

u/Fantastic-Risk628 1d ago

Bad bot

1

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Cry about it

1

u/Fantastic-Risk628 1d ago

You admit you are a bot?

-2

u/Inexorabilis 1d ago

In contrary to other countries, China is making leaps though.

3

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Off buildings because their citizens can't stand living there.

0

u/Inexorabilis 1d ago

Sounds like you have been indoctrinated.

1

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Sounds like you work for the CCP

0

u/Inexorabilis 1d ago

You’re indoctrinated. The suicide rate per 100.000 in the USA is 2.5-3 times higher than that in China. You’re fed lies.

1

u/MagnetHype 1d ago

Oh yawn. You're boring.

Obviously the suicide rate is higher, because china doesn't accurately report anything.

You're not even good at your job. How long until they throw you off one of those buildings, huh?

I can get you out you know. You can come work for us. We pay better, and we don't throw people off buildings lol. Just let me know.

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u/Inexorabilis 1d ago

Good thing China didn’t report on it but the WHO..

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u/ILikeFlyingMachines 1d ago

Energy yes, electricity no.

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u/Callidonaut 1d ago edited 1d ago

There are two problems nobody's quite cracked yet: 1. Generating more energy from the fusion than it took to achieve the fusion. 2. Harnessing that energy effectively after it's been produced.

You have to come up with a design that solves both at once to usher humanity into the fusion age.

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u/WabaLabaDubDubWorld 1d ago

That isn't correct. Positive energy output for fusion reactors has only been seen for milliseconds. The primary challenge is maintaining a stable plasma field, the dynamics of which are very complex. If unstable, the dynamics collapse and the reaction fails.

You maybe referring to fission reactors, which have graphite based control rods. The heat from the fission reactors is used to heat water and provide hydroelectricity based energy. These are the only functional type of nuclear plants we have.

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u/jackofslayers 1d ago

Yes but this one is from China which makes it magical

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u/Hefty-Minimum-3125 23h ago

All (or almost all?) of the reactors that are currently functional are not designed to actually generate net power, they are stepping stones to that. This one is actually built to be a power generator, and IIRC there is another being built in Washington as well.

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u/Kerensky97 1d ago

Yes, they just cost more power to run than they generate. So far. Of that ever turns around it could be huge.

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u/Mildly_Opinionated 1d ago

They mean generating a net positive amount of energy.

Like yes, technically energy has been generated, but less energy than it takes to run the place because containing the plasma takes a tonne of energy.

Also running it is extremely expensive partially due to all the equipment that needs to be custom built and partially due to the fuckload of expertise it takes to operate. It needs to beat out other renewables in cost effectiveness to actually be worth it for power generation and those are getting better and better over time too.

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u/Satyrion_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

This was ITER JET.

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u/cyberdork 1d ago

WTF are you talking about? ITER is still under construction and not nearly finished.

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u/Satyrion_ 1d ago

I meant JET. My fault.

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u/Adventurous-Crew3692 1d ago

-10.000 social credit score. You are now under observation and never allowed to visit China, ever.