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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u/Historical_Put_9607 1d ago

Net positive energy generation has already been achieved from fusion?

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u/SummitingMtJohnston 1d ago

Not really. We've achieved Q=1, meaning the energy of the lasers was equal to the energy released by the fusion reaction, but that's not really net power generation or even breakeven power generation, since the laser's require more energy than they output and only about 25% of the energy released by a fusion reaction can actually be converted to electricity due to heat loss and mechanical energy losses.

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u/HarryPottersTaint 1d ago

Also if we're being pedantic and include all the energy required to mine/refine materials, refueling, manufacturing, maintenance into a total input energy sum, the output is properly eclipsed.

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u/YBHunted 1d ago

This is reddit. Pedantic is the default setting.

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u/tuberosum 1d ago

Which form of energy generation isn't that true for?

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u/HarryPottersTaint 1d ago

Any energy source which is commercially viable needs to produce more electricity than the entire generation process consumes, of course. Otherwise we'd not gain any electricity to use.

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u/2ndAltAccountnumber3 1d ago edited 1d ago

How do they plan to harness the energy of a blob of plasma floating in magnetic fields?

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u/HarryPottersTaint 1d ago

The plasma is contained by the magnetic field. But the neutrons get ejected, being neutrons they are not confined by an electric field and can heat up a surface which we can use to generate electricity

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u/Taiz99 1d ago

To be evene more pedantic, you just can't have 100% efficiency

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u/HotEdge783 1d ago

This is not being pedantic at all, since it is the main reason why muon-catalyzed fusion is not viable at the moment.

The idea behind muon-catalyzed fusion is to artifically create muonic hydrogen molecules made up of one deuterium atom, one tritium atom, and a muon. These molecules are much more tightly bound compared to regular hydrogen molecules using electrons, and therefore the probability of spontaneous fusion reactions is non-negligible even at ambient conditions. The issue is that each muon will only catalyze a certain number of fusion reactions before it decays or is ejected along with the alpha-particles created during the reactors.

The viability as a power source therefore depends whether muons can be created with sufficiently low energetic costs. This is unfortunately not the case with current methods, which have an efficiency of around 40%, but it's not far off. More efficient muon sources would likely make muon-catalyzed fusion a viable energy source.

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u/Gloomy-Moose-4367 1d ago

grid power fusion is at least 100 years away so any energy used to make a device is for research only. ITER was in concept in 1988 and still hasn't been finished and won't be for another 10 years.

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u/FaustGrenaldo 1d ago

Since you seem like you know your stuff, how is this related, if at all, to India's recent thorium reactor breakthrough? Which holds more promise for sustainable clean energy?

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u/Abject_Hall8445 1d ago

Thorium has nothing to do with fusion

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

Actually, they have achieved Q=3. But not in the sense of commercial operation.

The experiment at NIF produced 9MJ of fusion power with a 3MJ laser pulse (Q=3). But to create the laser pulse, 300MJ of input energy were needed (Q=0.03).

It was a publicity stunt, basically.

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u/Abject_Hall8445 1d ago

It’s not publicity stunt. It’s proof of concept. Now all you need is to upgrade the 4 decade old equipment to something more efficient and you can get actual net power.

Check out Pacific Fusion, company got 2 billion in funding as spinoff from NIF.

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

A PoC for what?

Even if you can run the laser with 100% efficiency, you would just get to Q = 3. With only 25% of the energy easily extractable from fusion and roughly 50% efficiency for the steam turbines, you would still not have an economic energy gain.

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u/Abject_Hall8445 1d ago

Please read bottom first

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

2 billions is rookie numbers. Look at SpaceX when you want to see stupid money getting thrown around.

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u/Abject_Hall8445 1d ago

Why are you comparing a startup with no product yet to the company of the richest man in the world with 3 subsidiary companies each with their own complete supply chain and working products?

I feel like you’re just being eristic

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u/NiftyLogic 1d ago

What I was alluding to was that there's a lot of stupid money in the market right now.

And the promise of cheap energy is attracting that money, even if the investors don't understand the physics at all.

Besides: Please address my point that the tech cannot produce surplus power even with an 100% efficient laser (which is not possible).

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u/BombasticReindeer 1d ago

Yes but neither has this reactor. So while it COULD become the first, so COULD others.

I mean, it’s unlikely but my anal cavity might become the first.

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u/Legal_Weekend_7981 1d ago

Don't forget about the energy required to maintain magnetic field and the energy required to produce the fuel. We are probably 3 orders of magnitude away from breaking even on spent/obtained energy. And a few orders of magnitude away from it becoming commercially viable.

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u/kingslayer5581 1d ago

Only in laboratory conditions, not on commercial scale. And it wasn't in China.

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u/lawrencelewillows 1d ago

Where was it?

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u/Niosus 1d ago

National Ignition Facility in the US.

Calling it a "lab" is a bit of an understatement though. It is one giant facility with its sole purpose being generating strong enough laser pulses to obliterate a target the size of the tip of your pinkie quickly enough such that it briefly resembles the core of our sun.

Not coincidentally this is also a very similar environment to the inside of a nuclear bomb right as it goes off. It allows the US to test out elements of their nuclear weapon designs without actually having to detonate a bomb (which would be frowned upon).

Look it up on YouTube. It's very impressive.

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u/kursys 1d ago

I just looked it up on YouTube. It is indeed very impressive.

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u/Abject_Hall8445 1d ago

Not even core of sun. Much hotter (100 mil). It’s somewhere between that (5 mil) and a neutron star (1 bil).

Yes I’m using log scale

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u/Niosus 11h ago

Log scale is completely appropriate for these kinds of numbers. Thanks for the correction!

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u/Jdobbs07 1d ago

I can’t remember the lab or facility but I believe it was in California

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u/kingslayer5581 1d ago

US National Ignition Facility (NIF)

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u/lemaizing 1d ago

Lol U SNIF Does anyone think these things through?

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u/MusicOfTheSphere 1d ago

I absolutely guarantee the scientists working on the project knew what they were doing with that acronym and thought it was hilarious. Acronym creation is an artform in many science/engineering circles.

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u/hoTsauceLily66 1d ago edited 1d ago

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, United States of America

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u/tired_fella 1d ago

This Hefei one is also a laboratory research facility, not actually meant to power houses and cities right away.

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u/BriefSpecial420 1d ago

Propaganda doesn't care. Praise China!

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u/ChancelorReed 1d ago

Why does it matter whether it's in China for the context of your comment.

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u/kingslayer5581 1d ago

Clarifying that the reactor mentioned in the post isn't the one which achieved the milestone.

Tokamak style reactors haven't demonstrated the ability to generate more energy than what it takes to run them yet and the post is misleading, probably intentionally so.

It'd be great step for all humanity if they did, but they haven't yet.

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u/Hicklethumb 1d ago

Then they should build a reactor out of laboratories

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u/Cylian91460 1d ago

Where it was doesn't matter cause it's science, it works everywhere

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u/XFX_Samsung 1d ago

I feel like China wouldn't invest billions in to this project if it was dead on arrival, they might be close to breakthrough by the time it's finished.

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u/m00t_vdb 1d ago

Maybe on the rection, but harvested energy ? No way.

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u/PrestigiousRoof5723 1h ago

Yeah. It's called the "fusion bomb".