https://archive.ph/Sy1OG

  • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    fusion is an intermediate step between electrical and kinetic energy

    I mean almost all energy generation is except for like photovoltaic cells, pretty much everything I'm aware of involves some process of heat ----> steam or something -----> make turbine go

    • vertexarray [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      My lack of understanding on how a tokamak reactor works has put me in a precarious intellectual situation here lol

      • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        my understanding is that a tokamak reactor is just a particular way of containing the plasma generated by fusion but it still uses that for heat energy to create steam to drive a turbine

        I'm not a physicist, I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that outside of photovoltaic materials (which convert light directly into electricity) the only way to generate electricity at industrial scale is to do the whole "spin coiled wire within a magnetic field" thing that we've been doing since the 1800s

        • vertexarray [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          So if I understand right, tokamak reactors create the conditions for fusion to happen continually, whereas the z-pinch method creates the conditions for fusion to happen momentarily, and the fusion-fission combination method uses the z-pinch method to both generate heat and hurl neutrons at a mass of thorium (or any other material that won't go critical) to cause fission and generate additional heat.

          I guess the thing that makes Z-FFR a fusion-based energy generation method is that fusion is a convenient way to get neutrons up to fission speed?

        • DialecticalShaman [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          There are nuclear reactor schemes in which energy is directly captured from the reaction's EM field.

          As the plasma expands, it pushes back on the magnetic field. By Faraday's law, the change in field induces current, which is directly recaptured as electricity. This clean fusion electricity is used to power homes and communities, efficiently and affordably.

          This is from a us company that's working on fusion (Helion)

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Sometimes its

      • differential creates electric charge ----> magnets -----> make turbine go

      with heat just being a resistance residual. Modern attempts at fusion have a problem of releasing too much heat and burning out the core components of the engine. Hence the pursuit of "cold fusion", which would get you the differential that creates an electric charge thanks to the energy released by hydrogen bonding without exceeding the heat threshold that melts all your equipment.

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

      Such models were actually developed, but they came with the caveat that they required more energy input to sustain a safe reaction than they produced. The goal, since the pioneering of this reactor, was to reach an efficiency threshold such that reactors were a net positive for the grid.