For decades, government scientists have toiled away trying to make nuclear fusion work. Will commercial companies sprint to the finish?

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    254·
    11 months ago

    If only there was some sort of big fusion ball in the sky which gave us vast amounts of energy that we could collect if we wanted to…

    • orclev@lemmy.world
      131·
      11 months ago

      Today’s shower thought: is a fusion power plant just a miniaturized Dyson Sphere?

      • SoggyBread@lemmy.world
        7·
        11 months ago

        I get where youre going but not exactly. The dyson sphere would use solar energy but the fusion reactor, a tokomak specifically, uses steam generated by water pumped through the system to help keep the walls of the tokomak cool, to spin steam powered turbines

        • evatronic@lemm.eeEnglish
          9·
          11 months ago

          I’m constantly amazed that we’re working on super advanced power generation techniques… that still use steam to spin turbines.

          It feels like we should be doing something cooler, like plasma conduits from Star Trek.

          • QuinceDaPence@kbin.social
            3·
            11 months ago

            Just about the best way to do it for an external ‘combustion’ heat engine. Stirling engines can be used in some cases but in most cases steam ends up being the better option.

            We spent centuries getting really good at using steam for getting work out of ‘hot thing’.

          • davidgro@lemmy.world
            2·
            11 months ago

            Look into what Helion Energy is doing. Not saying it will or won’t work, but they plan to extract the energy directly from the plasma electromagnetically.