Fusor Forums

Fun to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk

My Daughter sent it via facebook to me as a link

My Google alerts brought me this this morning:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mo ... ear-fusion

On the surface, I find the headline laughable. Another ginormous and complicated machine does not change the face of fusion. It just replicates the monolithic thinking that has given us "30 years in the future and always will be."

I apologize for all the negativity on this subject. Somebody tell me if I should stop.

--P

Why stop being doubtful? Really, that is the proper attitude. Frankly, until proven otherwise, any fusion system that desires significant power production is pretty much only due disbelief; not unlike powered flight. For a very long time human flight was impossible via propulsion vehicles and for good reason. First, this was a very hard thing to do because this goal did not readily lend itself to any simple approach; it required very advanced technology (really, a light-weight gasoline engine was critical and that alone required extremely advanced science, engineering, and massive infrastructure to produce.) Then the very complex control system and solving/handling instability issues innate to any large vehicle attempting flight was very difficult without both rather advanced aerodynamic understanding and good engineering that has access to a host of "advanced materials". Critically, any really big time break through approach generally requires not the easy method but the most complex one that even then, pushes the envelope still further and far exceeds what anyone who first started the project ever really envisioned.

Will the W-7X work? Yes, it works extremely well (that is all its component systems: vacuum, helium cooling, field energy of the magnets at cryo-temperature) - and most critically, the stellarator creates the desired magnetic field profile it was designed to exhibit. Will it produce better containment of a plasma compared to any other design? Well, that is the billion dollar question.

As for the title being laughable, you are being too harsh; the device does work and if its achieves/proves superior to Tokamaks in handling a plasma that title will be accurate. Note they said "could" and it really is the most massive stellarator ever built. So, a rather accurate title - no?

The Wright brothers did not shoot for a Galaxy C5A or a 737. They took a lot from Otto Lilienthal (cloth and wood) which already flew a man, (Glider), and added an already extant gasoline engine, (only lighter), and flew a little over 100 feet. They did self-powered, human flight.

Fusion has been done. (Lilienthal- manned flight)......... There is no practical, working fusion reactor (Wrights - fully functional self powered flight that was up-scalable via simple engineering).

We are funding the construction of what is, ostensibly, a giant Boeing like entity, (C5A or 737), before ever doing over unity fusion for more than a fraction of a second! Same for the Stellator which has no designed-in way to tap the supposed, over unity fusion energy.

The wrong direction!!! If ITER works for only 7 days continuously producing over 5 times its input energy, how do you scale back, with simple engineering, a city sized device to the same level of functionality and power output found in a fission reactor sized plant running 24-7-365?

Again, the cart is placed before the horse.

Richard Hull