China Just Switched on Its 'Artificial Sun' Nuclear Fusion Reactor

a reply to: dragonridr

our documentary is wrong GE had nothing to do with chernobyl. That was a russian design that even american physisists had warned was faulty. And fukushima was caused by a tsunami that overpowered the sea wall they built. They were warned for decades the sea wall would fail but ignored it. So yes I get it your documentary wanted to blame everyone for the evil of nuclear reactors. But even now there is much safer designs that make it almost impossible to meltdown.

Nice little word there at the end 'almost'
These systems are not 100 percent fail safe and it is inevitable given enough time we will have more accidents. If they cared about safety they would be using Thorium reactors. Instead the primary objective is to make more weapons grade material

That in essence is what you are trying to defend here.

a reply to: dragonridr

Yes, the magnetic field strength and shape of the torus ring will indeed be the ticket.

And they are nearly there, then again they have been for a while now, or so it seems.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: chr0naut

chr0naut I'm aware of the problems associated with fusion reactors, Tokamac design included.

And the fact of the matter is that the designs simply are not ready to become a mainstream technology just yet.

They are testbeds and prototypes even the ITER.

And that hope has also been around since 1950s.

Fusions time will come, just not quite yet.

Chances are we will see types of thorium-based reactors come online before fusion rears its head realistically.

Fusion's holy grail is not a self-sustaining reaction, the real goal is getting more energy out than you put in, better than break-even. ITER is likely to do that (theoretically) but it does burn fuel and it does consume the engineering required for containment, so it has to be regularly replaced.

The hope is that we can make practical power generation fusion reactors in the future - even if they only run in bursts.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: bastion

Your documentary is wrong GE had nothing to do with chernobyl. That was a russian design that even american physisists had warned was faulty. And fukushima was caused by a tsunami that overpowered the sea wall they built. They were warned for decades the sea wall would fail but ignored it. So yes I get it your documentary wanted to blame everyone for the evil of nuclear reactors. But even now there is much safer designs that make it almost impossible to meltdown.

I find it ironic that people are so against nuclear power when it is a technology we could use to illimanate green house gasses.

The documentary is correct, it has interviews with GE and the engineers - I just had a complete brainfart and somehow thought Chernobyl copied their design. Reactors 1, 2 and 6 at Fukushima were built by, and mainted by GE. The risks were known and covered up since 1971, the science showed a pressurised water reactor should have been built instead of the GE design.

The documentary covers how safe nuclear is and how the public have misplaced paranoia about it following Chernobyl, Windscale and Three Mile Island due to the use of designs known to be fundamentally flawed and ignoring safety warnings.

There's a big problem in the UK and Europe in general with 'green' groups spreading misinfo and hysteria about nuclear power. It causes far less deaths, far less polution and is the greenest source of energy per MW.

Fusion is far safer and greener still and pretty much cracked and controllable, the major barrier is generating H-3 or avoid WW3 when deciding who gets to mine the Moon/Jupiter for it.