this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 75 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Wiggling magnetic fields make electricity

Fusion reactors have wiggling magnetic fields.

Simple as

[–] marcos 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

I really cant decide if that's a joke.

But you have to move from "Fusion reactors have wiggling magnetic fields." into "Fusion reactors create wiggling magnetic fields."

I'm out of the loop here, but I can almost guarantee that whoever people are talking about, they didn't achieve that change.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Simple as

There’s your clue

[–] marcos 6 points 3 weeks ago

Consider me clued

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Here's a video explaining the principal. They haven't achieved more outpit than input yet, but fusion creates giant magnetic fields that can in theory generate electricity. It's really fascinating

[–] marcos 9 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, man. They are working on direct electricity generation from 2H + 3He.

First, that's not new. But then, everything coming out of the mouth of that guy is bullshit. No idea why he doesn't want to explain it, but it's not "hot plasma creates magnetic field and we harvest it".

Anyway, assuming it's not a scam, good luck to them. Google offers me another video saying that one is a scam, though. And given that 2H + 3He fusion is about an order of magnitude harder than what everybody else is doing, I'm prone to believe the title.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

yeah I don't trust that video one bit, when I watched it it sounded like just a recruitment ad for the company. same with his hermeus video

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Hard agree, unsubscribed from real engineering the moment I realised they made ads without ever declaring it. It's literally just propaganda at this point

[–] Donjuanme 3 points 3 weeks ago

But it takes wiggling magnetic fields to confine fusion reactions, seems like taking energy from inefficient containment, or there's more energy than required being used on containment which is lowering the overall efficiency....

I am just a chemist.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are other more efficient working fluids for power transfer but water is pretty hard to beat due to it not being toxic or an environmental hazard.

[–] mipadaitu 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If your water isn't an environmental hazard, you're not trying hard enough.

[–] trolololol 1 points 2 weeks ago

water coolant in nuclear reactor enters the chat

Marketing person looking for fancy drinking water enters the chat

Narrator: you wouldn't guess what happens next

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago

What a novel and interesting idea! If only it wasn't all a huge scam to take money from investors!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll believe it when they actually generate net electricity output. I don't necessarily think they're a scam per se, but given the relative resources available and difficulty even for international projects to get fusion power working, I don't suspect their efforts will be successful. Would love to be proven wrong of course, or if not for their work to at least contribute useful progress to the effort.

[–] dyc3 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I have, that was how I heard about them in the first place actually

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Remember that time when a physicist proposed a Thorium Potassium reactor which woudl run at a lower temperature and the feature that the reaction would destroy itself before ever going critical and the world was like "interesting" and then he said "and it even prevents weaponised uranium" and then the world went "no thank you"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

ITER isn't figuring it out, I doubt this tiny private corporation is going to contribute anything meaningful.

[–] SuperIce 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're taking completely different approaches to fusion though.

[–] RubberElectrons 2 points 3 weeks ago

Without good instrumentation. Almost purposely lacking..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Pretty much everything that's not totally inert produces heat, but the point (they claim!) is that these newfangled doodads don't generate power using that heat.

So far we've mainly been generating power with more and more ingenious ways of heating up water.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

So it's a turbine then?