Exclusive: Secretive fusion company claims reactor breakthrough

FOOTHILL RANCH, CALIFORNIA—In a suburban industrial park south of Los Angeles, researchers have taken a significant step toward mastering nuclear fusion—a process that could provide abundant, cheap, and clean energy. A privately funded company called Tri Alpha Energy has built a machine that forms a ball of superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius—and holds it steady for 5 milliseconds without decaying away. That may seem a mere blink of an eye, but it is far longer than other efforts with the technique and shows for the first time that it is possible to hold the gas in a steady state—the researchers stopped only when their machine ran out of juice.

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CrazyNeutrino said:

Exclusive: Secretive fusion company claims reactor breakthrough

FOOTHILL RANCH, CALIFORNIA—In a suburban industrial park south of Los Angeles, researchers have taken a significant step toward mastering nuclear fusion—a process that could provide abundant, cheap, and clean energy. A privately funded company called Tri Alpha Energy has built a machine that forms a ball of superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius—and holds it steady for 5 milliseconds without decaying away. That may seem a mere blink of an eye, but it is far longer than other efforts with the technique and shows for the first time that it is possible to hold the gas in a steady state—the researchers stopped only when their machine ran out of juice.

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Looks like commercial noocular fusion could be only 15-20 years away.

A whole 5 milliseconds

wookiemeister said:

A whole 5 milliseconds

It did mention it stopped as they ran out of fuel, perhaps the next step is second or minutes which would show it may be feasible

Cymek said:

wookiemeister said:

A whole 5 milliseconds

It did mention it stopped as they ran out of fuel, perhaps the next step is second or minutes which would show it may be feasible

I would be worried that the process only had 5ms of fuel in the first place, it doesn’t make sense you’d only have 5ms of fuel. i’m sure theres some excuse but they have been promising a fusion process for decades

fusion is that place you put the whizz kids that are too smart for their own good

wookiemeister said:

Cymek said:

wookiemeister said:

A whole 5 milliseconds

It did mention it stopped as they ran out of fuel, perhaps the next step is second or minutes which would show it may be feasible

I would be worried that the process only had 5ms of fuel in the first place, it doesn’t make sense you’d only have 5ms of fuel. i’m sure theres some excuse but they have been promising a fusion process for decades

fusion is that place you put the whizz kids that are too smart for their own good

It does seem strange they had only enough fuel for 5 milliseconds, perhaps they all chipped in and thats all they could afford.
With fusion power generation I wonder if originally they thought it would be as easy as fission power generation and even now our technology is only just able to make simplistic test machinery

Cymek said:

wookiemeister said:

Cymek said:

It did mention it stopped as they ran out of fuel, perhaps the next step is second or minutes which would show it may be feasible

I would be worried that the process only had 5ms of fuel in the first place, it doesn’t make sense you’d only have 5ms of fuel. i’m sure theres some excuse but they have been promising a fusion process for decades

fusion is that place you put the whizz kids that are too smart for their own good

It does seem strange they had only enough fuel for 5 milliseconds, perhaps they all chipped in and thats all they could afford.
With fusion power generation I wonder if originally they thought it would be as easy as fission power generation and even now our technology is only just able to make simplistic test machinery

it sounds fishy

> But burning hydrogen-boron fuel requires truly enormous temperatures, more than 3 billion degrees Celsius

> superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius

So, short by a factor of at least 300.

mollwollfumble said:

> But burning hydrogen-boron fuel requires truly enormous temperatures, more than 3 billion degrees Celsius

> superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius

So, short by a factor of at least 300.

Do you think we will have commercial fusion in our lifetime, lets give us all another 40 years or so

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

> But burning hydrogen-boron fuel requires truly enormous temperatures, more than 3 billion degrees Celsius

> superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius

So, short by a factor of at least 300.

Do you think we will have commercial fusion in our lifetime, lets give us all another 40 years or so

Do you think it will never happen? I think it will happen…eventually…assuming no stray asteroids.

AwesomeO said:

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

> But burning hydrogen-boron fuel requires truly enormous temperatures, more than 3 billion degrees Celsius

> superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius

So, short by a factor of at least 300.

Do you think we will have commercial fusion in our lifetime, lets give us all another 40 years or so

Do you think it will never happen? I think it will happen…eventually…assuming no stray asteroids.

No I do think it will happen

my take on fusion is that you need to create an apparent artificial mass

if gravity is a true wave then perhaps you could amplify the wave in a central spot and create an artificial gravitational spot (yes I know it doesn’t work that way)

the gas would be injected and as it crossed a set spot the artificial gravity field was suddenly switched on

the gas would then collapse into a smaller volume and fusion would occur

fusion would occur like a PWM

gas injection

fusion

gas injection

fusion

to the human eye the fusion process would look continuous but it would actually be happening so many times a second

the fusion process would then be tuned to the particular fuel being used

presumably you’d need a controller that would sense the output and adjust gas injection/ fusion timing

wookiemeister said:

my take on fusion is that you need to create an apparent artificial mass

if gravity is a true wave then perhaps you could amplify the wave in a central spot and create an artificial gravitational spot (yes I know it doesn’t work that way)

the gas would be injected and as it crossed a set spot the artificial gravity field was suddenly switched on

the gas would then collapse into a smaller volume and fusion would occur

fusion would occur like a PWM

gas injection

fusion

gas injection

fusion

my take on fusion is powerful magnetic fields to hold in 3 billion degrees give or take

To be fair we can create fusion at will, sustainable and controllable fusion is the harder part.

CrazyNeutrino said:

wookiemeister said:

my take on fusion is that you need to create an apparent artificial mass

if gravity is a true wave then perhaps you could amplify the wave in a central spot and create an artificial gravitational spot (yes I know it doesn’t work that way)

the gas would be injected and as it crossed a set spot the artificial gravity field was suddenly switched on

the gas would then collapse into a smaller volume and fusion would occur

fusion would occur like a PWM

gas injection

fusion

gas injection

fusion

my take on fusion is powerful magnetic fields to hold in 3 billion degrees give or take

yes, i’m using a fantastical method to hold the atoms in place

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

> But burning hydrogen-boron fuel requires truly enormous temperatures, more than 3 billion degrees Celsius

> superheated gas—at about 10 million degrees Celsius

So, short by a factor of at least 300.

Do you think we will have commercial fusion in our lifetime, lets give us all another 40 years or so

What most people ignore is that fusion only works as a commercial power source when combined with fission. The fusion produces neutrons that interact with a heavy isotope to fission it. This is “cleaner” than pure fission.

mollwollfumble said:

What most people ignore is that fusion only works as a commercial power source when combined with fission. The fusion produces neutrons that interact with a heavy isotope to fission it. This is “cleaner” than pure fission.

What?

As we don’t have a commercial fusion power source in any way, shape or form, I suspect this is a mighty big call.

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

What most people ignore is that fusion only works as a commercial power source when combined with fission. The fusion produces neutrons that interact with a heavy isotope to fission it. This is “cleaner” than pure fission.

What?

As we don’t have a commercial fusion power source in any way, shape or form, I suspect this is a mighty big call.

Most of the stuff I read about is trying to compress pellets of duetronium and then sustain the process.

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

What most people ignore is that fusion only works as a commercial power source when combined with fission. The fusion produces neutrons that interact with a heavy isotope to fission it. This is “cleaner” than pure fission.

What?

As we don’t have a commercial fusion power source in any way, shape or form, I suspect this is a mighty big call.

I think it works this way in nuclear bombs