Fusor Forums

Once again, MIT makes massivce claims with zero proof about their future 'tokamak". Read the articale and realize it makes one very accurate point - their machine will only produce heat; as in all hot air (lol.)

https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-fus ... -2025.html

If you read the NYT article carefully, you will see that they just published seven peer reviewed papers in the Journal of Plasma Physics that support their design. I am painfully aware of the difference between a computer model and real hardware, but they have gone much further than most fusion companies in scientifically justifying their approach. I would counsel discretion in LOL, one could end up with egg on ones face.

Oh how I wish I could have egg splattered all over my face. I have always boosted, "never fusion!", while busy doing it, myself. Doing power fusion?!.... No...Just fusion.

I grew up all during the fusion dream. I heard a fusion powered future espoused countless times with countless promises as my government spent billion in the money chasing the dream. NOW! I am once again expected to hope?! As you all know, I have given up hope......... I will gladly accept egg on my face for it will happen only once, if ever. I will no longer accept hope or have faith that "this is it!"....This is for real....This is the big one..... I have suffered too many "big ones", too many hype laden espousals to even be hopeful. Having done fusion with my own hands I no longer care.

To get my undivided attention, I must hear of a fusion reactor doing fusion to a net power gain (COP) of 10X or more that is currently running for 30 days straight, at that power level, without one single burp or shutdown.

The real win will be when the first fusion watt of energy is tumbling out of my wall outlet. I have faith that this will not happen in my life time or in this current century.

Richard Hull

I would so like to be proven wrong - it would certainly make my decade (not just my day.) I do feel that tokamak models are fairly well tested and agreement with experiments for short durations has been verified (and I'll ignore the issue of how tokamaks continue to lose control of the plasma after a very short time period - maybe the model solved that issue and it is so trivil no one would waste their time testing said model in a real currently existing tokamak before building this full sized unit.) That aside, I am so down on this because of the engineering aspects are, like so many physicist before have done, completely overlooked and assumed to be non-issues.

Andrew Seltzman is doing a post doc in plasma physics and MIT (correct if im wrong). Does he have an opinion in this by any chance?

If he is reading this, what do you think about the article?

Just thought some thought from the "inside man" would be cool

Ameen

The seven papers in the special issue of the Journal of Plasma Physics are available online with open access:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... sics-basis
Much of the content of these papers is beyond my level of understanding, but the fact that they are published in a top tier peer reviewed journal speaks for the quality of the work.

I was a co-author of a published, peer reviewed, article in the Journal of Plasma Physics in 2000. It was on water arc explosions. I was also later asked to assist in peer review of another paper on plasma physics seeking publication.

It is a good publication, but like so many papers and even patents, much of what is published is never used or followed up on that appear in many scientific journals. Articles, however, are often used as citations in other related papers at later dates.

I still hold out little hope for any form of useful fusion energy success as noted in my above posting.

Richard Hull

Just because something has received a patent doesn't mean that it works all that well.