France Breaks Fusion World Record

France's WEST nuclear reactor sets a record breaking time for maintaining plasma thats 10 times hotter than our sun. A huge step towards a viable fusion reactor.

#nuclear #fusion #tokamak #worldrecord #shorts

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[GJ]

It used to be that grid scale fusion was always 20 years away, now it's always 10 years away, so that's an improvement.

[loganv]

As an undergrad engineering student in the 1970's reliable fusion energy was promised to be 10-20 years away. Glad to hear that we've lowered that to "could be" 10-15 years.

[CozyBoat]

And what are we gonna do with all this heat?!

BOIL MORE WATER

I enjoy coming back here every so often to see the “um actually, ” comments.

[cloudedescape]

i remember when it was like 0.2 seconds, now it's nearly half an hour

[gluhves]

1337, i thought i'd never hear that number again

[elanasilverman]

Okay, I'm glad someone else noticed the "LEET" thing, too.

[shawnsustrich]

This is a great competition that when one team wins we'll all win

[alexander]

I like these kinds of rivalries between countries, rather than having weapon races

[asuramaru]

Aliens excavating earth 2000 years after nuclear extinction:
"Damn, these humans really loved to find ways to boil water, must have been a hobby of sorts"


Ragebaited nerds counter: 3

[Tiaoxea]

22 minutes… miniature sun…
Are we making the Ash Twin Project?

[Utopian]

Oil companies sweating wondering how they can lobby against this

[OnesimusX]

Great video, but here's the key if hasn't already been said: While the experiment sustained a plasma for a remarkable 22 minutes, it did not achieve a net energy gain. The energy injected into the plasma was higher than the energy extracted.

[panzerkiller]

This video is a bit misleading in the sense that both of these reactors are actually under the work of teams that are actively collaborating with each other. The Chinese team does research and experiments and shares with the French and the French do the same.


This is a collective effort of the two teams, not each one working by themselves.

[MantraHerbInchSin]

1337, this is where the timeline splits

[esven]

It's worth noting that magnetic confinement fusion in a tokamak reactor is a fundamentally discontinuous process. Even a perfect reactor of this type designed to produce power would do so in bursts where it would need to repeatedly ramp up, reach a stable state where it was producing power, then ramp down again before starting over. So these extended duration tests are a lot more promising and a lot closer to a feasible reactor design than you may think.

To function you need to induce a large current in the plasma going around the torus. To induce a current in the plasma you need a changing magnetic field. This is for the same reason a transformer only works with an alternating current. In a tokamak that requires using a magnetic field that is constantly increasing to establish and maintain the conditions for fusion. You can't increase a magnetic field indefinitely though, even super-conducting electromagnets eventually saturate. This means fusion conditions can only be maintained in bursts before the magnetic field needs to be ramped down again. The longer those conditions can be maintained though the more efficient the design will be. The same is true for a reactor which can maintain a hotter denser plasma. If you thought magnetic confinement fusion was continuous and were disappointed by the idea of an extended duration test only lasting 22 minutes hopefully this helps explain some things and makes you feel a little more optimistic about the progress so far.

[Smartapillo]

I am one of the cooling guys of the ITER reactor 😅

A minuscule plate opposite the particle stream, cooled by a liquid LiPb alloy at 250-300⁰C. This project took 2 years to complete, and was the best job I ever had. Coding took only 2 months, though. The waiting game 😊

[MaximeFlamevideo]

The "West" Tokamak is made by Iter that is is an *international* nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject. China is part of the project...

[RoofusRoof]

One thing france does right is their nuclear grid. Everything would get cheaper if power got cheaper, even oil/gas would be cheaper if we didnt need them for power

[Matticitt]

I remember when those fusuion reactions only lasted seconds so there's been an absurd improvement over the year. Hopefull that means fusion is 20 years away...

[CoQtyOfficial]

As a french habitant, Vive la France!