RE: Experimental Energy - Fusion
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I don’t think you or I will be around to see it given historical timelines between theory and applications.
Hans Beth in 1930s, if I’m not mistaken first proposed that the stars used the H-H fusion. Research into fusion started as early as the 1920s.
Hans Beth received the Nobel Prize in the late 60s after the scientific community confirmed it.
The first fusion reactor that created a plasma was the Russian T-3 Tokamak in 1968 (need confirmation).
So between the 1920s and the JETs most efficient plasma and fusion run in 1983 we’re looking at roughly 63 years. When ITER succeeds at maintaining a continuous plasma in 10 years it would put that date range to 110 years.
The rough date range does not include the challenges to heat removal, waste-, and radiation management.
Thanks again for your very thorough answer.
That's why I was asking about the chance of a breakthrough :)
Have a great week.
I hope you have a great week as well.
I need to learn how to fully read questions. I think I can accomplish that task but I find I don’t always reach the goal.
When you wrote about breakthroughs I only focused upon the technologies I was writing about. Breakthroughs in plasma management would significantly speed up the dev process.
There is another fusion process I deliberately didn’t discuss in this article because I wanted to handle it separately: muon-induced fusion. It can occur at room temperature and even cryogenic temperatures.
This would be a breakthrough :)
Don't worry about the questions and answers game. You can't know what goes on in my head when I pose the question.
To explain it a bit. Currently, I am reading Cixin Liu's trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past
It's an intriguing read. A mixture of hard sci-fi, sociology, philosophy, ...
One of the major points of the series is the distinction of natural progress versus a breakthrough or a leap in scientific progress.
Like in space travel propellant, for example. Classic propulsion (rocket fuel) vs nuclear power (fission) vs fusion power.
Thanks a lot for this discussion, I appreciate it very much.