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New Approach Could Mean Break-Even Nuclear Fusion Reactions Within 2-3 Years

Posted November 15, 2010 10:49 AM

From Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine:

Even with all the developments taking place in the areas of alternative energy such as solar and wind power, nuclear fusion still remains the holy grail of clean electricity generation. However, after decades of worldwide research costing billions of dollars, the goal of achieving "net-gain," where more energy is produced than is required to trigger the fusion chain reaction, still remains elusive. Now researchers at Sandia Labs are claiming a breakthrough that could see break-even fusion reactions in as little as two to three years...

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Guru

Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 1013
Good Answers: 36
#1

Re: New Approach Could Mean Break-Even Nuclear Fusion Reactions Within 2-3 Years

11/16/2010 6:45 AM

This is still a whishing 2 - 3 years to hopefully reach equilibrium or balance in/out power ==> Zero instead of negative. We keep getting these promises aal the time since the 1950s! controlled positive workable Nuclear Fusion is still far off UNLESS a completely new discovery is made to eliminate all the complicated pyramidical patch solutions beeing looked at until now.

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Power-User

Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Orinda, CA
Posts: 249
Good Answers: 14
#2

Re: New Approach Could Mean Break-Even Nuclear Fusion Reactions Within 2-3 Years

11/16/2010 8:26 AM

Harnessing fusion will be at least as big a problem as creating it. Inertial confinement fusion would seem to offer better prospects of harnessing than magnetic confinement fusion. A fusion event, to be useful for power generation, would necessarily be at a very small scale, and how to integrate a multitude of microscopic fusion effects to get net power out looks like a tough challenge.

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