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2024-11-11

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Nuclear fusion reactor in South Korea runs at 100 million degrees C for a record-breaking 48 seconds (www.livescience.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Last one I read about is just constantly and very quickly (far quicker than human abilities) adjust the magnetic field around the plasma in order to keep it stable and in place. They've been (or at least one team was) using AI to go over data and control and predict the field adjustments, because only reacting after the plasma starts to move hasn't been quick enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, that'd be TAE technologies.

The algorithm was called the optometrist, it was paired with a human operator to more quickly converge on the correct settings for stable plasma by having the machine randomly tweak various meta-parameters, while the human would generally decide whether the current settings were "better" or "worse" than the previous pulse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if there isn't a stable chamber shape that promotes turbulence in a controlled manner in order to prevent it getting out of hand? A little bit like the dimples on a golf ball create micro pockets of turbulence promoting laminar flow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Unknown. There were attempts into that general idea, one of them is the polywell, but I don't know too much about it.