Originally Posted by
rickair7777
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/13/11422...climate-change
This is getting a lot of media attention, but I feel compelled to point out that it's much less of a breakthrough and more of a milestone.
We have been close to or right at break-even energy production in a fusion core for some time, now we're a little further along, clearly on the right side of the Q (fusion energy gain) scale. Looks they got Q = 1.4 ish (Q =1.0 is breakeven).
But to produce viable commercial power output you'd need a Q value well above break even, maybe 20-40? The ITER project is shooting for Q =10, but their goal is fusion core science not actual energy production.
There are also ideas which would capture fusion energy via the magnetic fields used to contain it, basically extract electrical power directly out of the core which would dispense with the conventional heat capture=>boil water=>spin turbine model. This might work commercially with a lower Q. Specifically Helion corporation's concept.
It's a sham. They are using Qlaser/plasma figures instead of Qtotal. So they are saying x amount of laser energy yielded y amount of fusion energy...but they are not telling you how much it takes to power said laser to get to that energy...and lasers, especially of this magnitude, are far from "efficient". So the total power in is way way more than what they are claiming, what was produced was only a fraction of that.
More on this here, although she was referencing the latest round at the time of her video, I've gone back and looked carefully at this latest breakthrough and they appear to be referencing the power of the laser, just like she is talking about, not the total power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY