Earthling7228320321 t1_j6mtyrs wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:27 PM

Reply to comment by Ehldas in Major milestone for EU energy: Wind and solar produced more electricity than gas in 2022 by Zomaarwat

That's my point. It's not, but it could be.

And physics is still very much of concern here. Engineering solutions are great but at the end of the day we need a better fundamental understanding of particle behavior if we are to make it sustainable. Right now no amount of engineering alone is going to overcome the problem of neutrons rapidly destroying equipment when they start pouring out of the fusion reaction.

However difficult these problems are, if the world wasn't stuck in a status quo of exploitation and war posturing, it would certainly make the job easier.

Ehldas t1_j6mut8f wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:34 PM

>Right now no amount of engineering alone is going to overcome the problem of neutrons rapidly destroying equipment when they start pouring out of the fusion reaction.

Really? You should tell that to the engineers who invented the FLiBe blanket, specifically designed to capture the neutrons "flooding out" and turn them into useful tritium to feed back into the fusion cycle, while also protecting the rest of the fusion reactor vessel.

Earthling7228320321 t1_j6n17bz wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:23 PM

So then why are they still a problem?

Ehldas t1_j6n3rrg wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:42 PM

I didn't say neutrons were a specific problem : you did.

There are plenty of other engineering problems, including long duration high-temperature divertors, tungsten chemistries for wall endurance, new magnet chemistries of higher power and smaller size, computing designs to continue optimising plasma flow control especially at edges, and overall reactor design for ease of construction, maintenance, etc.

Earthling7228320321 t1_j6n6yss wrote on January 31, 2023 at 3:04 PM

My point was that we'd solve these problems a lot faster if worked on getting along. But I realize that's just a pipe dream so this whole convo is kinda rooted in pointlessness. I wasn't really arguing about the specifics.