this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I'd imagine, but I found this interesting:

Currently the maximum Q value achieved by humans is 1.53.

Had no idea someone had managed to get more energy out of a fusion device than they put in. Must have been unable to sustain it for any significant length of time, but still seems important.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

The Q=1.53 was done at the National Ignition Facility using inertial confinement fusion, which is significant for plasma research (and probably bombs), but can't be used to generate power.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

It was big news I want to say about a year ago when a team first published that they had done it

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Also this is just plasma gain, not whole system gain. To have a commercially viable reactor your probably need Q total > 10 at least. No system build so far even has a Q total of 1

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

It was the NIF two years ago but it's also not going to be generating power ever, it was just a demonstration/proof of concept.