I'm studying Physics at the moment and Prof. gave us a printout of a textbook last week stating that the internal of the sun generates approximately 150 W / m³ on average. That's about as much as a compost pile, so, not very much. The sun only generates enormous amounts of power because it's so huge. In other words, reproducing fusion on Earth might actually not be very efficient.
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
438 points (97.2% liked)
Science
3418 readers
176 users here now
General discussions about "science" itself
Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Different kind of fusion. Don't forget hydrogen bombs have been around for decades, right? They're just not very controlled and harnessable.
To the sun's credit, it's 4.5 billion years in and it's still got plenty of juice left to go.
load more comments
(10 replies)
Meh, net gain is the point, long cycles well be useful for production. Useful, eventually. Cart before the horse, otherwise.
Can't wait for my Trumper boss to bring this up at work again as "Did you hear China secretly replaced the sun?"
That's fucked up. I don't even know my boss's politics, (as it should be). Do you have an HR department? This is a huge liability for your company...
Bro this is the American Bible belt, almost every person I've ever directly reported to across a dozen or so jobs, has been the exact same way. I've always known my bosses politics, much to my displeasure, and they've always been extremely conservative, regardless of the field of work.
It should be a huge liability, but the US is a fucked up place. Even “blue” states are full of people at work voraciously politicizing everything, always thinking they are right about everything. These people are everywhere, they lack humility and critical thinking, and they are insufferable.
0 theoretical hope for fusion energy to ever provide electricity under 30c/kwh. These are hot plasma experiments, which could be used to produce mass HHO from water vapour at just 2200C-3000C, even if endothermic. Can get energy from concentrated solar mirrors or just PV solar if plasma is used. Cooling magnets is a huge energy drain. HHO provide the highest turbine energy gain, though a net gain pathway is just slightly more in reach than fusion.
Yes but do you concur?