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jrowenyesterday at 6:17 PM2 repliesview on HN

Was ITER or nuclear energy in the prompt sample?

ITER achieves net positive energy for 20 consecutive minutes

That's just pure dark comedy, although maybe kinda accurate? What would humans predict for this?


Replies

rnhmjojyesterday at 6:54 PM

This would be very optimistic, essentially the project meeting its main goal, I'm not sure why you're calling it dark comedy. A 20 minutes pulse alone would mean the fuel injection, aux heating, plasma control systems and the divertor are working as designed. Net positive energy also means we got the physics of a burning plasma right.

The most recent timeline I know (from 2024) in fact puts the start of the DT operation at 2035, so I doubt ITER would achieve such a huge result within less than an year.

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colechristensenyesterday at 6:30 PM

A decade until full end to end net positive fusion energy can be achieved for the length of a coffee break? I don't get why you think that's dark comedy, it seems about right.

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