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Nuclear fusion reactor in South Korea runs at 100 million degrees C for a record-breaking 48 seconds
(www.livescience.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Stupid guy here, being ridiculously hot is the whole point right? Isn't a fusion reactor just an extremely complex steam engine?
The difficult bit is to keep the fuel fusing. At the temperatures and pressures that are needed to get atoms to fuse together the whole lot wants to blow itself apart. Being able to reliability sustain the reaction for any length of time is a big achievement.
Once we can get it to keep going, then yes, we can use the excess heat for power, although it'll probably involve turbines rather than an old school steam engine type setup.
How are they even containing that heat as this is obviously warm enough to melt everything in existence (as far as I know)?
ELI5 would be huge magnets. If there is something that melts everything humanity ever created and knows of, keep it away from everything. But it is a real problem, instability in the plasma leads to the need for better materials.