UK's Newest Tokamak Fusion Reactor Has Created Its First Plasma (futurism.com) 308
After being switched on for the first time last Friday, the UK's newest fusion reactor has successfully generated a molten mass of electrically-charged gas, or plasma, inside its core. Futurism reports: Called the ST40, the reactor was constructed by Tokamak Energy, one of the leading private fusion energy companies in the world. The company was founded in 2009 with the express purpose of designing and developing small fusion reactors to introduce fusion power into the grid by 2030. Now that the ST40 is running, the company will commission and install the complete set of magnetic coils needed to reach fusion temperatures. The ST40 should be creating a plasma temperature as hot as the center of the Sun -- 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) -- by Autumn 2017. By 2018, the ST40 will produce plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit), another record-breaker for a privately owned and funded fusion reactor. That temperature threshold is important, as it is the minimum temperature for inducing the controlled fusion reaction. Assuming the ST40 succeeds, it will prove that its novel design can produce commercially viable fusion power.
hot hOT HOT! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hot hOT HOT! (Score:5, Funny)
It doesn't matter if the containment field doesn't hold - the company is based in Milton Keynes.
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If that explodes and destroys the surrounding area it could do literally twenty quids worth of damage. Even more if it hits the local Argos.
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It doesn't matter if the containment field doesn't hold - the company is based in Milton Keynes.
Hate to spoil your joke but the company is based down the road from JET in Oxfordshire, nowhere near Milton Keynes. Different Milton.
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Oh yes, what a shame. Never mind, I don't have much love for Oxfordshire either.
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It doesn't matter if the containment field doesn't hold - the company is based in Milton Keynes.
If the magnetic containment doesn't hold the plasma, the grid of boring streets will.
Re:hot hOT HOT! (Score:4, Funny)
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100 million degrees celsius? I hope the containment system will hold...
Containment of a 100 million degree microwaved plasma? Is it just me or does it sound suspiciously like a Hot Pocket? ;)
Re: hot hOT HOT! (Score:2)
What's its flux capacity? (Score:2)
It's the not the temperature it's the flux capacitance I care about. When it reaches 1.21 jigawatts look out!
Long road ahead... (Score:2, Informative)
FWIW they don't plan on breaking net zero energy with this model. Their current plam is their *next* model to break even energy by 2020...
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If you think about it, even if a lab-scale version were to be net positive energy tomorrow, it would still be, what, 20-odd years to see a true grid-scale version?
5 years to fund and build a scaled-up model plant at some reasonable fraction of a grid scale plant, say, 100 megawatts, another 5 years of debugging and operation to convince anyone that a grid-scale version was workable, and then another 10 years to fund, site, build and operate the first grid-scale plant.
And even if it worked perfectly as inten
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As this project is run by a private company, you hardly can tell them how to 'better invest their money' :)
My hobby (Score:2)
My hobby: extrapolating [xkcd.com].
I'm rooting for viable fusion power as much as the next guy, but only time will tell if they will be able to reach those temperatures.
Until now, nobody has been able to make a tokamak fully work, so the burden of proof is on them.
First plasma is kinda like getting a new boat wet (Score:2)
A molten mass of dumbing down (Score:2)
"Molten mass" indeed. Wouldn't you expect, when writing to an audience, that is at least marginally interested in technical and scientific issues, that they would be able to understand (or at least willing to put up with) technical terms? Too many popularisers of science go too far in dumbing down what they write, or perhaps that is their own level of understanding. I find it disrespectful of your audience, when you try to convert everything to baby-language and inept simile. Like that other gripe of mine:
Re:A molten mass of dumbing down (Score:4, Informative)
Science Journalists are often journalists that write about science. TV producers even more so. So they write what they understand. At least this talks a bit about the science and not just about the scientists -- human interest, journos understand that.
Is it a mass of incandescent gas or (Score:2)
Stop Converting to F (Score:2, Insightful)
We shouldn't keep enabling the US to keep using its backwards measurement system, let alone the UK or Canada where it's mixtures of metric and imperial in inconsistent ways.
Just give C, no one here should need F
Fusion power is a success story (Score:2)
For at least 50 years now, commercially viable fusion power has been about 10 years away.
What twaddle (Score:2)
"We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built, and operated by a private venture. "
What complete BS. Off the top of my head I can name the KMS ICF and the Riggatron as pure private-venture reactors that pre-date this one by*decades*. The later is named for the bank that funded it.
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:5, Informative)
Wind cheaper than coal, solar than nuke/oil (Score:5, Informative)
Both already have a ROI in less than a decade and are profitable almost immediately, having zero fuel cost.
You're waiting because you refuse to stop waiting and complaining.
ALL power "only succeeds" here in the UK because of government subsidies. If you pay for or install your own coal fired power station it will never pay back. Don't even try nuke.
Re:Wind cheaper than coal, solar than nuke/oil (Score:4, Insightful)
Both already have a ROI in less than a decade
Except solar definitely does not in the wonderful cloudy parts of the world near the north sea.
So use what you have (Score:5, Insightful)
Except solar definitely does not in the wonderful cloudy parts of the world near the north sea.
You mean those locations with cloudy skies and lots of wind? So use wind power if your specific location isn't ideal for solar. Last I checked there was no lack of wind in the North Sea.
I don't get why some people keep arguing that solar isn't good in general because it doesn't work for every circumstance everywhere. Solar works fine and it's now economic in a huge number of cases. Better yet it's going to continue to get cheaper and more efficient with time. Yes if you live somewhere where it is foggy 300+ days a year solar is probably not for you. That doesn't describe most places where people live.
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Insightful)
Solar works fine and it's now economic in a huge number of cases...
So here's the problem for the UK. As I write, renewables are doing well at 18.5% of power generation: a rare sunny day means that 15.1% is from solar with a gentle breeze producing a further 2.9%.
But the sun doesn't shine at night. Britain is a cold, dark country so we need lots of energy at night. At 6.30 this morning, only 4% of our energy came from renewables and, as a result, we had to import more than 10% of our energy requirements from France's largely nuclear power stations. Thanks, France - without you, my morning would have been a bleak one.
Data from here: http://nationalgrid.stephenmor... [stephenmorley.org]
Re:So use what you have (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Interesting)
The UK has 2 large pumped-storage stations, Dinorwig and Ffestiniog are good for 4 GW combined.
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Informative)
Cruachan can run for over 20 hours at peak
Dinorwig can run for 6 hours
Ffestiniog can run for four hours
No one suggested they can meet the UK electric consumption alone, but the idea that any of these stations is only good for minutes of generation is demonstrably false.
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As someone who missed being able to fish for anadromous species, please, no more hydro. Impoundment is bad enough, but barriers to spawning are just the last insult to species that have to run a gauntlet of commercial fisheries, numerically advantaged predators, and escaped cultured variants that disrupt the native, free run populations and cause spawning failures,
We are learning that hydro isn't free of negative consequences either.
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> Britain is a cold, dark country so we need lots of energy at night
No you don't. The night time load is about 1/2 the daytime, and that's why it's cheaper if you're on Economy 7 and 10.
> we had to import more than 10% of our energy requirements
Canada is awash with hydro and nuclear, and we import power all the time. It makes load balancing much easier if your grid spans as wide an area as possible.
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Insightful)
> Britain is a cold, dark country so we need lots of energy at night
No you don't. The night time load is about 1/2 the daytime, and that's why it's cheaper if you're on Economy 7 and 10.
You're missing the point.
Our peak electricity demand usually falls between 5.00pm and 6.00pm in winter when people get home and switch on their electric kettles, electric cookers, electric lights, electric TVs, electric showers, electric water heating and, in many cases, supplementary electric heating. In winter it's dark at that time of day; hence my use of the term 'night'. In the winter months, it's exceptionally rare for solar power to produce any of our power needs at the time of peak demand. Typically the only exception is Christmas Day when millions of turkeys and roast potatoes are simultaneously roasted whilst the weak winter sun feebly attempts to spark a photo-voltaic reaction through dense blankets of winter cloud.
Of course energy consumption falls dramatically later in the day when people do to bed, but it also rises again when they get up before dawn. The problem comes when it's cold and dark outside but we're all wide awake inside.
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Informative)
> You're missing the point.
I responded directly to your point. Don't blame me if you choose to redefine the terms "night" and "lots". And for that matter "cold", which no one in the UK should dare to define to someone who lives in Toronto!
In any event, its besides the issue anyway. As one can see on the National Grid's website:
http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/Electricity-transmission-operational-data/Data-Explorer/
There is plenty of demand during the day that PV can take. Every watt that comes from that is one that didn't come from something else, which is generally a good thing. Sure, if you keep moving the goalposts and coming up with new reasons why "it will never work" you could probably keep us going forever. But if you want to solve actual problems, PV is certainly part of that solution, as those very same CSV files demonstrate (they even have a separate column for it). Also surprising is the amount of pumped storage.
Re:So use what you have (Score:4, Informative)
> Britain is a country with a huge number of poorly insulated homes.
I lived in Ireland for a year. One night I was getting cold on a windy night and noticed the drapes on the main window in the living room were blowing around. Ah ha, I just need to close the window!
The window was closed.
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You mean those locations with cloudy skies and lots of wind?
Yes that's exactly what I mean. And I'm not against green energy, just against stupid catch all remarks that say something is better than something else or has some specific ROI without taking into account any specifics.
So use wind power
Residential wind hasn't taken off for a simple reason, it is incredibly inefficient. The GP was specifically talking about a home installation. Wind simply doesn't work in these cases. That said yes the UK could use a lot more wind energy.
I don't get why some people keep arguing that solar isn't good in general because it doesn't work for every circumstance everywhere
No one here said anything like that, read through the
Circumstance dependant (Score:4, Interesting)
And I'm not against green energy, just against stupid catch all remarks that say something is better than something else or has some specific ROI without taking into account any specifics.
We are in accord on that point.
Residential wind hasn't taken off for a simple reason, it is incredibly inefficient.
Again, whether residential wind power is useful is circumstance dependent. Sometimes it makes perfect sense as a supplement even on a home installation. I know a few local hobby farms that have smallish wind turbines which were economically sensible for their location. And who said it had to be residential? Communities can install large wind turbines and share the power. If rooftop solar doesn't work and the geography doesn't work for residential wind, then get the neighbors together for a large wind turbine. Battery systems for both home and grid scale are starting to become a real thing too.
Where my house is located (near the upper Great Lakes [wikipedia.org]) wind doesn't make much sense but both grid and residential turbines make a ton of sense just 80 miles from my house and in fact are used. Conversely our local power company and a fair number of houses have solar installations which work great. Just our local geography. No one power source fits every circumstance and location.
No one here said anything like that, read through the thread again.
The claim was "Except solar definitely does not in the wonderful cloudy parts of the world near the north sea." which has nothing specifically to do with residential. Furthermore my statement was something of a more general statement aimed towards the people who invariably and unhelpfully point out that the sun doesn't shine 24/7.
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> just against stupid catch all remarks that say something is better than something else or has some specific ROI without taking into account any specifics.
Like your statement, which has no specifics?
Here, anyone can do this themselves. Go to pvwatts.nrel.gov and type in a nearby location. Change the system size to 1 kW and adjust the tilt angle - if you're above 40 degrees use 30 degrees instead of whatever they default to for California. You may also want to change the panel type to premium, because by
Re:So use what you have (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does that include Germany? Because everyone knows that Germany is a lot sunnier than the U.S. [youtube.com] I suppose the U.K. must be in the same situation.
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No. Both only have an ROI of less than a decade IN CERTAIN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS.
Solar in SoCal, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona generally have a fast payback. Because they see tons of son overall.
Solar in Hawaii has a fast payback because the price of power in Hawaii is high due to geographic isolation.
Solar power in Chicago, or Minneapolis or Detroit or Seattle is a MUCH different story.
Sure, they can provide economical power. But, without subsidies, the payback period extends pretty much to the EOL for t
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Yes and no. I think if we were to include the carbon tax (i.e., global warming, acidification of the oceans, heavy metals released from burning coal, removal of waste coal ash, the cost of transporting oil, etc.) and include the cost of building solar and wind, the equation might look a bit different.
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The U.S. isn't any better
A few numbers
http://news.energysage.com/how... [energysage.com]
In 2017, most homeowners are paying between $2.87 and $3.85 per watt to install solar, and the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $16,800. Using the U.S, average for system size at 5 kW (5000 watts), solar panel cost will range from $10,045 to $13,475 (after tax credits).
Last I looked a Dollar a watt was breakeven with net metering in place and no incentives.
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:5, Informative)
The cost is no longer the panels; it's the installation. Panels are dirt cheap in bulk.
When talking about solar prices, it's important to make a distinction between home installs and grid-scale installs. The latter in the US is now averaging around $1,50 per kW, and some installs are coming in around $1 per kW. Which is crazy-cheap, even taking into account the capacity factor.
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure it's $1/kW, not $1/W?
It's $/W. Interestingly, though, it's under 2 now and almost to 1, and when I started looking seriously at buying panels ten years ago it was over 4.
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That should read $1/W, not kW. Shuold porffraed bettre.
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Thanks to price gouging from energy utilities it passed that point long ago for residential solar users in a lot of places. It doesn't have to be the cheapest energy to produce, just cheaper than what you have to pay for.
For energy utilities themselves it's not quite so obvious since the cheapest power station is usually the one built and paid for long ago.
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No, it's called guzzaline in that mythology.
Maybe you should learn about the world via something other than movies?
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually, there are a class of small nuclear reactors referred to as 'nuclear batteries'; Here's one;
http://thefutureofthings.com/3299-hyperion-nuclear-batteries/
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:4, Informative)
Actually there is such a thing as a nuclear battery.
Essentially it's a chunk of pure plutonium which generate power as the element decays.
It's useful for low power operations over a VERY extended period (like space probes).
Elsewhere, it's not so useful.
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And another reason to send people to Mars. Developing reliable, self-contained, perhaps recyclable nuclear power generation would be really useful on Mars.
Similar designs as 'neighborhood' generation would be really useful on Earth, also. Form what I can tell, it just needs another round of serious engineering, and a change in attitude. And proof.
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With zero subsidy and zero feed in tariff solar in the UK will pay for itself in 5-15 years, depending on where you live and what your consumption is like. Panels typically come with a 25 year warranty, and the ROI factors in some maintenance on the inverters etc.
Solar heating works very well too.
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:4, Informative)
Wind turbines reached grid parity in some areas of Europe in the mid-2000s, and in the US around the same time. Falling prices continue to drive the levelized cost down and it has been suggested that it has reached general grid parity in Europe in 2010, and will reach the same point in the US around 2016 due to an expected reduction in capital costs of about 12%.[25] Nevertheless, a significant amount of the wind power resource in North America remains above grid parity due to the long transmission distances involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity#Wind_power
Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:5, Informative)
Nowhere is Europe is wind producing 50% of the annual power on the grid. Not even close. Wind power cannot exist on the grid today without conventional sources to back up its intermittency.
Denmark, 49.2% of supply in 2015 (no figures for 2016 on wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Curiously the winds are a lot stronger in the winter, so thats when they have a lot of excess power to export.
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But Denmark is a net importer of electricity and they don't include that in the statistic.
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Re:That won't prove commercially viable power (Score:4, Interesting)
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Personally, I think that all energy production here in the UK should be nationalised anyway, so I don't find subsidies an issue in themselves, but regardless of your ideological view on this, it is simply absurd to pretend that nuclear power is some sort of magically efficient pure free market solution. .
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Make a fair comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
Still waiting for solar to pass its commercial viability test and I suspect wind power is a similar story.
Either you are willfully ignoring facts or you don't understand them. Solar has been economically viable in a wide variety of circumstances for quite a few years now. It's not the cheapest option everywhere (nothing is) but it's easily competitive in a great many places. Even better it's cost per unit of power generated has been dropping very rapidly with no evidence of an end in sight.
So far it only succeeds here in the UK because of government subsidies.
I could say the same thing [theguardian.com] about oil and gas in the UK. The UK subsidizes fossil fuels to the tune of billions per year directly, not to mention the indirect subsidy of not requiring coal and oil to pay the full cost of their emissions. Solar is already competitive with coal and oil in many situations and it is easily competitive if you compare the full cost of each which folks like yourself arguing against solar tend not to do.
If I pay for and install my own 5kWh solar system the returns over 20 years don't cover the cost of the initial installation, let alone a replacement inverter after 10 years or any other maintenance.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Even if we take your statement at face value (and we shouldn't), it doesn't follow that there are no solar installations anywhere (UK or elsewhere) that do not recoup their costs. It is a trivial exercise to find examples of solar installations that pay for themselves within their operational lifespan.
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Rooftop solar is about the least cost-effective way of running solar power. The panels are pretty cheap, but the cost of rooftop installation is high, the cost of the inverter is relatively high (and not amortised across a large number of panels) and the cost of the grid-feeding equipment is also relatively high. A field full of solar panels has a far lower per-panel cost, but the same per-panel power output. These typically have a 3-5 year RoI without subsidies.
The real problem with domestic solar po
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> Rooftop solar is about the least cost-effective way of running solar power
It is highly competitive above about 50 kW.
> but the cost of rooftop installation is high
For a large install on a flat roof it is close to even with ground mounts. The extra work of getting it all up there and installing around various HVAC and such is offset by the mechanically simpler and lighter install systems. It only really gets expensive in relative terms in small installs on tilted roofs.
> the cost of the inverter i
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Or you could unplug and sit in the dark.
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Eventually fusion will have a role in special applications. Space, unusual parts of the world where other sources can't be used, very high energy projects etc.
The problem for basically every source of energy is that renewables are cheap and growing rapidly, and so is storage. It's very hard to compete with that.
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What exactly makes a fission plant safer than a fusion plant?
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You said in your previous post: we started with fission because it is 'easier, safer and cheaper'.
Anyway, fission power plants are no danger. The multiple 100 million degrees plasma is basically a vacuum. The whole amount of 'hydrogen' is not much more than a thimble.
If the plasma touches the walls it is basically not melting anything but just cooling down ...
Well, I only glanced over the article, but it looks like they are pretty close to have a long running probably even net positive fusion reaction soon.
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Now that is just weird (Score:2)
All you have to do is leave the hot water somewhere to cool down, like a lake, or if you have to, seawater, and you can use it over and over again. Thermal pollution is worked around by just having a lot of outlets to dilute the heated cooling water.
I really don't get how someone can make such an obvious mistake unless it's pretended stupi
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I'm commenting on the very odd "You can't guarantee a useful site for cooling will remain viable long enough to pay back the sunk costs"
While it is a constraint there's no shortage of sites - it's not as if the water used for cooling has to be drinkable. You do need a LOT of water, but it's not as if much gets used up.
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After all that, it proves it's commercially viable.
Well I can see McDonald's licensing it for their coffee makers if that's what you mean.
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Whatever happened to the Princeton Perpetual Particle Plasma Power Physics Laboratory (PPPPPPL)? They've been cooking soup in their Tokamaks since the Big Bang was invented in the 60's, and in the early 80's, they were "just a few years away from commercially viable power."
Or did they get closed, due to the invention of cold fusion . . . ?
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> They've been cooking soup in their Tokamaks since the Big Bang was invented in the 60's,
Actually, they started with stellarators in 1951.
They got a whole lot of money in the 70s and 80s to build the TFTR, which everyone was sure was going to reach break even.
It didn't.
So they got some more money to keep the ancient Alcator going, now in C-Mod form. It keeps running, zombie like, in spite of the fact that there's nothing left to learn from it. They also have some smaller-scale machines, but most of the
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Using an artificial fusion reactor as an energy source is superior to a Dyson sphere in any scenario where you don't want to take an entire star with you.
Besides, a solid "sphere" would get smashed to bits by all the rocks, dirty snowballs and other debris that's also orbiting the star or just passing through its vicinity.
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Besides, a solid "sphere" would get smashed to bits by all the rocks, dirty snowballs and other debris that's also orbiting the star or just passing through its vicinity.
If you can build a dyson sphere, you can probably move to a quiet neighborhood before building. If you have all that energy, and some way to store large parts of it, you can shoot down all the stuff that is coming your way.
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I would assume that moving an entire star by a meaningful distance requires even more advanced civilizations than building a Dyson sphere (which "only" requires moving several planets worth of matter).
If you have all that energy, and some way to store large parts of it, you can shoot down all the stuff that is coming your way.
It will be hard to deal with debris of all sizes and velocities.
Building the "sp
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I would assume that moving an entire star by a meaningful distance requires even more advanced civilizations than building a Dyson sphere (which "only" requires moving several planets worth of matter).
There are other options, though, like "only" moving a planet... to a different star.
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I wonder if there is enough accessible mass in the solar system to build one??
If you built a Dyson Sphere at one AU (150M km), it would have a surface area of 4 pi r^2 = 2.8e17 km^2, If it was one cm thick, that would be 2.8 trillion cubic km. The volume of the earth is about 1.1 trillion cubic km, so you would need approximately two and a half earths.
You could save a lot of material by building it closer to the sun, maybe at the orbit of Venus. Or just build a Dyson Ring [wikipedia.org] instead. A full sphere may have to wait till Trump's second term.
Re:Dyson sphere ? (Score:5, Funny)
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I would imagine, once fully encapsulated, solar wind will be the least of your concerns.
Asteroids, comets, whatever the fuck happens when you bottle up a star in terms of heat, radiation, and eventual collapse.
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Dyson spheres are silly fanciful ideas (Score:2)
i think the Dyson sphere concept is cool, but I wonder if there is enough accessible mass in the solar system to build one??
No there is not. Not even close. Even if you used all the mass in the solar system, much/most of it isn't usable for such a project. The entire mass of the asteroid belt is about 4% of the mass of the moon. The entire Oort cloud might be something like 5 earth masses.
Dyson spheres are fun thought experiments but they are an utter fail unless you assume we possess a level of technology that modern humans would consider near god like.
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For example, how do you prevent whatever's hanging on the inside from falling into the central star?
One way is to spin it. You can't use all the interior capacity for living space in that case, but you can still use it for power collection.
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The different states of matter are, in order:
solid, liquid, gas, plasma, hot pocket right out of the microwave
It's not rocket science.
Microwave-heated Hot Pocket (Score:2)
Eww, people eat that dreck?
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Actually if you read it carefully, their claim of "first" refers only to the funding mechanism. And that's wrong too, there have been private reactors in the past.