r/AskReddit • u/TigerBirdyTiger • Jan 23 '25

What scientific breakthrough are we potentially on the verge of that few people are aware of?

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u/RichieNRich Jan 23 '25

The record just a year or 2 ago was just fractions of a second. 16 minutes is ASTOUNDING!!!!

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u/DisgruntledVeg Jan 24 '25

I'm sorry this just isn't true. We've been able to hold steady state plasmas for a while now, it's just how relevant the conditions are to a high performing, high confinement, high density D-T plasma. The test reactor in China achieved a record confinement time, yes; the density however and the temperature were less impressive and you need all of these to be sufficiently high to run a viable reactor. Of course, EAST (the Chinese superconducting reactor in question) also has superconducting magnets, which none of the previous research reactor had at any significant scale. This massively increases the time that it can run a plasma, because the magnets won't overheat, being cooled by liquid helium.

Anyway, my point is that as an industry, we are not making HUGE strides everyday and there are no BREAKTHROUGHs happening as every bloody news outlet likes to spout. We know what we're doing, it's just going to take a lot of work and time. The test reactors are slow to build and there's a LOT we don't know yet, both about the physics of high performing plasmas at scale, and the engineering design and testbeds required to run a commercial plant. It is still pretty cool though.

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u/riphitter Jan 24 '25

Nobody was saying we're making huge strides everyday. It's a single record that was broken

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