Here is a time lapse video of the 9 year construction, quite fascinating to watch: <a href="http://www.ipp.mpg.de/115632/zeitraffer_w7x" rel="nofollow">http://www.ipp.mpg.de/115632/zeitraffer_w7x</a><p>YouTube mirror: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk</a><p>A more technical video explaining how it works: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA</a>
Pretty cool. One of the more interesting things about fusion research is how the expansion of the ability to do complex fluid dynamics has helped design plasma flows. Such designs were computationally infeasible before. The inter-related requirement of computation and understanding on the delivery of viable fusion solutions has been, in my opinion, the unseen anchor of fusion.
It seems like they've done all of this at a surprisingly low cost.<p>1 million assembly hours at 370 million project cost = 370 Euros/hour (assembly + management overhead costs).
This is absolutely awesome. So many people coming together to design and construct such a complicated experiment. Excellent work and let's hope it teaches us how to do fusion.
Site was down for me so, mirror:<p>Fullpage screenshot:<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/QIj2NWk.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/QIj2NWk.jpg</a><p>Google Cache:<p><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5oATeaac608J:www.ipp.mpg.de/3985731/w7x_15_2+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5oATeaa...</a>
Wikipedia link for context: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X</a>
I understand that this is not meant to ever be a power-generating device. It is meant merely to demonstrate that it's possible to sustain a hydrogen plasma for 30+ minutes.<p>Is there any idea what scale of power generation we'd eventually be able to make with a system of similar size in the future?
The video says, that the magnetic cage has been optimized by a super-computer.<p>Does someone know, why it looks like it looks? Why is it circular? Why are the path and the surrounding magnets twisted like this? Please ELI5.
Can anyone explain tl;dr style how this will produce clean energy? I understand the idea, but how fuel is being produced because it sounds they use small quantities of helium which is easily accessible?
Could this also be used to burn waste? There are already experiments witch plasma gasification but those temperatures are much lower (13000°C).<p>Maybe some day we will all have a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor in our cars[1]<p>[1] <a href="http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion" rel="nofollow">http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion</a>
When I was growing up, this is the sort of stuff I dreamed we, humanity, would be doing in this day and age. This is the stuff Star Trek is made of (probably inspired by). Despite all the madness in the world today, I am glad some others share my childhood dream.
Wow. So complex and tightly packed. I wonder if they have any information on how serviceable the unit is, or what its operating life-cycle might be.
In any case, a fascinating achievement, this is a historic day certainly.