Scientists in California make a significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.
Since everyone else gave a joke answer I’ll take a stab in the dark and say the upper limits would be the availability of hydrogen and physical limitations in transforming heat output into electricity. The hydrogen is the most common element but 96% of it is currently produced from fossil fuels. After that, it would be how well you can scale up turbines to efficiently convert heat to electricity.
The hydrogen is the most common element but 96% of it is currently produced from fossil fuels.
I’m not expert either, but I don’t think most of that 96% of hydrogen is a candidate for the fusion we’re doing today. NIF (like the OP article) uses Deuterium (Hydrogen with 1 neutron) and Tritium (Hydrogen with 2 neutrons) is what is squashed together to produce energy. The more neutrons make the fusion “easier” to produce energy.
Naturally occurring Deuterium isn’t crazy hard to find. Its in sea water, but you have to go through A LOT of sea water to pull out the rare atoms of Deuterium. Naturally occurring Tritium is much more rare with having to find very small amounts in ground water.
Humanity is also able to make Deuterium and Tritium as byproducts of nuclear fission.
If you have fusion energy, creating H2 from water via electrolysis is a joke. You can do it at home. It only requires a lot of energy. But with energy from fusion it will become super easy, barely an inconvenient
In the news, 5.000 years later : “Scientists warned that our mass extraction of hydrogen may produce global salinization, but no one wants to reduce its energy consumption.”
Since everyone else gave a joke answer I’ll take a stab in the dark and say the upper limits would be the availability of hydrogen and physical limitations in transforming heat output into electricity. The hydrogen is the most common element but 96% of it is currently produced from fossil fuels. After that, it would be how well you can scale up turbines to efficiently convert heat to electricity.
I’m not expert either, but I don’t think most of that 96% of hydrogen is a candidate for the fusion we’re doing today. NIF (like the OP article) uses Deuterium (Hydrogen with 1 neutron) and Tritium (Hydrogen with 2 neutrons) is what is squashed together to produce energy. The more neutrons make the fusion “easier” to produce energy.
Naturally occurring Deuterium isn’t crazy hard to find. Its in sea water, but you have to go through A LOT of sea water to pull out the rare atoms of Deuterium. Naturally occurring Tritium is much more rare with having to find very small amounts in ground water.
Humanity is also able to make Deuterium and Tritium as byproducts of nuclear fission.
For reference and because I was curious enough to look for it, Deuterium is 0.0156% of the hydrogen in ocean water.
If you have fusion energy, creating H2 from water via electrolysis is a joke. You can do it at home. It only requires a lot of energy. But with energy from fusion it will become super easy, barely an inconvenient
Well. Assuming the cost of splitting water is lower than the energy produced from the same amount of hydrogen.
It is muuuuuuuuuuch lower. The actual energy is incomparable, like an ant vs superman level of energy.
The energy in practice it’ll be extracted from H2 has to be much higher for the process to have a practical use
In the news, 5.000 years later : “Scientists warned that our mass extraction of hydrogen may produce global salinization, but no one wants to reduce its energy consumption.”
Electrolysis has up to 70% efficiency and needs sulfuric acid. The superheated thing has about 90% efficiency.