Thailand’s first tokamak device for fusion energy research to begin operating in July

[eisfeld]

23 minutes ago, Eleftheros said:

Well, the amounts of money thrown at this problem over the past 50 years are eye-watering.

By what standard? Compared to other expenses which have much less value I'd say one could argue not enough was invested. For most years the US has invested less than $1B in fusion energy. A tiny rounding error in the federal budget of trillions of dollars. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/margraf1/

[RocketDog]

On 6/15/2023 at 7:32 AM, Muhendis said:

As others have noted. It's not 20 years away but more like 93 million miles away and working.

Sure, except for about 12 hours each day, and even more on cloudy days, when it's definitely not working.

Then you use storage batteries which are only slightly cheaper than a reactor and are all made in China.

Take your pick.

[h90]

On 6/14/2023 at 8:30 PM, gearbox said:

To attempt is to achieve...good to see the Thais spending money and effort on physics than submarines and jet fighters. However the chance of them getting ahead of the others is miniscule. Still knowledge would be gained.

Well nuclear fusion in that way is something that will never work in a commercial way....it can't be cost effective. And if I am wrong and it will be, it won't be developed in Thailand.

So it is not much different than submarines. Better spent would be in engineering schools. Some countries have or had, schools 5 years long that were a bit less theoretical than Universities but had a big practical part. That brought great technicians and 20+ years later lots of innovations. No shining moonlandings or fusion reactors but worldwide leading SME with good development departments.
 

[Pouatchee]

On 6/14/2023 at 8:30 PM, gearbox said:

To attempt is to achieve...good to see the Thais spending money and effort on physics than submarines and jet fighters. However the chance of them getting ahead of the others is miniscule. Still knowledge would be gained.

theyll prolly find a way to stick that fusion machine in their chinese submarines

 

[h90]

1 hour ago, RocketDog said:

Sure, except for about 12 hours each day, and even more on cloudy days, when it's definitely not working.

Then you use storage batteries which are only slightly cheaper than a reactor and are all made in China.

Take your pick.

I think that was also fussion and much closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

But also has a problem with storing the energy

[Muhendis]

9 hours ago, RocketDog said:

Sure, except for about 12 hours each day, and even more on cloudy days, when it's definitely not working.

Then you use storage batteries which are only slightly cheaper than a reactor and are all made in China.

Take your pick.

Our 93 million mile fusion generator is actually working 24/7. The reason we can't see it all the time is because some silly soul keeps spinning our world round. Clouds are a bit of a problem but that only diminishes the energy we receive.

Having a decent battery ESS (energy storage system) is definitely useful for dark times but this is a whole load cheaper than buying a reactor.

For example.

A 36kwh set of batteries would set you back 150,000 baht and would last 10 years. This works out at 1,250 Baht a month. This is conditional on a few details, but I don't think there are too many reactors that cheap.

Made in China?     Who cares.