this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Everything is a stopgap until fusion is available

[–] doggle 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. A large portion of Georgia's power comes from natural gas; anything we can do to move away from that is a step in the right direction. Except, like, coal obviously.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

For sure, I more meant that fission works just fine for clean power until then.

[–] wolfpack86 11 points 2 years ago

We can't let that hinder progress toward implementing the most responsible forms of power generation.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

There never has been a fusion reaction which created energy so I guess we'll have to wait some time

[–] neutronicturtle 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

You are technically wrong, the worst kind of wrong :)

DT and DD fusion reactions release energy. More energy than is put in. It's the whole system that hasn't been energy positive. We're close to breakeven in terms of plasma (heating power vs fusion power, and it's not like heating power is lost from the system it still heats the reactor) but to be useful fusion power needs to be >10x heating power so the whole system is more than self-sufficient.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

There never has been a fusion reaction which created energy

Technically, this part is correct as far as I understand the laws of thermodynamics

[–] neutronicturtle 4 points 2 years ago

Hehe, I walked right into this one. You're right. I totally failed at trying to be a smartass.

[–] neutronicturtle 3 points 2 years ago

With energy positive here I mean useful energy positive, so electricity or high temperature heat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

What counts is the whole system. You need to get more output energy than input. Right now this was never done.

And the input energy includes the energy lost by for examples lasers because they are inefficient.

[–] schroedingershat -2 points 2 years ago

Thermal Fusion is much more limited than solar as an energy source. It may be useful for niche applications, but waste heat alone limits it to a tenth of the power available from solar on just the built up areas.