Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Starting Up the German "Sun"

posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 02 2015, @09:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the fusion-is-still-only-10-years-away dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

From Yahoo Finance:

Germany is about to start up a monster machine that could revolutionize the way we use energy.
For more than 60 years, scientists have dreamed of a clean, inexhaustible energy source in the form of nuclear fusion.

And they're still dreaming.

But thanks to the efforts of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, experts hope that might soon change.

Last year, after 1.1 million construction hours, the institute completed the world's largest nuclear-fusion machine of its kind, called a stellarator.

The machine, which has a diameter of 52 feet, is called the W7-X.
[...]
Check out this awesome time-lapse video of the construction of W7-X on Youtube.

Additional information can be found at this referenced article from Science .

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Starting Up the German "Sun" | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 40 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday November 02 2015, @10:50PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 02 2015, @10:50PM (#257724) Journal

    Well, I'll admit, pie-in-the-sky research is a necessary activity. That's just a big price tag to swallow, even if I'm American and don't have to pay a Euro of it.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 02 2015, @10:56PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday November 02 2015, @10:56PM (#257729)

    Compared to the LHC and ITER, a Billion is peanuts for massive fundamental physics research these days.
    Your problem if you don't pay a Euro for it (unlike the previous two), is that you don't get any claims if they actually do find something.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday November 02 2015, @10:56PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday November 02 2015, @10:56PM (#257730) Journal

    It's 12.50 Euro per German inhabitant.

    Stated that way, it doesn't sound particularly expensive.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday November 03 2015, @02:23PM

    by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @02:23PM (#257928) Journal
    To put that in perspective, it's about the same cost as sending the space shuttle into orbit and bringing it back to Earth twice.
    --
    sudo mod me up