A local affiliate of CBS reports:
General Atomics is scheduled on Friday to unveil a 1,000-ton superconducting electromagnet to be used in a 35-nation fusion energy study. According to General Atomics, the Poway-built device that's powerful enough to lift an aircraft carrier out of the water will be showcased at a news conference in Poway.
The electromagnet will be used in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor experiments in France, in which scientists will try to create a burning plasma that demonstrates the feasibility of fusion energy. Clean fusion energy has been a holy grail for researchers looking for alternatives to standard nuclear energy and carbon-based fuels. Scientists say fusion energy does not create long-term waste products or meltdown risks.
General Atomics is more well-known for their Predator and Reaper military drones. As much negativity is swirling around these parts about the military industrial complex, there could be much potential benefit from the technological progress General Atomics and others are making. What do you all think?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @07:24AM
Great news! This magnet will rip the ferritin right out of your cells.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @07:29AM
1k ton, thats very impressive, borderline awesome. No, you go stand near it while its turned on!
makes one wonder what it does to a turned on computer, ehehe
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:07AM
This isn't part of an "experiment". It's going to be used as a weapon.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @10:05AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:59PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:18PM
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 13 2015, @04:18PM
What else are we going to use to defend ourselves against Space Invaders? Independence Day seems to have proved that Nukes just won't do.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday April 13 2015, @07:56PM
Sorry, that's not what your citation says, and it's very far wrong. The main gun turrets on the Iowa class, the iconic WW2 battleships, each weighed 2100 tons [globalsecurity.org].
You're right that 1000 tons is pretty far-fetched for a railgun, though. Each one of those 16-inch guns in those Iowa class turrets only weighed around 120 tons, and no weapon anywhere near as massive has put to sea in any new vessel since WW2.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nishi.b on Monday April 13 2015, @08:08AM
Wondering about the strenght of the magnetic fields, and how General atomics was involved I found this:
- magnetic field of 11-13T. Magnets composed of many parts :
https://www.iter.org/mach/magnets [iter.org]
- Central solenoid made to specs by General atomics (not designed by them alone !):
http://www.ga.com/ga-iter-energy-program [ga.com]
(Score: 2) by fleg on Monday April 13 2015, @09:06AM
me too.
how many tesla is it? TFA doesnt say.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Monday April 13 2015, @09:14AM
woops, sorry the links *you* posted do mention the tesla values.
this isnt my field but i wouldnt have thought 13T was enough to lift an aircraft carrier?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 13 2015, @09:37AM
Lift it *out of the water* - in other words, it isn't strong enough to lift a "dry" carrier, but one in water weighs a lot less, because the water is supporting it. At best the magnet would probably be able to get the bottom of the boat to the water's surface, and no further.
It sounds awesome and I want to see it done.Fuck Fusion!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday April 13 2015, @10:47AM
Tesla is a unit of magnetic flux density - that is, per unit of surface.
If you could maintain the same flux density and increase the area, even a 1T magfield would be enough to lift the aircraft carrier.
The most intense continuous magnetic field produced by an electromagnet is 45 T [nationalmaglab.org] - inside a bore 32 mm in diameter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @01:47PM
and increase the area
Large structures are wimpy unless specifically designed to handle point loads, so pulling on any part of an aircraft carrier hard enough to lift it would undoubtedly merely break a part off.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:58AM
ah i see. thanks for the info!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:19AM
Miltary drones gonna fuk up dem terrists, make Merica great again! VOTE HILLARY
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday April 13 2015, @09:19AM
I think I know how they'll weaponise this - they'll pack the whole thing into a drone, fly it over some terr'ists and turn it on. The drone will collapse into a singularity - boom, no bad guys, no evidenc*ahem*drone.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fritsd on Monday April 13 2015, @09:55PM
You're overthinking it!!
(example: 16 ton weight [tvtropes.org])
FTFY. Also, Mother of All Extension Cables.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Monday April 13 2015, @09:04AM
>lift an aircraft carrier out of the water
yeah but how many frogs [physics.org] will it lift?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:13PM
I don't know. Ask the French.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Dunbal on Monday April 13 2015, @09:53AM
And sustainable fusion STILL won't work. But there's still hope. When the pile of cash spent on useless fusion projects approaches the mass of a star and self-ignites, we'll have our fusion reactor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Monday April 13 2015, @03:25PM
So we shouldn't even try? That's a very shortsighted view.
Pretty much everything we take for granted today was once impossible.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Monday April 13 2015, @08:00PM
The math says it is feasible. It seems a bit cantankerous old fart do want something to be abandoned and never worked on a gain just because you don't understand it.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:04AM
Math can be made to say anything we want - after all we invented it. The evidence after years of experimentation and billions and billions of dollars in funding though say it's NOT feasible. Of course if you insist on throwing money at any idiot who says "oh but what if we..." but that's not scientific research, that's snake oil salesmanship. Science is lead by observation and experimentation, not mathematical formulae. You're supposed to come up with the forumula to explain the observed phenomenon not try to manipulate reality to explain your formula.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Geezer on Monday April 13 2015, @10:02AM
From TFS: "General Atomics is more well-known for their Predator and Reaper military drones. As much negativity is swirling around these parts about the military industrial complex, there could be much potential benefit from the technological progress General Atomics and others are making. "
Just because this tentacle of the military-industrial octopus might be doing something worthwhile scientifically (for a handsome profit), it in no way reflects on General Atomics' other corporate behaviors. Corporate ethics is not a zero-sum game.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:18AM
I would expect that it would be in line with standard contract rates. Typically profit margins are quite a bit lower on government contracts, but sometimes it is calculated differently which makes it more complicated to compare apples-to-apples. Those things are audited annually. Do you have any particular insight into the contract details for this that would suggest otherwise?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @12:55PM
Does this electromagnet indicate some kind of milestone for the accomplishment of a useful fusion process? sure it's cool and all that. But what is needed is fusion that can supply power to the electric grid.
I suspect it's for the compression of the fusion plasma. But it's tricky to make it work!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @01:43PM
Does this electromagnet indicate some kind of milestone for the accomplishment of a useful fusion process?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_scaling#Dimensionless_parameters_in_tokamaks.5Bcitation_needed.5D [wikipedia.org]
Its got that SJW "citation needed" sophistry but its got nothing to do with politics.
Or slightly off topic but in the same theme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawson_criterion [wikipedia.org]
I can't find a good link to the engineering model where the production of a reactor scales with the (some big exponent) of magnetic field strength, all else being equal. Its probably a diffeq anyway not a simple polynomial, depending on all the other parameters.
There are also economic models that scale with field strength. I remember some 1950s design of a dirt simple mirror machine that economically "worked" once it was longer than the state of Texas using 1950 electromagnet technology. Still too big even with superconductors.
Yeah its a big deal. Like the reactor equivalent of Isp for rocket engines.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @02:00PM
So what you say is that this electromagnet is powerful enough to accomplish net power output from a fusion process?
Perhaps even net economic output too?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @03:21PM
donno but "worlds most powerful" would imply that if the output varies by the second power of magnet strength then its 4 times more output that something half the strength all other things being equal.
The space shuttle's main engines had the highest shipping / used Isp characteristic of any shipping/operating engine at one time (maybe still holds record, don't know) although thats very helpful for a Hubble telescope repair mission its not the only requirement for overall mission success.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @05:18PM
So this electromagnet will put the nuclear process above the threshold of net power output?
Many fusion processes seems to be dependent on reaction size big large enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:51AM
Well, plasmas are not very friendly, it turns out that having too high of a magnetic field will also lead to instability. So the answer is, it depends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:35PM
Does this electromagnet indicate some kind of milestone for the accomplishment of a useful fusion process?
Yes. It goes up to 11.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @04:23PM
So, what would happen if a human (wearing nothing magnetic) stood next to this thing when it was turned on? Anything interesting?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Informative) by VortexCortex on Monday April 13 2015, @05:46PM
People who asked questions like yours also clicked on Transcranial Stimulation. [wikipedia.org]
Depending on the frequency and intensity of the EM field involved different effects have been observed according to declassified documents from the US government. [wired.com]
Everything from mood alteration, visual hallucinations, induced schizophrenia, or (if specifically modulated) a form of telepathy is possible through EM stimulation. What would most likely happen is visual hallucinations corresponding to the magnetic pattern via interaction with your visual cortex (usually in the form of flashes or bands of white and/or coloured "light").
Note that everything interacts with electro magnetic fields to some degree. Even water can be picked up by a strong magnet if the ice is close enough to absolute zero.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday April 13 2015, @06:30PM
I was thinking more of the physical effects. Would it, say, slowly crush a man to death while still giving him time to give up the names of his fellow MI6 agents?
This has nothing to do with a volcano I just bought.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk