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posted by chromas on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:18AM   Printer-friendly

Energy From Fusion In 'A Couple Years,' CEO Says, Commercialization In Five

TAE Technologies will bring a fusion-reactor technology to commercialization in the next five years, its CEO announced recently at the University of California, Irvine.

"The notion that you hear fusion is another 20 years away, 30 years away, 50 years away—it's not true," said Michl Binderbauer, CEO of the company formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy. "We're talking commercialization coming in the next five years for this technology."

[...] For more than 20 years TAE has been pursuing a reactor that would fuse hydrogen and boron at extremely high temperatures, releasing excess energy much as the sun does when it fuses hydrogen atoms. Lately the California company has been testing the heat capacity of its process in a machine it named Norman after the late UC Irvine physicist Norman Rostoker.

Its next device, dubbed Copernicus, is designed to demonstrate an energy gain. It will involve deuterium-tritium fusion, the aim of most competitors, but a milestone on TAE's path to a hotter, but safer, hydrogen-boron reaction.

Binderbauer expects to pass the D-T fusion milestone soon. "What we're really going to see in the next couple years is actually the ability to actually make net energy, and that's going to happen in the machine we call Copernicus," he said in a "fireside chat" at UC Irvine.

Also at NextBigFuture.

Related: Lockheed Martin's Patent for a Fusion Reactor the Size of a Shipping Container
How 'Miniature Suns' Could Provide Cheap, Clean Energy


Original Submission

Related Stories

Lockheed Martin's Patent for a Fusion Reactor the Size of a Shipping Container 64 comments

Lockheed Martin has quietly obtained a patent associated with its design for a potentially revolutionary compact fusion reactor, or CFR. If this project has been progressing on schedule, the company could debut a prototype system that size of shipping container, but capable of powering a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or 80,000 homes, sometime in the next year or so.

The patent, for a portion of the confinement system, or embodiment, is dated Feb. 15, 2018. The Maryland-headquartered defense contractor had filed a provisional claim on April 3, 2013 and a formal application nearly a year later. Our good friend Stephen Trimble, chief of Flightglobal's Americas Bureau, subsequently spotted it and Tweeted out its basic details.

In 2014, the company also made a splash by announcing they were working on the device at all and that it was the responsibility of its Skunk Works advanced projects office in Palmdale, California. At the time, Dr. Thomas McGuire, head of the Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, said the goal was to have a working reactor in five years and production worthy design within 10.

[...] Considering the five year timeline Dr. McGuire put out in 2014 for achieving a workable prototype, maybe we’re due for another big announcement from Lockheed Martin in the near future.


Original Submission

How 'Miniature Suns' Could Provide Cheap, Clean Energy 14 comments

How 'Miniature Suns' Could Provide Cheap, Clean Energy:

Nuclear fusion has long been heralded as a potential answer to our prayers. But it's always been "thirty years away", according to the industry joke.

Now several start-ups are saying they can make fusion a commercial reality much sooner.

[...] A major challenge is how to build a structure strong enough to contain the plasma - the very high-temperature nuclear soup in which the fusion reactions take place - under the huge pressures required.

Exhaust systems will "have to withstand levels of heat and power akin to those experienced by a spaceship re-entering orbit," says Prof Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA),

Robotic maintenance systems will also be needed, as well as systems for breeding, recovering and storing the fuel.

"UKAEA is looking into all these issues, and is building new research facilities at Culham Science Centre near Oxford to work with industry to develop solutions," says Prof Chapman.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:26AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:26AM (#787669)

    His board of advisors probably includes Elizabeth Holmes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:05AM (#787700)

      That is why Copernicus is "designed to demonstrate an energy gain". It won't actually have an energy gain, but it will demonstrate that it does which will be enough to keep the SEC lawyers at bay. Can't say Elizabeth doesn't learn from her mistakes.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Snotnose on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:56AM (2 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:56AM (#787674)

    I'm 60, with a couple friends I've known since either high school or soon after. Whenever we see a "closed for x days" the tired old joke (which we still say every chance we get) is "yeah, tomorrow it will be closed for x days, day after, etc etc etc). It's amazing how often we're right.

    I go to a gym 5 days a week. They had a video display that broke (they broke their web software cuz accessing the same page from my laptop broke at the same time). For about 3 months it had a "will be fixed next week (they said a date, not 'next week')" sign taped to it. Even better, for the last 18 months we've been warned (oops, notified) that they were going to build out the building starting in the fall, then next month, 10 goto 10. They finally started about a year late and it sounds like the construction is behind schedule, although nobody in the know says anything, even to the employees.

    / that video display that broke?
    // it went away about the time construction started
    /// I'd figured out how they broke their web page about 3 minutes after they broke it (missing file). For 3 weeks "they'll fix it", 10 minutes "dumasses"

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday January 19 2019, @12:58AM (1 child)

      by Snotnose (1623) on Saturday January 19 2019, @12:58AM (#788486)

      So, whomever modded me offtopic thinks fusion will be a thing in 5 years, not the 20 that has been posited for my entire lifetime.

      --
      Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @01:11AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @01:11AM (#788490)

        Your oh-so-clever comment doesn't even mention the word fusion.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Kalas on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:15AM (10 children)

    by Kalas (4247) on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:15AM (#787677)

    In my couple decades now of reading about it it's always been 20 to 50 years away from being commercially viable but now it's down to just 5? What progress! I look forward to reading here that it's only 1 year away when that article is published in 2060. Soylentnews will probably be the only website still accessible without having to insert a Javascript-powered butt plug that plays audio ads every 90 seconds.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:16AM (6 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:16AM (#787678) Journal

      You're going to love the new fusion-powered buttplugs.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:13AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:13AM (#787712)

        Even more so when that plug is rammed down your throat and you choke to death on it.

        • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by takyon on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:00AM (2 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:00AM (#787770) Journal

          Ah, if it isn't our Internet Tough Guy anon. Gotta get your daily quota of death threats posted.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @08:15AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @08:15AM (#787816)

            Could have been the general you and thus only a commetary on the current state of the web rather than a horse's head nailed to your front door.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @11:16AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @11:16AM (#787847)

              Wow, sounds like takyon really dodged a bullet. He could have had that horse's head rammed down his head rather than the buttplug.

              All kidding aside, did the horse choke to death on that buttplug?

      • (Score: 2) by Kalas on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:15AM (1 child)

        by Kalas (4247) on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:15AM (#787745)

        Oh great. First the profiteers metaphorically fuck me with ads and tracking that disrespects the user, then they literally fuck me with ad-laden buttplugs, THEN they go on to fuck me at the cellular level with prostate cancer from the required fusion buttplugs.
        The ad companies and data miners might call that the "trifecta" but I see it as the "trifuckta."

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:12PM (#787894)

          oh there's good news; the atomic butt plug actually can also irradiate the cancer it caused! You get to have mutant cancer, but at least it's treatable via ignoring the problem. A side effect is that your anus turns big and green and hulk like and you don't remember what happens while it takes control of your body. Just don't get angry near any locations where a big musclar man with a butt plug might get into trouble.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:42AM (#787687)
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:35PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:35PM (#787923) Journal

      Since the 1970's I've heard that Fusion is only 20 years away. And it still is.

      Oh, and general AI too, but that seems more likely at this point than:
      * fusion
      * man on mars
      * male contraceptive

      I will gladly give you fusion in 5 years for a hamburger today.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:23PM (#787945)

        male contraceptive

        That one already exists. It's called condom.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:44AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:44AM (#787690)

    So what comes out of a boron-hydrogen fusion reactor? Or is it a sealed unit that lasts "forever"? As in the life of the owner/product/planet/warranty?

    Wikipedia does have this to say about boron-hydrogen compounds:

    The boranes (boron hydrogen compounds) and similar gaseous compounds are quite poisonous. [...] The boranes are also highly flammable and require special care when handling.

    Though I imagine a compound is different than what you'd get from fusing boron and hydrogen in a reactor.

    • (Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:19AM (2 children)

      by RedGreen (888) on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:19AM (#787751)

      Amazing what Google can come up with when typing a question into it. Apparently nothing radioactive according to the Wackypedia.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Proton-boron [wikipedia.org]

      --
      "I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:56AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:56AM (#787785)

        The eco-Nazis will never let this one get off the ground. The waste product is carbon. :-)

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:56PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:56PM (#787890)

          Clearly you didn't bother reading anything - the fusion products are not carbon, they're helium-4 - technically p-B fusion is a fusion-fission reaction, and is desirable because it's one of the easiest aneutronis reactions, which produce no neutron radiation to activate the reactor walls (though some neutron radiation will still produced by incidental H-H fusion side reactions)

          Also, carbon isn't an environmental problem - carbon *dioxide* is.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:31AM (10 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:31AM (#787781)

    Sorry, if they don't even have a prototype that works they aren't five years from commercialization. If they had a demo unit NOW it would be a hard slog to get through the regulatory hoops to being a product of that sort to market in only five years. And just showing net energy gain is a long way from a real demo unit that produces electricity.

    So they are a) lying liars who know they are peddling snake oil and just trying to fleece some idiotic investors or b) or they are the idiots.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:07PM (3 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:07PM (#787893)

      What regulations? A quick search finds me lots of regulations on fission reactors, but nothing on fusion or more general "nuclear" power - which means new regulations would have to be created, and that's unlikely to happen until *after* they start producing reactors - I don't think there were any regulations on the first fission reactors either.

      Also, the nice thing about fusion is that there's no long-lived nuclear waste to dispose of - basically just the reactor and shielding during decommissioning, and that only because even with aneutronic p-B fusion you will inevitably get some other side reactions occurring.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:13PM (2 children)

        by jmorris (4844) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:13PM (#787911)

        Riddle me this, who will be the first grid operator to step up and connect an UNREGULATED ATOMIC HELLFIRE MACHINE to their grid in $current_year? Unregulated means unsalable. So wait for the currently utterly dysfunctional governments of the world to invent some appropriate regulations.

        You know fusion is safe, safer than fission, safer than coal, safer than even hydro. I know all that. But we live in an age where morons rule. i.e. A democracy.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:18PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:18PM (#787969)

          Depends - if they can increase profit margins by 20% by doing so, they'll be fighting each other for the chance, and damn the consequences.

          >we live in an age where morons rule. i.e. A democracy.
          If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you. Theoretically the government making the laws is a democracy, but it's pretty much sold out to the people with money. And our economy is not even remotely democratic, it's a fairly well consolidated oligarchy.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:31PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:31PM (#787974)

          I'm surprised at this level of vitriol against government and regulation. As you suggested, do you want a completely unknown and untested machine being thrown onto the power grid that feeds your house? I know I wouldn't.

          I'll agree that "over-regulation" is a bad thing. It's more a debate of how much regulation is appropriate, and how much is over-regulation. Needing to fill out 20 forms to throw away a piece of paper is bad, but likewise being able to dump barrels of sludge into a river with merely a verbal guarantee that it's safe is also bad.

          We'll see how much regulation ends up being needed for fusion power. I hope it's not "too much."

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:41PM (5 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:41PM (#787899)

      Also, they *do* have a working prototype, it just doesn't achieve break-even. Which is to be expected, because almost every fusion technology has a reaction efficiency that improves rapidly with scale - and judging by the relative size of the plasma injectors, the production reactor will be at least 10-20x the size of their prototype.

      Now, it's possible their large full-scale prototype won't work for some reason, but it sounds like so long as it does, it will be a commercial-ready reactor. Assuming the design is complete, 5 years to build and test the thing sounds possibly optimistic, but probably no worse the Musk-time. It's not like they're trying to build exotic superconducting magnetic containment systems or anything - all that sort of complexity is in their plasma injectors, which look to be complete, and the high-precision concussion pistons, which they also appear to be complete. What remains is building LOTS of the things, and the pressure vessel they attach to.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:09PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:09PM (#787909)

        Everybody and their dog in the physics game has a fusion reactor with less than unity gain. Nobody has one with >1. That was the situation ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, forty years ago and it will be the situation ten years from now. Allowing >1 to exist would disrupt the world's economy too much for those who own the world to allow it to exist. Let the scientists play, but somehow these things just never work out.

      • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:50PM (3 children)

        by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:50PM (#787953) Homepage Journal

        It's not just a matter of scaling up, like inflating a balloon. Engineering doesn't work that way. Don't ask the guy who built your garden shed to build a sky scraper.

        Take just the magnetic fields, for example. Ever heard of the inverse square law? If you field is bigger, parts of it will be farther from the generating magnets, and loses strength as the square of the distance. But if anything, the field needs to be stronger to contain the larger amount of plasma. Scaling the magnets means increasing their size, which means moving parts of them farther from the field you need, which means you need an even bigger magnet. It may not be possible to scale fast enough to overcome the inverse-square law.

        I'm being simplistic here, but you get the idea: scaling is hard. If their prototype doesn't achieve break-even, then it's not a prototype of a commercial plant.

        --
        Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:10PM (#787965)

          Look into General Atomics design - they're using spherical mechanical shockwaves, not magnetic fields, to reach fusion conditions, in large part to avoid those problems. And it appears they've already developed the full-scale plasma injectors and shockwave-generating pistons - now they just need to build a lot more so they can assemble them into a full reactor.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:21PM

            by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:21PM (#787971)

            My mistake - that should be General *Fusion*, not Atomics. And it looks like I misread, and that's one of their main competitors, while they are using magnetic confinement.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:35PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:35PM (#787975)

          You're right that the scaling isn't simple - but we're not talking about having shed-builder building build a skyscraper, we're talking about skyscraper builders that have been building miniature skyscrapers in their back yard specifically as working prototypes for their full-scale designs, because nobody will fund a full-size model until they can convince them that the enormously expensive real thing wil function as intended.

          You also seem a little confused as to how magnets work in regards to most fusion reactor designs:

          First - there is no inverse square law for magnets - magnetic fields fall off with the inverse cube - so that aspect of the problem is actually much worse.

          Second - that's rarely actually an issue, because you're not trying to confine the plasma around a central magnet, you're confining it within a vessel built out of magnets - as the vessel gets larger, you just use more or larger magnets at the same distance from the plasma.

          Third - you don't need stronger magnets to contain more plasma, any more than big balloons need to be made from stronger rubber than small ones. What you do need stronger magnets for is to increase the pressure that the plasma is contained at, which increases the fusion rate. And conveniently enough, it's substantially cheaper and easier to make a big electromagnet more powerful than it is a small one. If fact, that's one of the big reasons most small fusion prototypes are generally much less efficient - you just can't build a strong enough magnet to do more within the available space.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @11:17AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @11:17AM (#787848)

    I am usually quite skeptical but Lockheed oublicly filed some fusion related patents as well as announced their compact-fusion program. I'd say if Lockheed is at the point of publicly pursuing and funding this type of tech, things are afoot. 5 years may be optimistic but 10 years I would believe.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:06PM (4 children)

      by jmorris (4844) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:06PM (#787906)

      They made big promises in 2010. Still haven't even claimed a unity gain reaction. Fusion is destined to always be an "almost here" tech because it would disrupt too much of the world economy.

      • (Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:45PM (1 child)

        by Snow (1601) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:45PM (#787928) Journal

        We are due for a disruption in the world economy.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday January 18 2019, @05:11AM

          by jmorris (4844) on Friday January 18 2019, @05:11AM (#788150)

          They have a recession penciled in for next year but fusion would would be disruption on a whole different level. The whole balance of power in the world would permanently shift. We would still need some oil, planes aren't likely to be electric anytime soon, but the whole Middle East becomes a shitty sandy backwater overnight. Russia? Putin gets hosed right in the squeakhole since energy is their only major export. Those sort of dislocations usually mean war.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:28PM (#787947)

        But hey, at least they advanced it from "always 20 years in the future" to "always 5 years in the future"! :-)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:49PM (#787952)

        That " 'they' won't let it happen" boogeyman argument is WAY too tired and overused, and has nothing to do with this. It is an "almost here" tech because it is really really hard. You squeeze things here and it always squirts out somewhere else. Hell, to get it to happen just once, you need to use a fission bomb [wikipedia.org].

        If this follows a typical cycle, the first net-positive reactors will be enormous and generate a net power that wouldn't be sufficient to charge your phone. If they ever get to where they are viable for a commercial market (which I doubt will be the case), it won't be a global disruptor. All the "big oil" type of companies will already be running commercial-scale reactors, and will have for years. The energy companies have long been diversifying and expanding beyond fossil fuels for a number of reasons; they would all be rushing to establish their own reactors to get a chunk of that market The only thing that would hamstring that would be some idiotic policies to do something like, I don't know, prop up and unviable industry (like the coal industry) for political gain.

        Cheap large scale solar should never have happened according to the "they'll never let it happen" argument. You or I can go out and procure our own systems and get completely off the grid, if we wanted, but most of us don't for a variety of reasons that don't have much to do with "them".

  • (Score: 1) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:13PM

    by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:13PM (#787912) Journal

    In the video there’s lots of talk about cocktail parties, university support, power plant economics... maybe two minutes talking about the actual technology.

  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:38PM (#787926) Homepage Journal

    Nothing specifically to do with the problem, but - whenever I read about fusion - I am reminded of an article I once read.

    Fusion in the sun is actually a very rare event. The energy produced by the sun, on a cubic meter basis, is roughly equivalent to a good compost heap. It's just a really, really big compost heap.

    What fusion researchers are trying to do is orders of magnitude harder. They don't want an occasional, accidental fusion of two atoms that happened to run into each other. They want this all the time, and that required a much hotter, denser plasma than occurs in nature.

    Five years out? Nah. If they had a prototype already working, we would have heard about it. If they have actually solved some of the critical problems, they may have a small-scale prototype in five years - and that would already be huge. Time from small-scale prototype to commercialization will be another couple of decades.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:59PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday January 17 2019, @06:59PM (#787984)

      True as far as it goes, but you're overlooking one MAJOR difference:fuel choice. The sun is composed almost entirely out of Hydrogen-1, which means that the heat generated is the result of fusing hydrogen into deutrium, which is among the most difficult fusion reactions to trigger, while producing the least amount of energy.

      Human-built reactors have a much wider range of fuels available, and target fusion reactions that are MUCH easier to achieve and produce MUCH more energy: typically deutrium-tritium as a starting point as it's one of the easiest reactions to achieve, and releases about 30x more energy per reaction than H-H fusion.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @12:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @12:08AM (#788081)

    We can all relax about global warming now because this solves it!
    I hope the used the PI rule in their estimate:
    Take the estimated time and multiply by PI, this will be the actual delivery date.

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