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0 pointsdotancohen3mo ago0 comments

  > how do you efficiently harness 1,000,000C heat?

The traditional answer to that question is vacuum and magnetic confinement (usual toroidal). Whether that will turn out to be the practical answer is yet to be seen.

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hunterpayne3mo ago

I said efficiently, you would be lucky to get 1% efficiency there. Vacuums don't conduct heat very well do they.

bmacho3mo ago

Literally 100% of that heat travels from the 1000000C stuff to the environment throught that vacuum. Vacuum doesn't just remove energy.

If you use a steam engines it doesn't matter if your source of heat is 900C or 1000000C, all heat will be captured, and 40-60% will be turned into electricity.

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ben_w3mo ago

While true in isolation, that is the wrong reason to care.

We get power from the sun very effectively over 150 billion meters of vacuum.

Biggest problem with fusion is doing the fusion for a low enough input power (or for pulsed, energy) cost.

refulgentis3mo ago

Okay, now I'm thinking you're trolling :) (if not: how warm is it where you are, i.e. how much above 0 kelvin? How?)

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