Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by only_as_i_fall on Thursday June 17, 2021 @11:54AM
(#27541009)
Does the volume of the sun include its Corona in that last statement?
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Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by 317070 on Thursday June 17, 2021 @12:04PM
(#27541144)
No, iirc that statement is for the part of the sun where fusion actually happens. Per volume, not a lot fusions happen in the plasma on the sun. The crux is that the volume of the compost heap grows order cubed to the radius, while the area through which the heat escapes grows quadratic. And the sun is like, a _really_ big compost heap.
In fusion on earth, we want to be considerably more efficient than the fusion process in the sun, as we don't have as much space to work with. ITER is already a pretty big machine.
Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by ben_w on Thursday June 17, 2021 @12:13PM
(#27541257)
That’s just the core. Go out to the photosphere, let alone the corona, and it’s about about a thousand times less, 0.27 W/m^3: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28solar+luminosity+%2...