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Comment by kragen | Hacker News Reader

Specifically they were able to maintain a tokamak plasma (presumably at fusion temperatures) for 1337 seconds, using two megawatts of heating. 1337 is not a joke; presumably the "leet" reading is coincidental.

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I assumed it was their target, and indeed a semi-private joke... but you make the case for coincidental. I prefer to believe it was by design :D

With China spying around, you probably don't want to reveal the full potential of your technologies before you are sure that you will have permanent lead.

That is not how science works best.

Unfortunately that is how capitalism works; whoever "cracks" nuclear fusion and can productize it will win multi-billion projects.

Agreed. Multi-multi billion. It is a fundamental change in the global energy dynamic -- including the fact that D-T reactors are still use heat exchange which means heat is also a useful output product for industrial purposes. MSRs are really good for this but of course are fission not fusion reactors.

It borders on a national security issue.

This is a scientific project at a state-funded lab, not a capitalist project.

Doubtful. While fusion is a fascinating engineering problem and has niche uses, it's unlikely to be competitive in either of the two big energy domains: electricity generation and transport. Fusion requires extremely large, extremely complicated machines that share many of the issues of fission reactors but more extreme and with decades less operational experience. While fusion has better PR than fission, which could lead to some real cost savings from less regulation, it's unlikely to be enough to be cost competitive with a fission reactor of the same output, nonetheless the various other options that have rendered fission uncompetitive. Even with extensive process improvements to reduce cost, the other options will be decreasing in cost at a faster rate due to their wider adoption and lower barrier to entry. It's really tough for artificial fusion to compete with the free fusion reactor in the sky. Fusion will probably make its way into the ecosystem but only as one player, and a minor one at that.

EAST (Chinese) and WEST (French) are under the ITER umbrella. Showing your notes is baked in.

The article says it was not fusion temperatures, and that they intend to get hotter in future tests.

I see, thanks! I missed that.

That makes it less impressive; any fluorescent-light tube can maintain a stable plasma for years, after all, without even magnetic confinement.

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