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British Researchers Say Fusion Is Close
sh00z writes: "The article quotes a leading scientist saying that Fusion power is 'within reach' in the next decade, with commercial plants to follow within another 10 or so years. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone at Texas A&M. They might just jump the starting gun again."
These seem like reasonable goals. Whatever happened to our good friends Ponds and Fleishman who said they had discovered a methodology for managing cold fusion over a decade ago? I wonder if the scientists in this article took their circumstances into consideration when setting out the timeframe in the article... The thing was remarkably light on details...
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What needs to be understood is that they've managed to use a fusion generator to generate electricity. However, they've never managed to create electricity in a useful fashion.
As it stands, they can create an efficient reactor that is not self-sustaining or a self-sustaining reactor that is not efficient. In other words, the former uses very little outside power, but isn't stable and ceases to function. The latter is more stable, but uses more fuel than conventional means.
Fusion power is not a pipe dream. Just as conventional power reactors have been improved over time to produce electricity more efficiently, so will fusion reactors eventually be improved to the point where they're useful. Will it be in the next decade? It may well be, but regardless of when it will happen, it will happen.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Free enegy has always been the holy grail of science. Fusion appears to be one step towards the realisation of such an energy source. The previous millenium's energy darling, nuclear power, has proven unfeasible due to the tremendous clean up costs involved. Fusion seems to have none of the same costs.
If the energy produced by fusion exceeds the cost of producing it (collection and production of fuel, maintenance of energy plant, cleanup and pollution) then we will essentially have a scenario where energy production can accelerate to the point where we can theoretically have all the energy we want, dirt cheap.
After that point is reached, anything is possible. Unlimited food production: Need light? No problem. Need water? Go boil some from the sea. Need fertilizer? Create your own lightning to get nitrates. Unlimited material wealth: need more raw material? Go on dig it out of the ground with your fusion powered machines. Factories can run all day and all night cos energy is free. Incredible high-energy research opportunities. Spaceflight! Basically everything will follow this principle: use energy to collect/generate raw material and use this raw material and energy to create means of production.. and then the final product in great quantity.
Of course, private energy firms will never produce energy in such quantity. but what if the government were to fund this? once energy production reaches a critical mass.. WOW!
Some info here: http://www.isolite.com/abouttritium.htm
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Fusion is a ways off. I am currently doing fusion research at PPPL. Everyone here (and everywhere) really wants it to happen, and we realize that brute force projects are not the way to go. While it is technically feasible to build a working fusion plant (ITER), the cost would be so astronomical that it would never be used for its intended purpose. Sure, we would get more energy out than we put in, but it wouldn't be the most cost efficient process... The current thrust of the US fusion program appears to me to be aimed at designing smaller, cleverly designed machines that move us towards fusion while being cost efficient. The end goal is the adoption of fusion power. But if that adoption costs more money than the energy-equivalent amount of fossil fuels, no power companies are going to adopt it.... In answer to the safety questions of fusion power, I'm pretty sure most experiments nowadays are using D-T reactions (deuterium and tritium). Tritium is pretty goddam radioactive. The byproducts of this reaction are radioactive as well. However, the half life is short enough that within 2 or 3 years (can't remember the numbers), the radioactivity of the fusion products is below that of the regular environment. Bottom line: nasty byproducts, but with 2 or 3 years of storage, safe as anything outside. None of this 20,000 year half life.... If you want to get into something really creepy (in my mind) check out the loosely disguised bomb research known as Inertial Confinement Fusion. The Nation Ignition Facility (NIF) etc. Scary.
im not out to burst anyones bubble or anything, just thought id remind everyone that "a leading scientist" usually translates to "a crackpot we found who happen to have a degree". im not saying this is the case with dr. sykes here, but it might be.
its comparable to the "leading computer scientists" that get interviewed by some big news company and claims "A.I is a couple of years away".
we might get there, but probably not real soon.
-- gunzip-howto.tar.gz
Codeposition fusion might not only relieve a significant portion of our dependence on foreign oil (and we all know how important that is), but it might also be a natural way to retrofit our dangerous, dirty fission nuclear plants. Codeposition fusion produces nearly zero ionizing radiation of any kind, and no nuclear waste products.
Here are three good references:
"Calorimetry of the Pd + D Codeposition," by S. Szpak, P. Boss, and M.H. Miles, in Fusion Technology, volume 36 (Sept. 1999), pp. 234-241. search near the end of this page for the abstract ("...excellent reproducibility, high power outputs....")
"On the behavior of the cathodically polarized Pd/D system: Search for emanating radiation," by S. Szpak, P.A. Mosier-Boss, and J.J. Smith, in Physics Letters A, volume 210 (1996) pp. 382-390. (Phys Lett A is much easier to find than Fusion [Science and] Technol.)
"Calorimetry of Pd+D Codeposition in a Fleischmann-Pons Dewar Cell," by M.H. Miles, S. Szpak, P. Boss, and Martin Fleischmann (March 2001) abstract on web only
In short, codeposition fusion reliably produces a 500% power gain without fast neutrons, high-energy radiation, or radioactive waste. The peak of the energy produced is in the infrared, with x-ray production just 9% above the baseline in a lead cave, and gamma-ray production only 2% above a lead cave's background levels. There is a very high likelihood that codeposition fusion will soon be commercialized to drive electrical generation turbines, helping to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and, given sufficient electric vehicles, foreign oil. The cost of codeposition fusion electricity is likely to be less than one cent per kilowatt hour.
You may have heard that cold fusion was discredited. Early experiments used smooth, solid palladium cathodes, which did not produce reliable results. Some such smooth, solid cathodes would run for weeks without producing excess heat, and then would do so for perhaps a few days, and often would never do so again. Over 400 studies in the peer-reviewed scientific literature -- see: the Dieter Britz bibliography [about a megabyte] -- have confirmed that the effect is certainly real, but is only reproduceable in less than one out of ten attempts. Those who have studied codeposition fusion get 99+% reproducibility, and precise control of the effect. The crucial difference is that codeposition cathodes are mossy and dendritic, instead of smooth and solid. Any kind of mossy, high surface area cathodes produce much better results than any smooth cathodes, but they were not in common use until a couple years after the poor early results had discredited the entire field.
Of the six laboratories in the U.S. publishing cold fusion research, three are in California, one is in Mountain View (First Gate Energies), and one is in Menlo Park (SRI International.) Szpak et al's lab is in San Diego. The governments of Italy, France, Russia, Japan, and China all sponsor cold fusion research in their own national laboratories. However, the budget for cold fusion here in the U.S. is very small, because the entrenched plasma fusion "big science" community (whose most optimistic estimates indicate that plasma fusion will not be viable for another thirty years -- and even then it will produce nuclear waste; perhaps more than fission does) keeps funding away from cold fusion (which does not produce nuclear waste or dangerous radiation) through continued, unfair ridicule.
Cheers,
James
I recently earned a BS in physics and am now taking a year off before going to grad school (deferred admission to Berkeley). Fusion research is not my specialty, but I do know people that work in this area, and I think I can offer some insight into the issue.
Let me start by saying that cold fusion != fusion research. Cold fusion as popularly described has been debunked. The researchers in question were good people who were mistaken about what they observed, unfortunately when they were given proof of their mistake they chose to disappear from the public eye rather than admit their mistake. No low temperature fusion has ever been verified, though occasionally you will see new proposals for how it might be possible.
Now the real stuff. This means high temperature, high pressures, and almost exclusively isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium). There are three successful ways that man has produced fusion: Hydrogen bombs which are heated by one or more fission bombs, confined plasma (ie. tokomaks), and pulsed laser pellet experiments.
H-bombs are pretty useless because there is no way to make a small controllable explosion. All you can ever get is really big ones that would be impractical as a power source.
Pulsed laser experiments experiments involve using arrays of uber lasers to heat and compress solid hydrogen pellets so fast that they reach the point of fusion before the gas can dissipate. People in the physics community generally see this tech as a dead end because the technical requirements seem to scale exponentially with linear increases in power output. There is still research being done, but the power consumption of the lasers is orders of magnitude more than what little energy the fusion generates right now, so it's unlikely to see this being practical in the next half century.
Tokomaks are the standard in confined plasma fusion, though there are a couple alternatives that have some physicists excited. Tokomaks work; they just don't work very well. Right now we have machines that about break even, ie. they generate enough energy to run themselves. Given how much energy is involved just running the machine, if you can get another factor of 10 out of the best machines of today, you'd have enough for a useful small-medium scale power plant.
Confined plasma fusion is alluring for a number of reasons. The source hydrogen is easy to obtain or make (tritium is often created in fission reactors by exposing deuterium to nuetrons). The radiation is very safe compared to fission reactions. In both fission and fusion the components of the reactor itself will pick up some radioactivity, but the real concern in fission is all the spent fuel. You can't keep it where it is because it's no good as a fuel source and you don't want to dump it anywhere else either. In fusion reactors, the spent fuel is typically less rather than more dangerous when compared to the fuel itself, and contains no mid-range decay lifetime isotopes of the type which are most troublesome in fission reactors. Lastly, confined plasma can't have a "melt down", if the plasma gets too hot or electricity is turned off, the fusion reaction stops itself.
Contrary to popular belief, it's not just output that's a problem, the things are very large and complicated. I remember a story I heard about a group who spent 2 months taking apart, fixing, and putting their machine back together again, despite knowing at the start what piece had broken. If it's going to be profitable you need technology that is stable, long-term and easily repairable. Right now, fusion is none of these. Part of the drive for smaller machines is that they should be easier to maintain and less prone to fail. The trade off is that smaller machines need tighter confinement than their large cousins and thus are harder to engineer.
Two decades is somewhat optimistic for commercial appliations, but the state of technology is such that the next generation machines by the end of the decade should be a good 20% or so above break even (not wide scale useful but something to notice). If we can keep progressing at the current rate (and there is enough inventiveness and creativity in the field to suggest that's possible) then I would think prototypes for small power plant type models might be ready by 2040 or so.
Of course then again I'm a physicist and we have a horrible track record in predicting the rise of fusion technology.
Designing fusion reactors is a business just like any other: turn off the PR and the venture dies.
...which is precisely my point. We live in a world that has allowed PR to become the be-all and end-all of everything. If you don't look like a god, if you're not perfect at explaining things in terms understandable by the average Joe, if you do not make yourself heard forcefully, then people just ignore you and your ideas. I find that sad, because it means that all sorts of really interesting thoughts and ideas just get ignored, simply because the people who have come up with them aren't very good at PR.
This tendency to ignore people who aren't good at PR is, I think, just instinctive. However, we are sentient beings (most of us, anyway ;) and that means we have control over our instincts, at least to a certain extent. The fact that people seem so completely blinded by PR in modern society indicates to me that we are not teaching people to be critical of their instincts. It should be obvious to anyone who has thought about this that our instinctive reactions to things are often not the optimal course of action.
As I said in my original comment, I have resigned myself to not being able to change this, because society has developed another less-than-wonderful trait: people do not like to think for themselves. Again, this is probably instinctive, but we seem to do less to discourage it now than we ever have done in the past. If I could change it, I would, but it seems that this is a feedback loop that we are destined to stay stuck in. The less people want to think for themselves, the harder it is to make people think that they want to think for themselves.
Perhaps this is the kind of intellectual decadence that led to the fall of the Roman Empire and the entry of Europe into the Dark Ages, only writ on a global scale.
The only way it could be any different is to have total centralized economic control, which has historically proven inferior.
Nonsense. Do you only see black and white? Are there always right answers and wrong answers? Or are there shades inbetween?
It is perfectly possible to publicly-fund science in a free-market economy without forcing scientists to resort to PR shenanigans such as this. All it takes is a little vision and willpower amongst the bodies providing the funding. Of course the public should know what the scientists are up to and what their taxes are paying for, but sensationalism and claims without substance help no-one in the long run.
I should point out that your trolling here becomes painfully obvious, as you have used an unrelated argument (free-market vs command economies) to attempt to justify your first position (the requirement for good PR in modern society). I believe that this what's commonly known as a strawman argument.
The rest of your comment I don't disagree with. You're not actually disagreeing with anything I have said. There is indeed little commercial incentive to invest in fusion research, because there is no expectation of return on investment within a reasonable timeframe, and yes, publicly-funded research takes up the slack. But this is a good thing, and precisely why we need publicly-funded science in the first place: to fund things that may be vitally important in the future, but which corporate R&D departments won't touch with a bargepole. Not to mention areas of research where keeping the science public makes sure of certain ethical standards, or where the science is of vital interest to the public.
As I recall from tritium training at JET the major danger is when it is becomes part of a water molecule. Tritiated water is readily absorbed by the body and is therefore much better placed to do damage. The drill for a tritium leak was "Stay indoors and wait for messages on your computer." I.e. the opposite of a fire drill.
What happens if something goes wrong in a fusion reactor? Literally, speaking. What could the consequences be?
If something goes wrong in a fusion reactor, nothing happens. The fusion process depends on confinement of a very small amount of very hot gas in exactly the right manner. When something goes wrong this gas disperses. Since the amount is very small it can do no damage.
One of the great attractions of fusion power is that it is fail-safe.
BTW, if it works, why wasn't it on the market almost immediately?
Lack of funding.
It's always, "I just need your signature on the cheque, sir, before we can show you that miracle." If there was only one man in the field, I'd consider it that claim, but with hundreds allegedly working on it, the lack of funding would really be more of a private investment opportunity for those involved than an insurmountable obstacle.
You claim to have a compact, safe source of power that could easily be built in a garage. Yet not a prototype of a practical generator to be seen. With 5X over electrical input, you could just run a damned steam engine turning a generator to feed itself and have a virtual perpetual motion machine. Any backyard tinker could build such a device for a hundred dollars or so, given the heat source you claim to offer. There is plenty of video of electrolysis tubes bubbling away, but the only evidence we are given are your claimed readings, which may be intentional fraud or simple incompetence.
Worse are the constant claims about "peer-reviewed journals" and patents, as if these constitute any sort of evidence. Everyone knows that the patent office never bothers to confirm that an invention works before registering it, and patenting a non-marketable device is the very hallmark of crackpotism. Any two people can start a "peer-reviewed" journal, it doesn't mean anything unless you already respect the people doing the reviewing. Such cargo cult science is done by ufologists, astrologers, designers of perpetual motion machines (a large number of whom I see moving to cold fusion research), etc. It means nothing by itself.
Briefly, you make these claims:
-you have a working power source
-it is simple enough to build at home (no moving parts, simple structure)
-it is thousands of times cheaper than hot fusion devices
-you need loads of money to make any kind of usable product
Hmm...
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You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Fusion is not a funding machine for science. Did you know that most of the fusion reactors output more energy than it takes to initiate + run? The only problem they're working on is stability. I'm sure your well aware of a time when computers worked, just were not very reliable, only of use to a few people, and very expensive.
I'm surprised that you think that research money funds an extravagant lifestyle for academics. As someone who is in reasearch, I'd like to point out that I've had job offers in industry, paying double what I currently get. My friends in accounting and managment couldn't belive how little I was offered, never mind how little I get at the moment. If you want to look how the money is spent, don't claim it goes to all to the academics.
Oh, and how much interest do you think there is in sodium ion desnsity in the upper atmosphere? Or electron interaction with air? Pretty useless, right?
Excpet that the first led to radar, and the second was the work the was pivotal in electron microscopes.