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New Advances Bring Fusion Closer to Reality
An anonymous reader writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on new advances in nuclear fusion research. For years we've been waiting for the technical breakthroughs that would make cost-effective fusion energy a reality. Are we getting close, or are the problems insurmountable?"
"nuclear fission is about the only 'safe' alternative in the meantime. Generating many orders of magnitude less radioactive waste than current fossil fuel plants,"
I completely agree with you , but try telling that to the kneejerk reaction anti nuclear fanatics who can't see the wood for their own foolishly planted trees. Mind you, I've met some of these people and half of them couldn't even spell "radioactivity" never mind tell you what it was. They work purely on a fevered emotional level and no amount of rational discussion will convince them otherwise. They are the same sorts of people who dunked old women in ponds back in the 17th century because they talked to their cat and someone got ill in the village shortly afterwards.
"What will happen to the material that stops all those neutrons?"
Assuming you don't use aneutronic fusion, it will get mildly radioactive. So bury it in the middle of nowhere... who cares? We're not talking about 'hot' fission fuel here.
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?"
The confinement vessel warms up by about two degrees C, you fix the problem and restart it. You've been watching too many SF movies if you think that a confinement failure will cause a nuclear explosion.
"Fusuion power will NEVER be safe"
Fusion is extremely safe compared to fission: you appear to be just a typical ill-informed knee-jerk anti-nukleah.
I object to the insinuation that we are the ones splitting the nuclei of the radioactive elements
Well, fine. But you can say that by refining the uranium, and bringing sub-critical amounts of together in a pile, or supercritical amount together in a bomb, we are utilising the nucleus's innate tendency to split, and to thereby trigger a chain reaction in nearby uranium nuclei, in order to generate a self-sustaining level of radioactivity that would not have otherwise occured.
You could also say when making tea that we are not the ones boiling water, we are merely allowing electricity to flow through a restisting metal rod, which generates heat which when transfered to the water causes a rise in temperatre to boiling point that would not have otherwise occured. But that would be very, very pedantic.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Is this an Ask Slashdot?
If so then my answer is yes! I mean no! err..What was the question again?
IANANE (I am not a nuclear engineer) but if I read that article correctly then it seems some of the many problems have theoretical solutions. In other words, it worked in the simulation. We need to get this thing built and do real tests before we can even think about being "close" to having fusion plants.
They can't even decide where to build it! Why can't I vote to spend my (US) tax money on putting one of these over here. Even as a test bed it will give the contry it's in some home field advantage.
You can use my back yard if you want! Don't listen to my whiney neighbors, they don't know what's good for them!
I don't think, Therefore I'm not.
You know what bugs me? The world is squabbling over where to build the 6 billion dollar ITER (international thermonuclear reactor.) See http://fire.pppl.gov/ They've been negotiating over locations between France and Japan, neither party willing to yield, for over a year now. 6 billion dollars? Screw it, build two of them, one in Japan, one in France, but that's not the point. They don't want to build it, because if anyone can make cheap energy out of rainwater, then how do you control them? The powers that be actually like the setup where they can fight and take over any limited resources, then have people come beg them for a piece of the pie. It doesn't matter to them if billions of people die, as long as they are not one of them. But civil war and social chaos is not picky.
since when does a fossil fuel power plant produce radioactive waste? :)
Take a look at some of the research and data on how much naturally radioactive particles are released into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels, you'll probably be surprised. I believe it's a few orders of magnitude more than the amount generated in current fission plants.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Sorry to be a nathering nabob of negativism, but...
Practical nuclear fusion would be the best thing that ever happened to our planet: we'd lose our dependence on the Middle East for energy, and dramatically cut pollution. If it were up to me, I'd launch a nuclear fusion program on the scale of the Manhattan Project.
However, the Bush family and that crowd will never allow nuclear fusion to become a reality - they make too darned much money on oil, and cash is all they understand.
Not to reveal my age, but when I was an engineering student in the early 60s the big science news was that flat screen TV was only 2 years away, and that CRTs would be rendered obsolete. Flat screen TV was perpetually 2 years away in the future for most of my life, but it finally did arrive.
Our goal should be to have commercially useful fusion energy in operation by the end of the 21st century. It's vital, but not easy, for the public to support such long-term goals. That's particularly true when we can't visualize the links in the chain that will connect now with then.
The actual breakthroughs that make energy power cheap and safe are likely to come closer to the end of the century, and we can't imagine what they might be. Still, we must support constant inquiry and scientific research to create the fertile conditions for breakthrough discoveries.
The only reservation I have about supporting big science is a serious one. Money should go for science, not to feed the egos of the pricipals. The bigger the project, the harder it is to assure that.
Yep, my father quoted that one on his PhD thesis.
Granted, they do have fusion -- but not practical fusion.
But to prove his statement, he pointed out how expensive it is to generate tritium for the DT reaction, and how little there is.
If we're ever going to have practical fusion, it's going to be cold fusion. Use a molecule with an explosive bond that shoves two other molecules on a predefined pathway into a range where you get a 1% chance of reaction between two hydrogen nuclei, by tunnelling, and you could do it.
But that would take a pretty complicated and well-designed molecule.
There may be some ways of doing it once we have better molecular manufacturing, but as for right now, cold fusion is also dead.
For that matter, unless we're using it in space, I hope they don't get cold fusion.
To quote Don Lancaster (www.tinaja.com), if anyone finds a free energy source and manufactures it without also providing a free energy sink, they'll be the worst criminal in human history. Oh, and our planet will glow like a star too.
I think the proper solution to our energy problems needs to be wind and wave. Those take care of the energy source/sink problem. Sorry, just my two cents.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I think you are missing the point the writer was making. The 30 is a constant, ie we are always 30 years from fussion. This is not a return in 30 years, but a return an infinite amount of time in the future.
Now, I think the fusion experiments are worth funding because they are fun. I think it's a shame that the political environment is such that the scientists need to pretend there is gold at the end of the rainbow, when the rainbow is so beautiful itself.
We aren't talking big money here in government terms. Eg IIRC the proposed ITER budget is 10 billion Euro over 30 years. The EU pours approximately 100 billion into the common agrecultural policy every year and I presume the USA is operating on basicly the same level, just to prop up buisinesses who produce food no one wants to eat.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
I will never understand where this hyper cynicism comes from. On one hand our "evil rulers" will do anything to make a buck. On the other hand they will not do something that will save trillions of bucks because they don't want to lose influnence and power.
It's a stupid way to go through life and precludes rational analysis of real political actions and motives.