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Amateur Scientists Seek Fusion Reaction
ElvaWSJ writes "A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans — fewer than 100 worldwide — are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home. The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television, from the 1960s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."
Can a string theorist explain why this won't work?, in simple terms please.
Does anyone remember the "radioactive boyscout"?
David Hahn to make his own reactor (breeder, i think). He accumulated quantities of radium and tritium from smoke detectors and lantern mantles in a shed. The DOE had to lock down his parents whole house and yard to clean it up.
David Haun
"A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans -- fewer than 100 worldwide -- are building working perpetual motion devices at home. The designs are based on the work of Albert Michelson, co-proponent of luminiferous aether theory, from the 1890s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar devices can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."
Good article.
So wait... why build a reactor that produces a negative output? I'm all for home tinkering, but this seems a little extreme...
Farnsworth style fusors will never break even. They simply don't contain well enough--once you get the mesh fine enough to stop your particles from hitting it, the voltages you drive it at will probably destroy it.
Polywell is just a better idea. Hopefully EMCC will finally build the large scale one and prove it.
All known hydrogen fusion reactions produce strong neutron fluxes. Strong enough to kill, and death by radiation poisoning is not my idea of a fun time.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Today, it was found that, in nearly one hundred cases world wide, a small subculture of amateur physicists deluded by the works of Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the television, have been admitted to local hospitals for radiation poisoning. It is currently unclear whether or not contacts of these science fiction fans have also been exposed to dangerous amounts of radioactive isotopes, and further investigations are preceding.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
who built a tabletop farnsworth reactor a few years ago
its technically challenging to build one of these, but not beyond the skillset and material list of a committed and persevering amateur science buff
however, saying that once you build one you can work towards self-sustaining fusion is like saying after playing with legos you can go build a pyramid. well yea, you have the conceptualization down, but you still need to move heaven and earth and invest trillions
having said that, what these guys are doing is still important in terms of awareness and getting the good word out. we NEED fusion power. to save us from pollution, global warming, petrodollar funded russian neoimperialism and islamic fundamentalism, etc.
and one of these guys just one day may provide the mental spark to get working a real breakthrough in the field, or inspire a kid somewhere to wonder in awe, and he grows up to provide that mental spark of a breakthrough. anyone who doubts that is just way too jaded
so i salute you amateur fusion researchers
keep hope alive
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, this really works as advertised. It's a high school science faire level of complexity and cost (if you're willing to deal with stray neutrons). For practical reasons, it can't be made to produce more energy than it consumes, is all. The principles have been known since the 20s. Robert Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet fame) had patents on it.
I once saw an infomercial about a Mr. Fusion device, why not buy one of those?
Meanwhile at my home, I've perfected the generation of natural gas by eating the right combination of Burger King and Taco Bell.
Be relentless!
Farnsworth fusors are widely used in medicine and research as an easily controlled and cheap source of neutrons.
Despite the fact that this is a link to a non-technical publication's website, the Farnsworth Fusor is a real fusion device and works basically how they describe it. What it is not, however, is anticipated to ever be a viable power source, and there are significant theoretical hurdles to prevent it from being viable relative to other approaches (and when you make any kind of fusion reactor seem plausible in comparison, you're probably not going anywhere). In my experience, most hobbyists are well aware of this and just enjoy the tinkering.
The primary functions of a fusor are 1) Generate neutrons 2) Look really cool 3) Kill you with extremely high voltages if you screw up.
Focusing on Farnsworth fusors in an article written in part about fusion as a possible energy source seems as poorly researched as writing about steam engines in an article about internal combustion. The polywell seems be the heir apparent for serious work in energy out of the fusor lineage.
Making a fusion/fisson reactor?
One takes it appart, the other put the 'waste' back together.
or does the process just cancel itself out?
But the stray neutrons (or other energetic particles, depending on the reaction) are the real problem with fusion as a power source. To quote TFA:
Fusion advocates say reactors would be relatively clean, generating virtually no air pollution and little long-lived radioactive waste. Today's nuclear power plants, in contrast, are fission-based, meaning they split atoms and create a highly radioactive waste that can take millennia to decompose.
The spent fuel from a fission reactor is just not that hard to deal with - park it in a contianment area as robust as the reactor itself for 5-10 years, and you're left with not-very-much not-very-radioactive waste that could be easily disposed of, if it weren't so valuable that we insist on keeping it instead.
It's the rest of the reactor that's the serious problem. Depending on the reactor design, quite a bit of the reactor structure can become radioactive over time.
Fusion is going to have the same problem. Even if you have a reactor vessel the size of a washing machine, you're going to need significant shielding, an energy transfer mechanism (water leading to a turbine or something), structural elements, etc. Surem the problem with spent fuel goes away, but the problem with speant reactors remains. Not something you'd want in everyone's basement.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
By absolutely NO means is this anything new. This is being done world wide all over the place. In fact, with 2,000 dollars and a couple hundred collective hours, anybody could make them easily.
Before I switched majors from physics to CIS, I was planning on building one just as an experience buffer. It's extremely, extremely friggin' simple.
http://brian-mcdermott.com/fusion_is_easy.htm
.
Best book on the early days of television that I have read. The above quote is from page 126.
More information about Dr Farnsworth...
As the summary acknowledges, the fusor has been around for a while. If it were theoreticly possible to get net power gain, don't you think it would have been tried?
I doubt many of the people experimenting with the fusor are seriously trying to get net power gain. It's useful as a neutron source. Thus, you could make isotopes with it. That's rather scary, and something that I'm sure a lot of people would not want advertised; but it's also common knowledge for anybody who has an interest in nuclear science.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Only the first paragraph was quoted from TFA - preview button, who needs it!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I can't fucking wait for the day cold fusion arrives and we get to tell all those assholes in the middle east "Hey heres a fusion reactor that lasts for a century and costs $500. We'll no longer be needing your oil"
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans -- fewer than 100 worldwide -- are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home.
In other news, a small subculture of amateur neoconservatives are building working homemade tanks, fighter jets and cruise missiles in order to seek out and destroy these Weapons Of Mass Destruction before its too late and a mushroom cloud appears in somebody's basement
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I don't think anyone building these expects to ever have a net power output from them -- that's not the point. The point is to be able to say you built a fusion reactor, or as others have said to generate isotopes for other experimenting, etc.
IMO, a more important area of amateur and admittedly fringe scientific research around fusion and fusion-like reactions is the several hundred teams that still continue to this day to investigate what the heck is going on with low temperature fusion. Tons of progress is being made in the field, and some reasonable theories are starting to form. There's a lot of unknowns, but helium is regularly produced, neutrons are regularly produced and more interesting from a theoretical standpoint, lots of atoms are changing from one element to another...
Its like the 1700's experimenting with chemistry. Lots of people doing lots of very cool and interesting experiments and getting lots of very interesting results, even if we (humanity, not me personally) still don't quite get it.
IMO, its an aspect of science we miss in the modern world. These days we just assume we understand things pretty well and experimenting is about engineering or proving a theory. Its cool there are still areas of fundamental science experimentation going on where we just don't get what is happening and have no idea what might happen with the next variant.
Are these the same yahoos that post videos of "perpetual" motion machines on Youtube?
No. Wikipedia is your friend.
Farnsworth - Hirsch - Meeks fusors are quite real and effective. They're easy to build even by hobbyists using readily obtainable parts. Commercial versions serve as controllable neutron sources. Fusion neutron output of up to a trillion per second has been reported and rates in the billions per second are easily obtainable. To date it is estimated that Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks fusors have produced far more total fusion neutrons than all other non-bomb fusion devices combined.
Downside is that they involve ions moving in a trajectory past a metal electrode, which they must pass without hitting many thousands of times on the average before they participate in a fusion reaction. Hitting the electrode loses the energy used to create the ion and attempt to confine it, dumping the energy as heat in the electrode. Getting the electrode to be sufficiently "transparent" to achieve breakeven seems to be a lost cause.
Bussard's family of Polywell fusion machine designs apparently started as an attempt to steer the ions around the inner electrode of a Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks machine using a magnetic field. But it has since developed into a different (though related) principle: Use the magnetic field from the self-shielding magnet/electrodes to confine electrons (which are much easier to handle), creating a high-density space charge in the center of the machine. Use the electrostatic field of the electrons to attract and confine the ions in this region at high density and temperature, resulting in fusion. The magnetic field still shields the inner structures and the field is convex toward the plasma, limiting the plasma instabilities the plague "conventional" fusion machines.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
on Slashdot that I can't even think of anything smart-ass to say.
Wait: Well I could say that perhaps the Slashdot editors are in the testing of the new 21st century mind control warfare effort we heard about, where we can make the enemy forget they are in the military.
In this case, we make people forget about rehashed stories and they are repeated over and over. So just like 20 years until mind control is realized, 20 more years of dupes will materialize.
There was an article by Tom Ligon in Analog back in September 1998-- it's available on the web if you're interested in more details.
This is pretty cool. I love amateur science.
With that said, note that there is a vast difference between merely demonstrating fusion, and producing usable power by fusion, roughly similar to the gap between the glow of your old radium watch dial, and a nuclear bomb. But if the hobbiests can learn to scale it up... now, that would be cool.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No, no, no. It's not "almost" fusion. It is fusion. It is almost a fusion generator. That doesn't mean fusion isn't occurring. It means that the reaction is not self-sustaining. There's a huge difference. Saying that it isn't fusion is like saying that a match placed in a sealed jar and set ablaze using a laser isn't really fire because it consumes all the oxygen and burns out and there's no way to add more oxygen....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think you're mistaken: smoke detectors contain Americium, unless I misremember.
I think he managed to make a neutron source, though and figured out how to moderate it to some degree (albeit mostly after talking to scientists who knew more than he did). And he got some antique glow-in-the-dark items that were radioactive as well as the old smoke detectors.
But I don't think he managed to accomplish much except to irradiate himself and contaminate his neighborhood.
Now if they could put it in the form of a suppository...
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
" The designs are based on the work of Albert Michelson, co-proponent of luminiferous aether theory, from the 1890s."
It's worth reminding people that, whatever his original views of luminiferous aether, Michelson was one of the great experimentalists of the 19th century and his name is most firmly associated with the experiment that's widely credited with experimentaly destroying the credibility of aether theories.
(It's still possible to come up with aether theories even with the Michelson-Morley results (and the results of hundreds of other people who replicated and refined that result), but it's much more difficult, and the resulting theories end up rather hard to credit.) I assume that the original use of the word "proponent" was a typo).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I'm surprised the guy doesn't have a giant black SUV constantly parked outside his house. The most the article mentions is that a kid who made a fusor for his science project was visited by the state health department, who then left him alone from there on. His neighbors seem cool with it too (not to mention his wife). What is this, some sort of alternate reality version of the US?
From the sounds of the article though, these people aren't actually looking to make a proper electricity-generating fusion reaction; they're just making fusors for shits and giggles. Misleading title?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Really embarrassing or REALLY embarrassing.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
dgatwood, your shell script games are amazing. :-)
Currently hooked on AMP
Confucius say "Man who build fusion reactor at home flux his wife instead of his secretary."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Apparently, he never wants to get laid ... EVER!
And I'm about to turn it on!
OK here goes .. flicking the switch now guys ..
Wow, seems to be wor^DConnection to slashdot.org closed.
- Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
Good news everyone! You're all going to planet horror in the forbiden sector to trade my newest invention, the "tele-vision" for their fusion reactors!
Okay... news flash.
What is a "reactor"... it is a machine or mechanism that allows a "reaction" to happen.
It's not some magical energy-producing thing.
Fusion is not hard. Fusion is not new.
Fusion with a net surplus of energy in a controlled fashion is the thing we've been unable to achieve.
It's like saying some kid lighting some veggie oil on fire in a can is "working on an internal combustion engine"
As someone who has worked in fusion, there is significant radiation created by the process. The larger reactors can't run on the ideal deuterium/tritium mixture because it would irradiate entire cities while the reactor burned. I would not want a small one in my garage. The reactor I worked on was in a concrete bunker a fair distance away from any people. It was also the size of a large house.
If you want to live in the future and be on the cutting edge of science, go to grad school and study physics (you're never too old). There are not enough people seriously studying fusion. You'll get paid to work on reactors (big or small) which may have a commercial future. We wear snarky shirts that no one understands too.
Why isn't this tagged with "goodnewseveryone"?
"What are you doing down there?" "I'm making a highly complicated dohickie... do you have elbow macaroni or glue on sparkles?"
Robert Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet fame) had patents on it.
The patents apply to a fancier version called the Polywell. Polywell attempts to cut losses to the point where net power is possible. As far as I know, no hobbyist has attempted that one yet. It's a much more expensive design that, depending on the fuel, would generate truly lethal doses of neutrons, and would need lots of shielding.
So long as he's not making milk powder you're probably safe from being bombed.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'm using one to power the computer I'm typing this with right nsdkjkfkjwe%@#%^#$^#$^&$#47
Maybe if 'Professional' science and research was as well funded as 'amateur' sports (sound effect) Bay-ching (/sound effect) we would have had viable fusion power for decades.
Just build some sort of Deathclock or a Smell-o-scope or a Doomsday device. Anything but a fusion reactor. Honestly.
Sig this!
If we just gathered together enough matter, it would start fusing on its own through gravitational force. Using this method, we could create a gigantic fusion reactor in space, and then collect its radiation and convert it to electricity. It would be kind of like harnessing the solar power of the sun...oh wait...
But the stray neutrons (or other energetic particles, depending on the reaction) are the real problem with fusion as a power source.
That actually depends on what your fuel source is. The common science fair level project uses hydrogen (not deuterium, even), and produces, IIRC, neutrons. There are other fuels possible, and some don't produce much of anything nasty. IIRC, Lithium 3 on one side and Lithium 4 on the other produces stable helium isotopes, and electricity, and absolutely nothing else.
There are still issues with fuel that misses other fuel striking internal components of the reaction chamber, which can produce some radioactivity, but getting to the self-sustaining point will also greatly reduce this sorts of unwanted collisions and ther resulting radioactive byproducts.
No, it isn't.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Confusion say: "What the flux you talkin' 'bout!?"
This quote is surprising. Go tell people living around La Hague that radioactivity waste can be easily disposed or recycled. This also seems to keep silent the existence of long-lived (but weakly radioactive) nuclear waste.
"The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth..."
Ah, so we can expect these in suppository format?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Wikipedia is exactly that, a friend. You know, the kind of friend that likes to tell tall tales, and is generally fun to be around with. Just don't ask him/her to help with your homework, at least not if must get it right or you'll flunk ;-)
If a magnet is sticking to something where is it getting its energy from?
If the ITER is going to take upwards of USD$10B and 40 years to acheive a fusion reaction with net energy gain, I say glhf to these guys :P
I think I read the same comment modded up to 5 10 times in a row now.
The comment is always a variations on: "This is fusion. No it's not a viable source of power."
By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered so far was the ability to turn gold into less gold.
I think my wife already has a patent on that ...
No work is being done, so therefore no energy consumption is required.
By the same token glue would be producing energy by making two things stick to each other...
MP3 Search Engine
"Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create"
That's fine, the billion-dollar fusion projects aren't producing excess power either, and likely never will because of Bremsstrahlung.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Actually, Bussard was trying to use a Boron-11 fuel matrix that doesn't release neutrons in the same fashion as Deuterium fusion does. One of the reasons for this is precisely to help cut down on the neutron flux coming from the reactor.
His design goal was to use it as a direct drop-in replacement for boilers at coal-fired power plants, using similar sorts of shielding and precautions as would be already in place for such a facility. Water in the boiler itself would offer what extra protection would be needed, and radiation levels for released radioactive products would be lower than would be typical for a coal plant as well.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
This said, you are correct that the fusion rate in a Polywell is something of a much greater concern if you actually got one going, and would be leathal if it used traditional fusion fuel targets.
I just hope none of them are my immediate neighbors.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
why the obsession with the fusor? many countries in europe and asia are pounding in their resources in 'plasma focus' to obtain fusion reaction, may even be looking at break-even, and here we are still talking about hobbyist fusor. no one seem to take Eric Lerner seriously, strange though.
I don't see anything in that link except typical Greenpeace alarmism confounding ridiculously trivial releases of radiation with "millions of litres" of radioactive water. Sure, the water might be slightly radioactive, but so is the carbon-14 in your bones -- what of it? Why don't they give us a calibrated measurement of the radiation in the released waste and put it into perspective relating to other forms of radiation? My guess is because that wouldn't serve to advance their anti-nuke FUD agenda.
I don't mean getting Mr. Fusor to give Mrs. Fusor a special cuddle, I mean using the thing as a neutron source to produce fission fuel.
I'm guessing not, as the thing would be more tightly controlled.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
create a highly radioactive waste that can take millennia to decompose.
Bullshit. You have nuclear waste highly radioactive, or cold waste which take millennia to decompose.
In fact, the nuclear waste can be recycled into fissible material, hot subproducts (very appreciated by the pharmaceutic industry), and cold waste which take millennia to decompose.
Lithium 3 + Lithium 4 ... fusion ... always raises the number of protons.
What you say makes little sense, the atomic number of the resulting element after fusion is higher. So Li3 + Li4 should give C7, which is a stable isotope.
It is, btw the conventi on to give the total number of nucleonic particles in the isotope number. So it's probably Li6 and Li7 you're talking about.
Actually most of the mineable Uranium is already in normal seawater. It's even in the rain !
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/01/207-uranium-from-seawater-part-1.html
(I don't agree with the message of this blog, it's just the first google hit)
And if radioactive uranium isn't enough for you, Poseidon also stocks (massive quantities of) both Thorium and Radon (the only radioactive substance that has in history actually cause large amounts of radiation disease in humans).
I'm sure that's not all of the radioactivity that's stocked by our Tremletted friend, just the beginning (apparently some Israeli scientists think he's also stocking an element with atomic number 122, which is something no human has ever done)
"before its too late and a mushroom cloud appears in somebody's basement"
I for one cannot wait for the moment one of those amateur fusion tinkerers vaporizes his own house in one humongous boom. I'll be there and cheering when it happens.
Do you know why ?
Because it'll signal the end of a whole era. Have you followed the research domain of LENR/CANR - formerly known as "cold fusion" - over the years, for example ? There you have thousands of labs all around the planet making endless refinements and taking almost infinite precautions so they make the most impossibly-deniable measurement of some excess heat when electrolyzing half a pint of water.
This is madness ! That kind of exercise in pointless "due process" is an incredible waste of time ! That's at best undergrad routine, it should be reserved for the time when LENR/CANR/LANR/whatever-it-is makes it to mainstream acceptance, and be funded with leftover budget while the big names focus on the Big Things like earning a Nobel rewriting our understanding of chemistry and building net power generators and licencing the tech all around.
What those guys really need to build acceptance and make a true breakthrough is one of them to go in a huge boom that razes a whole wing of the electrochemistry department building, a boom so big no one can pretend with a straight face that the excess energy in the beer-mug-sized jar was just a measurement fluke. A large fireball rising amidst flying debris and thunder ! What better pan-in-the-face demonstration of useable excess energy or net power gain can you wish for ?
How many brilliant chemist careers were started by exploding hydrogen-filled balloons and/or dumping raw sodium metal in water ? This is what we really need: more big booms for science's future ! More awe in the eyes of the passers-by ! Nuclear technology did not build such a pervasive recognition in the mainstream throughout the 50s by merely splitting some atoms inside a heavy graphite box, but by expanding radioactive mushrooms of fiery hell to the stratosphere !
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Now look at a float glass plant, a steel continuous casting and rolling mill, or any likely practical fusion design. They simply do not work at small scales, therefore they cannot be developed by cottage industry.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I've known about Farnsworth-Hirsch fusors since I was in high school.
Zombie Puppies ... so you get electricity, a free Hulk costume and the plot for a great film. Where do I sign up?
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar [sic] exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
Come off it, if coal plants produced the same results as the Chernobyl disaster we wouldn't be here now. All either dead from cancer or infertile from radiation sickness.
Have you any citations or evidence to back up your claim. Seems the Nuclear Fuels industry would've used this before if it were true.
Radioactive carbon is one thing, uranium and plutonium another. There may be some typical overreaction by Greenpeace yet I'm not sure you should dismiss the issue as trivial so lightly. There were linked articles that shed some light on their concerns.
Greenpeace revealed that Cogema, the operator of the state-owned La Hague reprocessing plant, has installed inadequate equipment off the plant's discharge pipe, 30 metres under the sea, in a flawed attempt to prevent the routine discharge of radioactive particles into the ocean. Levels of radiation on the outside of the two steel chambers are so high (up to 500 micro-sieverts each hour) that a no-dive zone was self imposed by Greenpeace's radio-protection officer.
Since July, Cogema have been attempting to remove the radioactive crust from within their waste pipe. Greenpeace had called upon French authorities for a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment prior to any operation. This was not conducted, and during the operation hundreds of kilograms of waste material escaped into the ocean.
Greenpeace revealed today that nuclear particles larger than 63 microns were captured during a scientific sampling FROM Cogema's discharge pipe, while the Discharge Authorization from 1980 states that no particle larger than 25 microns can be discharged by the reprocessing plant.
In late 1998, following a green light and final checks by regulatory authorities DSIN, responsible for regulating nuclear transport, and OPRI which handles radioprotection, spent fuel shipment transportation from Cruas-Meysse to La Hague resumed. Shipments had been suspended in April 1998 after safety authorities reported ground contamination at the Valognes terminal near La Hague.
In mid-January 1997, the British Medical Journal published a study by two French scientists, Dominique Pobel and Jean-FranÃois Viel. The report warned of an increased risk of leukaemia for children who played regularly on beaches near the nuclear La Hague reprocessing plant, triggering local public concern. French Environment and Health Ministries commissioned an official epidemiological study of leukaemia around La Hague to be conducted by a high-level, ten-member team of experts. On 16 June 1997, the Secretary of State for Health requested OPRI (Office for Protection against Ionizing Radiation) to conduct an analysis of the marine environment (water, sediments, fauna, flora) around the sea discharge end of the effluent pipe of the La Hague plant. Measurements taken by OPRI near the beaches detected no radioactivity above the natural radioactivity level.
Activists such as Rousselet had reason to doubt La Hague's chemistry, essentially the same as the separation process developed by the Manhattan Project. It has proved an ecological, occupational, and humanitarian disaster nearly everywhere else. Spills and explosions at reprocessing plants in the United States, Russia, and Britain have polluted rivers and contaminated hundreds of thousands of acres. Britain's Sellafield reprocessing complex, on England's Cumbrian coast, was shuttered in April 2005 after safety authorities discovered that 83 cubic meters of highly radioactive liquids had spilled during a period of nine months.
While they may be rabidly anti-nuclear they still have a right to be concerned.
OK, but when a small steel ball rolls towards a magnet, where does that energy come from?
I'm just curious, it's a long time since I did physics.
Another product overengineered by General Dynamics...
The same place the energy comes from when you roll down a hill or when a meteorite burns up in the atmosphere. Or the same place the energy goes when you expend effort (work) to compress a spring.
Well sort of, it might help you picture what's going on here...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Amazing! I personally brought this story up in 2002: Build a Nuclear Fusion Reactor at Home. Back then, a number of very informative comments were made that only helped to confirm my suspicion that it will never work.
IANA physicist but,
an object that is attracted to magnets in a magnetic field has potential energy much like an object suspended above the ground has potential energy by virtue of being in a gravitational field. In both cases, the energy of the object just before hitting the magnet/ground is the same as the work required to separate it from the magnet/ground and restore it to its starting position (assuming all energy conversions are 100% efficient).
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Where does the energy come from when a steel ball falls to earth? There is potential energy tied up in the gravitational field between the ball and the earth. Likewise there is potential energy stored between the magnet and the ball in the magnetic field.
The seekers do no need truth, the seekers do find truth and the finding do be painful
If a magnet is sticking to something where is it getting its energy from?
Son, you need to logout and post on your own slashdot account like a big boy. Don't ruin your father's Karma just because he left his account logged in.
Thanks,
Management
EOF
expensive solar pannels which have to be replaced regularly and block all the light from the ground below them making it useless for much else
Well, Arecibo radiotelescope opponents said the same and, lo and behold, under the reflector panels there's a bloody jungle.
Just don't pay too much attention to what these shills are saying. I consider articles concerning energy on slashdot as a kind of opportunity to practice anger management. The pro-nuclear fanboys that so utterly dominate slashdot have been so thoroughly brainwashed by that industry that they are only capable of equivocating and spreading falsehoods.
Although I am very reluctant to make such accusations, being that this comes awfully close to actual conspiracy, a thought which I almost always argue against, sheer ignorance cannot account for the level of equivocation which one sees being put forth on these forums. Most of these people were not even born when America had a large anti-nuclear movement. They do not remember the issues which people fought about and against which people protested. If you are old enough to remember these things, coming to slashdot you feel like you have wandered into the twilight zone, kind of like being in a parallel universe where the past the we know simply never occurred.
But what can we really expect? We have had 15 years of paid shills being used to manipulate the public opinion-including "scientists" bought and paid for by the large economic interests which see and cast the environmental movement as the heir apparent of the "commies".
What is so truly sad is that almost nobody in America can even remember that environmentalist movement was not merely lamenting the negative ecological impacts of our energy policies but perhaps more importanty attacking the tremendous centralization(monopolization) of capital and power which is synonomous with big energy.
This social justice aspect of the environmental movement which at its roots is defying the profound concentration of wealth and power and working towards environmental solutions which empower the individual and communities has been almost completely swept under the rug. None of these pro-nuclear fanboys even begin to address the larger socio-economic problems which have always played a crucial role in the environmentalist movement.
The patent intellectual dishonesty which equates the environmental lobby with big energy, is the same as that which equates coal plants "radioactivity" with that of nuclear power plants, that which talks about "clean coal" and nuclear power being "green"-doublespeak, in classice orwellian tradition.
If you listen too closely to these shills you begin to believe that nuclear power is infinite clean energy and that it produces only negligable byproducts which pose no threat at all. You begin to believe that the environmental movement and those who have engaged themselves in the fight against big energy are all bought and paid for by some vast conspiracy of evironmental lobbiests who have endless amounts of money to spend fighting the poor misunderstood behemoths of the energy industry.
And of course you also start to think that everyone who questions the wisdom of such energy policies are all just ignorant uneducated people who have no idea what they are talking about.
Open your nose, follow the money and soon enough you can see where this shit is coming from.
But of course- pecunia non olet. Bullshit
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Chernobyl was awful, and I don't dispute that. I also noted it was a major exception to the general rule. The one thing that makes Chernobyl so incredibly awful is due to the fact that all of the material is concentrated in one place. The reason I hesitate about how damaging it was in comparison to coal is due to the fact that Chernobyl is not only a major facility, but that it is still supplying electricity to the Grid in Eastern Europe.
It is likely that Chernobyl would beat out a coal plant using sources particularly high in radioactive elements in terms of kilowatt-hours of energy produced, but I don't think it would be several orders of magnitude higher. Keep in mind that the coal plants spew this "waste" willy-nilly all over the entire area where they are located, and over the course of decades and not all at once like the Chernobyl disaster did. I also lack all of the specific numbers to do a strict comparison.
That facility is also an example of awful engineering that simply wouldn't happen in the regulatory environment of western governments, but that is a separate issue.
As far as citations or evidence, I could give dozens here. Here are a couple that perhaps you ought to read if you don't want to believe little old me:
At least so far as some "common sense" stuff, keep in mind that coal comes from underground sources and that often that coal is mixed with a whole bunch of other elements, including nearly every naturally occurring radioactive element on the Earth. Trace amounts of Uranium alone is sufficient to spread huge amounts of low-level radiation over nearly all of the soot fall-out that comes from the burning of coal... and that goes right up the chimney.
BTW, as far as the nuclear industry being aware of this... it has been "common knowledge" for decades. They have used this argument, but very few people are really paying attention. Certainly not the "greens" that get into an uproar over the construction of nuclear power plants. This isn't in the major news media outlets because it isn't really even news. There isn't anything "new" about this sort of information, even if it may be a revelation to you.
Poor Victor Deeb should have put away those icky chemicals and built a fusion reactor instead.
Richard Hull, the guy behind fusors.net lives 8 miles from me. At least now I know which way to look to see the nuclear flash/smoke from the hole where is house was when it all goes wrong! 8-)
Seriously, I think his work is extremely interesting, and I applaud him. I love to tinker, too. My 'nuclear dream' is to commercialize alpha-only sources for survival gear. If you don't think a tiny amount of an alpha source can generate large amounts of heat, read this fascinating article. I'd love to have a chunk of Gd148 to experiment with.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Sure, it seems incredibly hard, but that's only because we don't know what the solution is yet that will go from where we are to the final version, just like airplanes pre-Wright Brothers. Any hobbyist building a reactor knows that all these posts about how impossible it is for a hobbyist to build one of these that produces useful power are going to seem really stupid once someone can build one that does produce useful power.
stuff |
James Lovelock and Patrick Moore (Greenpeace co-founder) are just some of the people pushing for increased use of nuclear power at the moment.
Nuclear power is indeed cleaner than coal and is the only realistic alternative to coal available today for baseline power generation.
Most of what you say rings true, Pity it isnt.
1. Lives of leisure are certainly NOT more unacceptable today. See: Hollywood, Children of the VERY wealthy, Politicians(remember the President is over 500 DAYS of vacation in 7 years). If we valued hard work or lives of deeper meaning and value I am sure I wouldnt have too see all that garbage in the news.
2. More personal fortunes then? Not hardly. We have more Billionaires today then they had Millionaires. Even accounting for inflation and cost of living we have FAR more wealth today.
3. Lastly the point of the article above is we have hobbists working on Fusion. That said the last part of your post is wholely inaccurate.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science
and thats not counting the billions donated by the wealthy to support research in a HOST of fields.
The "pro-nuclear fanboys" that you are complaining about here are the engineers who know a hell of a lot more about nuclear power than you do... partly due to the fact that they are in the trenches helping to design these things and have a hell of a lot better knowledge about basic physics than you seem to be demonstrating with this sort of posting.
If this gives me a chance to vent my spleen, so be it.
I will admit that there are issues well above and beyond just the raw design of the reactor, and the concentration of wealth/power that comes from the building of a major nuclear power plant is a huge issue as well.
One of the advantages of the polywell reactor is that it would de-centralize the building of power plants, and put them on the scale of a neighborhood plant that wouldn't be a major terrorist target. This is a reactor that conceivably an ordinary person in a 1st world country could own on their own, or at least it could be owned by a small non-profit group.
Another of the more interesting applications that Bussard and his team came up with was a nuclear-powered semi-truck using this technology. He didn't think he could get it any smaller than something on the back of a semi-trailer rig, but it could be used on that scale and haul freight on that sort of scale. That the radioactive products would be low-grade enough to allow transport on public highways is something to think about as well.
Of course all of this depends on getting the Polywell to work in the first place. While there have been some interesting promises, Bussard had his funding dry up right before he died. There is a group that was able to get some continued funding on the idea, but it is in the backwater of the R&D development.
As an extra note, the reason why there were budget cuts for this line of fusion research: The war in Iraq. Seriously. That was the explicit reason given by the OMB about why this research program was cut. Now mull that one over for a little while. This is about the "greenest" form of power production that I can even think about, yet because it is "nuclear", the green movement doesn't want to touch it at all.
I wonder why the environment movement has been losing its credibility - or, since I suppose you were around in the 60's-70's, call it a "credibility gap" http://www.wellesley.edu/Writing/Nixon/Slideshow/nixon_sign.jpg
You can't make the excuse "kids today..."
Maybe the movement has been "infiltrated"?
http://www.ncforestry.org/docs/Latest%20News/articles/Archives/environmental_movement_is_rapidl.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/
ahh, but if everybody thought like you, then we wouldn't have a lot of stuff.. A lot of new inventions are based on going beyond the science we think is possible.. remember it's us people who wrote the laws of physics, and in the past we have been wrong on many occasions.. A lot of inventions are done by so called amateur inventors, where scholarships said it wasn't possible...
Also, the link mentions the radiated water affecting beaches...nevermind that just GOING to the beach means you'll take in more radiation in one day than you'd get living next door to a nuclear plant all year. Oh, and if you FLY to the beach, you can add more to that total. (And airline pilots don't develop mutations.)
Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, written by a former skeptic. Read it. Everybody. Please.
He was a scientist, inventor...and devout Mormon.
I know that's a kick in the gut for some here who would prefer to pretend that science and religion cannot coexist, but there you go.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Andy
By "radioactive waste" I think GP was referring to waste that is radioactive, like C-14 (in various forms, including soot and CO2). Technically true. The comparison is entirely unfair, however, because molar quantity of radioactive material per KWh is not a measure of danger. Gamma energy released per sq km due to radioactive decay per KWh is probably better - though that's still not quite capturing it.
You have to look at the type of radiation, the energy of the radiation, the amount of the for a given unit of substance-energy-density, the longevity of the radioactive substance... it's all pretty complicated.
"But everyone should know everything." -markab
up to 500 micro-sieverts each hour
1 sievert (SV) = 100 rem So, we're talking about tens of milli-rems per hour. Great. You get cosmic radiation at a higher rate than that by flying on an airliner.
a no-dive zone was self imposed by Greenpeace's radio-protection officer
Yeah, like that means anything. Just more food for the FUD.
French Environment and Health Ministries commissioned an official epidemiological study of leukaemia around La Hague
Over ten years ago, studying a quickly-appearing illness. No results? No surprise.
Measurements taken by OPRI near the beaches detected no radioactivity above the natural radioactivity level
See? Greenpeace has no substance to their argument.
I'll admit that no plant should circumvent the guidelines, nor should they then hide that fact. But the facts are that the safety guidelines are many times more strict for nuclear power than for any other type of power. I don't mean precautionary measures, I mean environmental impact. Coal plants release many times more radiation, spreading it over large areas via their smokestacks, than nuclear plants could even dream of. Even wind power has a greater carbon impact than nuclear power -- from start to finish, including building infrastructure, mining uranium, and handling the waste. Again, La Hague seems to be acting in an unethical manner, but I just can't stand all the ignorance about nuclear power.
I'm fascinated by this new fusion which directly produces electricity. Although I suppose the reliance on a non-existant isotope of lithium is going to be a stumbling block. And the reliance on an isotope with a half-life of 91(9) x 10^-24 s...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_lithium
I don't know why posters are being so critical.
All Fusion reactions (hot or cold) need is a catalyst which increases the efficiency (lowers activtion energy, increases yield, affects rate, etc) of the reaction. In fact, if an amateur can find any catalyst/technique/etc which influences the efficiency, rate, or any properties of the reaction then that technique/substance can be studied to find out WHY it influences the reaction and possibly lead to the discovery of better techniques or catalysts.
Granted, it's much more likely that any breakthroughs in in fusion technology will come from full-time well funded research institutions, but as others have pointed out, history has demonstrated that amateur researchers (particularly those with good technique and knowledge of scientific method) have thier place in science as well.
All of the coal plants worldwide, on the aggregate, release more radioactivity in a year than Chernobyl did.
Nothing pisses me off more than politicians talking about "clean coal". There is no such thing! Coal makes a great reserve fuel, but as a primary power source it is absolutely horrible.
Worldwide combustion of coal released (in 1982) 3640 tons of uranium, and 8960 tons of thorium.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2006/10/coal-and-oil-have-been-real.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
I was referring to hard core radioactive waste like Uranium and Thorium. Carbon-14 and other background stuff is also there, but you would find some materials that clearly would be regulated by groups like the Atomic Energy Commission if the concentrations of the materials were higher.
Yeah, this is a complicated issue, and getting back to my original point: a nuclear fusion reactor using Boron-11 as a fuel source would in the long run be even cleaner than a coal plant in terms of just the issue of radioactive contamination alone. Other minor issues like CO2 production and environmental damage from scraping coal out of the ground are then just added bonuses.
BTW, the #1 source of Boron is Borax, which you can get enough for a lifetime supply of the element (in terms of energy production) at your local neighborhood Wal-Mart in the laundry detergent aisle.
He is not over reacting that much if you where to stand in the worst area ~500mrem per hour for 8 hours a day for a week with zero protective gear you could hit the US the yearly federal limit for radiation workers in the United States. Granted you're under water so you would have to be hugging the tube the whole time and standing in the worst area but even still...
PS: Granted most people think the federal limit is extremely low but even still it's at the low end of the FUD spectrum.
/star tek
And also because it is "nuculear" the government doesn't want to touch it either.
we NEED fusion power...to save us from...global warming
Why can't current nuclear technology suffice?
Not that I am a warm-earther, but if I was...what's wrong with current nuke plants?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
Whoever modded parent redundant didn't look at the link. What a tool.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Upon hearing of the audacity of these "fusioneers" to use their intellect in scientific endeavors without getting government permission and permits for creative thinking the FBI and local law enforcement have set up a mass raid to confiscate all of their equipment and charge as terrorists attempting to build WMD's, to commence in 5...4....3...2.......
I'm conducting an experiment now. My hypothesis is that God makes it rain here at least once a month, so if it rains anytime in the next 30 days I'll have proved that God causes rain. Science, right?
There are a lot of wacky experiments that people can perform themselves, and fool themselves into thinking that they have significant results. Two of the things that make science science are the concepts of rigour and repeatability.
Whether or not most people learn things themselves or from other people is not an issue specific to science. It simply reflects the specialization within a structured society. This is a good thing since it allows us to expand human capability beyond what any one single person is capable of.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
we won't ever run out of helium and hydrogen (deutrium, tritium, etc.)
but short term, yes: use breeder fission reactors
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
But your eyes are open and you know the real facts. You talk a lot, but give no facts. That's the definition of bullshit.
I've built a fusor while in high school (a couple of years ago), and it's certainly within the reach of a dedicated person, or somebody with lots of support.
More info for the interested at http://stores.lulu.com/raymondj .
For me the fusor wasn't really an end so much as a starting point: it is an educational experience that is unmatched, because to build a fusor, you've got to have a grasp of high voltage, high vacuum, and gas management systems. Learning about these things in theory is nice, but there is nothing that can compare to slaving over a hot wrench after bolting down your chamber for the last hour and leak checking every single seal.
And, if anything, it does look good on a resume.
When will uranium and the breeder reactors be exhausted of fuels?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
Do you mean we, as in you and I? Or do you mean we, as in the year 3535, if man can survive?
But, seriously, would you chime in on the post above this (to avoid forking) as to what time frames we are talking about here?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
Thats not a simple question.. I believe it comes from the potential energy "stored" in the magnet. Magnets can become demagnetized because of this. Likewise when you pull the steel ball away, you put some of that potential energy back into the magnet.
However, it can help you achieve the dream of stealing one million smoke detectors.
This guy needs some help.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Just don't try this in Massachusetts.
and my latest experiment seems very promi
Lately there has been some research done on using liquid lithium as a plasma-facing component in a fusion device (http://pst.pppl.gov/ltx/index.php) , which essentially solves all of the wall issues. As the first wall is liquid and you're pumping lithium through, you don't have to worry about destruction of the walls. Li-6 can also be used to breed Tritium when bombarded with neutrons. The low-recycling nature of a liquid lithium wall also provides some incredible benefits to stability and confinement. Hopefully this catches on more with the mainstream fusion community.
A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans â" fewer than 100 worldwide â" are building...
Grammar fail. "Subculture" is singular, while "are" is plural. Back to grade school for the submitter.
You think Global Warming is bad now... and you want to add more energy to the system that's not already there?
Hello, that's why we have a moon! :)
IANAOM, but it seems to me that a series of steerable lenses in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth with a PV system, or even metamaterials on the moon should be able to convert this into microwaves to be beamed to ground stations which could feed the grid.
With GPS synched clocks everybody would know when to go on battery power while receiving stations are switched.
Oh, wait, wrong decade...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Can a string theorist explain why this won't work?, in simple terms please.
Sun big and hot. Reactor small and hot. Big hot better than small hot. String work better that way.
The xrays produced are also a problem, and the HV source you need is not exactly in the science fair safety level either.
That link was just the wikipedia article describing La Hague, because I didn't expect the Slashdot users outside Europe to know that it was the main nuclear waste recycling center of France. I only skipped over the article: as most wikipedia articles, it is certainly perfectible, but it is not the point I tried to make.
If you live near La Hague, or if you had the luck to visit the facilities, you'll agree that nuclear waste is not "easily disposed of". The site spans over 300 hectares, there is high security surrounding the MOX production. I can hardly think of anyone working in the field that will say recycling or disposal is not a very serious affair, which needs a lot of careful tracking and paperwork to prevent mistakes. The article makes it sound like it is a piece of cake.
Hydrogen-hydrogen fusion requires energy densities far higher than any other reaction. It's a pipe dream as a power source. Sure, you can do it with muon-catalyzed fusion, but that process is inherently a net consumer of power.
Now, maybe if particle physics hadn't wasted the past 30 years on string theory, we might have some theoretical idea of how to stabilize a muon, that might turn into a power source 50 years form now, but sadly folks are still pretending that string theory wasn't a complete waste of lives, careers, and funding.
With any fuel beside pure hydrogen, you get massive high-energy particles to deal with, and the shielding and radioactive waste gets ugly.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Er, yes I did, and I was more than happy to believe you given sufficient evidence. Let's examine your claim - coal power stations produce more radioactive waste per kWh than Chernobyl:
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
It's hard to assess the radioactive waste quantitatively but this quote about Chernobyl may help us make a qualatitive analysis at least, via Wikipedia, http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/118/118559.torch_executive_summary@en.pdf:
"In certain regions of Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland, wild game (including boar and deer), wild mushrooms, berries and carnivorous fish from lakes reach levels of several thousand Bq per kg of caesium-137", while "in Germany, caesium-137 levels in wild boar muscle reached 40,000 Bq/kg. The average level is 6,800 Bq/kg, more than ten times the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg", according to the TORCH 2006 report. The European Commission has stated that "The restrictions on certain foodstuffs from certain Member States must therefore continue to be maintained for many years to come"
Now let's look at the effects of radioactive waste from a coal power plants; http://www.coalonline.org/site/coalonline/content/viewer?LogDocId=81357&PhyDocId=5945&filename=5945_34.html at Section 3.2.3:
Radioactive trace elements in fly ash include the elements 238U, 232Th and 40K. Using the fission track registration technique, Jojo and others (1994) found the average uranium concentration to be 29.1 ppm in fly ash, 25.7 ppm in slag and 17.1 ppm in coal. Uranium exists in coal as the silicate mineral, coffinite, and as uraninite (UO2). During combustion, the refractory coffinite is distributed in equal concentrations in fly ash and bottom ash, while uraninite is vaporised and later condensed on fly ash when the flue gases cool. Uranium has only a slightly higher concentration in fly ash than in bottom ash.
Font and others (1993) quantified heavy metals in ash by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICPAES). The amount of radionuclides that are captured depends on their concentration in the original coal used, that of the ash it produces, the efficiency of the filtering system employed and the combustion efficiency of the power plant itself. The concentrations of some primary radionuclides in fly ash are estimated to be 265 Bq/kg for 40K, 200 Bq/kg for 238U and 240 Bq/kg for 226Ra.
Now the Greens-EFA and CoalOnline are both likely to be quoting research in their favour ... but at least qualitatively looking at the Becquerels/kg of the radioactive by-products of coal power vs. the fallout a couple of countries away from Chernobyl 20+ years later I can safely say I'd rather live near a coal power station capturing it's fly ash in building materials than near Chernobyl issuing forth it's radioactive matter upon the lands of Europe.
For comparison old houses with 400 Bq/m^3 of radon are considered to within safe limits in the EU. But who fills their basement with fly ash?
In other news, gas ovens make more flame than flame-throwers.
"And what's with this layer of ozone? That's never been there before!"
Few other factoids - Chernobyl's output to date is about 55 years (their are 4 reactors, opened in stages, closed in stages between 1970-2000) of maximum 1000MW production, so about 400TWh total.
Drax a UK coal fired power station opened in the 70s produces about 24TWh annually (7% of the demand apparently).
So by your consideration Drax has "released" at least twice the "radioactive waste" of Chernobyl. Having lived not that far from Drax for my first 18 years of life I find your definition of radioactive waste to be lacking somewhat.
and if you move 10 meters in any direction, what's the exposure? water is a pretty good absorber if you have enough of it.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Without the magnetic force, the magnet will fall, so how can you say no work is being done?
That's like saying "Well since you are not moving, there is no energy required, EVEN though gravity is constantly pulling you down."
And also because it is "nuculear" the government doesn't want to touch it either.
Remind me to dip my wallet in Carbon-14 before April 15th.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
"So by your consideration Drax has "released" at least twice the "radioactive waste" of Chernobyl. Having lived not that far from Drax for my first 18 years of life I find your definition of radioactive waste to be lacking somewhat."
*snicker*
I haven't been shot since I started carrying this rock. This rock makes the owner bullet proof!
Stray neutrons are an engineering curiosity. They are not the real problem with fusion as a power source.
In fact, they are probably the greatest part of fusion as a power source because they allow us to build fusion hybrid reactors. Such a reactor would allow us to safely breed thorium into uranium for use in well researched fission reactors - thereby extending the usability of fission as a primary energy source for nearly 100,000 years into the future.
Yeah, fusion is quite simple, aside from those pesky engineering details ...
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"So your objections against nuclear power are concentration of wealth and power? Are you an environmentalist or a closet anarchist?"
Why should anarchism be in the closet, especially here on Slashdot of all places? It's the political expression of the end-to-end principle that makes the Internet work, and the free/open-source software philosophy. Everyone's free to participate. Don't put big heavy social machinery into the core, put it on the edges - empower every person and group to be autonomous as much as possible. Much the same concept behind federalism, or at least confederation.
Whatever you might have thought you learned in high school, political anarchism is not about throwing bombs.
Though I'm possibly not precisely an anarchist as the political group is defined, I'm pretty much with E F Schumacher, one of the fathers of modern environmentalism. You may have heard of the terms 'intermediate technology' and 'small is beautiful'? Same principle, again. Small stuff empowers the individual, is environmentally friendly, allows rapid evolution of solutions. Big stuff - heavy, dangerous, capital-intensive plant - has political implications - centralisation of power rather than individual empowerment. And politics is just pragmatism that looks at the future. It's about the shape of social and economic interactions that investment in certain technologies implies.
Don't believe the nuclear hype. Look at the companies behind it. Look at their track record. How much do you trust them not only not to screw up, but not to screw you over?
If nuclear power were the Internet, it would be like Ma Bell, IBM and (for you youngies who don't remember Ma Bell) the RIAA building it based on everything being time-sharing servers and mandatory DRM. Deep centralisation, no user-servicible parts on the end - backed by *serious* hazard to life and health if you try to modify the system.
You're a Slashdot geek, and yet you're cool with that for your energy future?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
In reality, no fusion reactor is self sustaining - except for possibly stars.
However, there is a way to keep the reaction going on long enough to get more usable energy out than you put in. A commercial reactor would have shots of a few minutes.
Yes, but if I'd lived that close to Chernobyl there's a high probability I'd have suffered irreparable damage .. like death or something. I concede I may have suffered from radioactive doses from Drax but it's not distinguishable over background sources.
Exactly.
Pure Tokamak fusion will most likely never reach commercial viability because the necessary control infrastructure is just so damn expensive.
It is possible that an alternative form of pure fusion will eventually become viable, but we need to focus more on the near term. A full blown hybrid fusion infrastructure could become a reality in as little as 20 years if it became a priority.
There are so many stupid stories posted by Kdawson that I cannot count them.
The fusor has been around since the 1960's. When someone gets it to energy out greater than energy in then we have a story. When someone even gets it close to break even then maybe we have a story. What we have now is nothing worth reading about.
Just more food for the FUD.
Granted you're under water so you would have to be hugging the tube the whole time and standing in the worst area but even still
what's the exposure? water is a pretty good absorber if you have enough of it.
It looks like 3 post's trying and failing to say the same thing.
Fusion has been 20 years away for 50 years now. IMO, this is because the fundamental problems are engineering problems, but scientists are trying to solve them. That rarely works.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Until I see enough Helium to float a child's balloon, please do not call me.
... mind you the helium produced in the above balloon would prob be sufficient to light up Chicago for a year or so...
Or are these phoolish Philo Farnsworth fakers converting the hydrogen into something else, such as, perhaps, CUCUMBERS?
If he were alive, Stanley Pons would be spinning in his grave. (with a suitable armature to gen electricity)
.
- aqk
F U
Almost all of the tools and techniques that engineers have were discovered by "scientists".
Also, there are plenty of engineers working on fusion technology as we speak.
Either way your point is moot.
Rick Roll. Sad part is that this is the most compelling (albeit off topic) link so far to have tricked me...though I had a hunch.
--beckerist
Either way, we're *still* 20 years away from fusion, as we have been all my life.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I find your understanding of radioactivity to be somewhat lacking.
The huge issue with Chernobyl is that most of the radioactive material was released over a relatively short period of time. Had that happened all at once with the coal plant you mention here, I'm quite certain it would have been a major international incident instead of merely business as normal.
Radioactivity is simply a part of the environment that we live in. All I'm trying to point out is that those getting hyper-paranoid about radioactive material need to get a better clue about what it is that they are talking about, and understand that there are radioactive sources other than nuclear power plants that can and do cause environmental damage.
BTW, the final chapter on living near a major coal power plant has yet to be written. You seem to be implying "since I'm still alive and don't have cancer, this coal plant is harmless and has caused no health damage to me due to radiation". I'm pointing out that the radioactive material has indeed been spewed out of generator plants like this, and the areas surrounding those kind of facilities do have higher levels of some radioactive materials than comparable areas that don't have such generator plants. Indeed the levels of radiation may even be higher than would be the case for a well-designed nuclear fission power plant.
As for how damaging to your health such low levels of increased radiation may be to you, your children, and future generations.... I'm not even sure how to quantify that at all. I do live in an area which was down-wind from the above-ground (and underground) tests of hundreds of nuclear bombs. My father even has told me stories of going out to the desert to watch some of them go off and treating them like an evening of watching fireworks. Certainly the operation of a nuclear power plant, even going explosively damaging like Chernobyl, is nothing compared to thermo-nuclear detonations, yet I live in a city of well over a million people that is continuing to grow.
You state up front that the fanboys I speak of are the engineers designing the nuclear tech. Is it not in their financial interest to push for broader use of nuclear power? Although I do not begrudge them in the slightest on their need to earn a living, supporting themselves and perhaps a family, you wouldn't deny that they're being paid for this work perhaps renders their opinions somewhat less "objective", would you ?
I would certainly hope that they know more about the technical aspects nuclear power technology than I do- they are, after all, being paid for this knowledge and expertise. If they dind't know more than me then the nuclear industry which is either directly or indirectly paying their wages is simply throwing money out the window.
You focus on someone named Bussard and his efforts to draw up funding for researching a line of nuclear tech which might have eventualy led to a decentralized form of nuclear tech which might have empowered individuals and communities instead of the behemoth nuclear industry. Ironicaly what you are describing here vindicates the point I was making even if you and I take a different stance to nuclear technology.
Neither the government nor nuclear industry are interested in funding developments of such projects. Such projects, which empower the individual and the communities, are anti-thetical to the financial interest of big power and to the legislative desires of the government.
Big Power(tm) is all about seducing private investors and attaining government contracts. The government is only interested in gigantic scale projects which can be approved and realized within a given legislative period and which promise something which can be sold to their electors-ie. "creates jobs", "investment in our community" etc. The bigger the project the more legislation and more regulation, and most of all taxes.
We may have far more in common than you might think-regardless of our respective stances towards nuclear tech.
Funny that when one focuses on issues of social justice and invidividual and community empowerment one gets labeled a "closet anarchist".
Somehow I rather much prefer to be labeled such than to be a pawn of the nuclear industry and to be part of their propaganda campaign.
Saying that nuclear power is cleaner than coal is not saying much at all, really. Posing nuclear power as the only realistic alternative is simply disingenous- nuclear power is not alternative in any meaningful sense of the word. By implying that there is no other option you are doing nothing to justify this choice. This is exactly what big power wants us to think.
Yeah, I know, it is awfully unamerican of me to be opposed to the concentration of wealth and power.
No, it's not unamerican of you to oppose concentration of wealth and power. Actually, that's a very common sentiment in at least the earlier anti-nuclear movement.
It's a viewpoint that can be reasonably talked about. I just don't think it is very convincing when the consequences of it are fully explored. I also think it won't sell well with the public.
I'd very much like to argue the points for and against nuclear power on that basis. Instead, it gets caught up in arguments that will more easily work for public consumption.
Instead, we get Amory Lovins saying in his talks that we don't need anymore power plants of any hind, and thus nuclear is unneeded. At least he was honest enough on one occasion to admit that he felt that any cheap clean source of power would be a massive disaster as it would allow mankind to destroy nature even more.
We get the portrayal of the plutonium produced in a light water power reactor as being a major proliferation risk (go read up on the need for isotopic purity of a Pu bomb core to prevent early criticality).
We get statements on just how radiologically deadly Pu is when the observed rate of known exposures doesn't show the massive increases in lung cancer predicted. We get statements saying saying that standard reactor waste needs to be stored for tens of thousands of years, when in fact the highly radioactive portions decay much faster, etc, etc, lather rinse repeat.
And then, those who point these things out are labeled as brainwashed and industry shills by the very people using these arguments rather than the harder to sell real ones.
On balance, I've seen more intellectual honesty when arguing with Christian fundamentalists (and that's saying something).
It is indeed likely that we have some very similar views toward power generation and energy projects. The abuses that you are referring to can only happen when you permit large organizations that operate on the scale of governments to operate in a position of political power.
One previous energy company of which I used to be a customer that also used to be locally owned and controlled... in North America... is now owned by Scottish Power. Why some guy living in the UK, acting as CEO, cares one little bit about a state government much less an ordinary consumer in another country half-way across the planet is something that I don't think can be effectively answered in an honest manner. In other words, the very state regulatory agency in charge of monitoring and regulating this company is literally dwarfed in sheer manpower by a company that has more employees than the whole of the state government that is regulating it, and arguably more gross revenue than that state as well. Even threats of removing a business license from this company ring very hollow for businesses this large.
I, for one, advocate local ownership and small community-operated power facilities. It doesn't really matter what the "fuel source" is, it ought to be controlled on a level that an individual can make a difference in what happens and how everybody gets affected by the decisions of creating the power in the first place.
There is also some very interesting developments of power generation on a very small scale... even to the point of being done by individuals. How the utility companies are dealing with these issues is something to consider, and unfortunately government responses to this sort of potential is mixed at best.