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A Step Closer To Cheap Nuclear Fusion
ewsnow writes "The Focus Fusion Society reports that the scientists and engineers at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics have finally built an operational Dense Plasma Focus device. While still at less than half power, they were able to achieve a pinch on their device. The small company that Eric Lerner started recently gathered enough funding to start a two-year study on the validity of his theory regarding fusion-inducing plasmoids. If the theory holds, the device will produce more electricity than it consumes. In contrast to the billions of dollars spent on Tokamak fusion (think ITER), LPP is conducting their research on a budget around a million dollars. Yet, if it works, it will provide nuclear fusion with much simpler equipment and much less cost. Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion have been discussed on Slashdot before."
I really hope this works. I get more excited about science for cheap and clean energy production than I do about efforts to raise the cost of energy consumption as a means to drive conservation. Too much emphasis on conservation will lead to a world where only rich people have the freedom to consume large amounts of energy. Access to cheap and clean power must be pushed down to today's poor. This will offer lots of ways for them to overcome their systemic poverty.
The public needs to be shown that the word "nuclear" is not cause for panic. Better yet, not to judge technology such as NMR as being dangerous simply because of the name. But I guess it is too much to ask that they have even a basic competency in science.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The public needs to be shown that the word "nuclear" is not cause for panic. Better yet, not to judge technology such as NMR as being dangerous simply because of the name. But I guess it is too much to ask that they have even a basic competency in science.
Woah there sparky!
We can't run banks without having them come falling down around our ears and you think the public is the problem with the perception of nuclear power?
In of itself nuclear reactions are predictable and can be made safe using correct precautions.
This is a layer 8 problem not a science problem.
In fusion research it always look good when you do low-energy tests or low density etc... It is relatively easy to confine plasmas that don't "burn". A penning trap will do the job quite nicely. The problems always show up when you try to push your design to operate close to the lawson criterion, at which point many otherwise promising designs just fall short ( taking the penning trap as an example the required magnetic field for any practical confinement time exceeds that at which modern superconductors stop beeing superconducting ).
Now I admit that I don't know the details of this particular scheme, but I can say with almost certainty that when they try to get closer to break even the higher temperatures, densities and confinement times required will turn the thing into a massive headache.
Western countries have by far most access to cheap energy and cheap food. Yet their population diminshes and they (we) import immigrants to fill the gap. It is true for all advanced economies. Once a nation gets sophiscated enough to have people educated and equipped with birth control means, growth halts as people can "trade" number of children for economic conditions. Emerging countries will see the same thing once their societies will get sophiscated enough.
It's a shame that western nations keep so much countries in 3-rd world rank by manipulating/corrupting their governments, stealing their natural/energy resources and making them debt slaves. Excess population growth of many countries is actually an effect of those shameful actions. Cheap energy source and help in achieving real advancements (as opposite to this shameful circus performed by Bono, Geldof and other idiots) would solve the problem.
NO!
If we keep treating people like they're too stupid to understand the science behind things, then it's going to just get harder and harder to get any real change in the technology our society uses. Not to mention the young people we scare away from science and technology. Rebranding a technology works only in the short term until the public catches on or some uses the exact same tactic against you. No, what we need to do is work to slowly win the culture war and continue to make the work of scientists again treated with appreciated with appreciation instead of suspicion.
Yes, as long as people openly brag about being too dumb to program a freakin' VCR/DVR, no chance here.
Somehow, being a retard became cool, and being intelligent became uncool. The scene at the beginning of Idiocracy, where they chase Joe away from that burning barrel, because he sounds "pompous and faggy". That's what's already happening every day on TV.
And I know exactly, how it came to this!
What do you think happens, when everyone for decades, follows the rules that
* everyone is equal, (There are no two equal humans. Not even twins.)
* nobody is allowed to point out deficiencies in others (But insulting people because you are jealous that they are able to do things that you can't do because you're too dumb, is aww-right.)
* the worse you perform, the more "special" you are (No you're not!)
* and most importantly: The worse you perform, the more support you will get. Oh, you don't get it? Then I am at fault, because I should have made it more simple. (NO, you're NOT! He does not get it? Well, he should perhaps, you know, USE HIS BRAIN! His brain is not much different from everyone else's. He should stop making up excuses and attack people for his own failure and laziness! [Don't *actually* say that. But also don't cave in. Tell him "Well, tough luck. But I think if you think you can easily understand it, if you give it a bit more time.")
Why don't we just start to treat everyone exactly for what he is. No lies. No being unfair in either direction. But rather point out the positive things than the negative ones, for motivation's sake. (So that people actually want and try to perform better, like in a game, where you want to win. After all, games are the training for real life.)
P.S.: If you think that I promote the opposite of what I criticize, you have not really understood me. But I think if you read the last paragraph again, you will.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There have not been any new nuclear plants built in this country in a long time not because of protesters, but because they are insanely and hideously expensive to build. They are for the most part not cost-effective.
They have become insanely and hideously expensive to build primarily because of the influence of your sign-waving hippie-hordes and mouth foaming idiotic masses. The actual cost to build a nuclear power plant would be a secondary consideration if it weren't for the likewise insane regulatory requirements, which if you ask me are slanted disproportionately at nuclear power. Ergo, the sign wavers won, and sanity lost.
The evidence is there. A power company can dump millions of tons of slightly radioactive and toxic coal ash under a golf course (a few tons of which contains vastly more radioactive waste than the totality of materials released by all civilian power related nuclear accidents). However, if that measly amount of waste came from a nuclear facility someone would have hung, certianly metaphorically, possibly in actuality. Furthermore, worker deaths occurring at fossil plants and related activities (especially coal mining naturally) are more numerous and held under far less scrutiny. If that number of people were killed because of nuclear power, there would be a huge price to pay.
I'm not arguing that regulation of dangerous materials is bad... But sanity should prevail. Were we able to process the wastes available and store unprocessable waste, and let investors build safe plants without having excessive governmental burden, it would prove to be a very cost effective and safe enterprise. Japan is prone to earthquakes, and there haven't been significant problems.
It's clear that while they are charged with looking they haven't been, which is why is used the phrase "actually watching" and not "supposed to be watching". These organisations allowed major US corporations to operate their day-to-day finances entirely on short term credit without thinking that perhaps they are actually trading while insolvent. ...could not see a massive housing bubble fuelled by high risk loans funded by a house-of-cards stack of financial smoke and mirrors was a recipe for disaster. ...when presented with evidence of gross financial malfeasance by Madoff, a comparatively simple target to monitor, didn't think there was anything even worth looking into.
Even if they had been watching, the absence of codified limits defining "normal" or "acceptable" risk in this area effectively removed any trigger for action. Even a poorly run nuclear facility has normal operating parameters, risk mitigation strategies, safety margins, trigger points for shut down, and emergency plans.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
If English is not your first language, perhaps it is understandable that you didn't realize that the antecedent to a pronoun such as "this" is ordinarily to be resolved in the context of the speaker or writer, not of the listener or reader. Thus if I use the phrase "This computer is a Macintosh", I am not wrong simply because you are using a Banana 9000. Nor was the original poster wrong to say "There are 104 nuclear reactors in this country" if there are, in fact, 104 reactors in the country that poster is in.
Your arrogance about it is less understandable; perhaps you're simply an asshole.
Because it was a nuclear plant and it blew up?
The point he was making is actually it's not relevant to a discussion of nuclear power plant safety in regards to accidental malfunctions because in this case many of the safety devices were specifically turned off and the triggering event was deliberately initiated to see what would happen without proper authorization; in short it didn't "blow up" it was "Blown Up".
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
fission power is particularly susceptible to idiotic behaviour
[citation needed]
and no one anywhere has any idea of how to ensure that design errors of that kind do not happen
We do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
if we did, we'd be able to build systems that were robust against idiotic behaviour we haven't thought of yet.
People who are against everything "nucular" with Tchernobyl and Three Mile Island as their sole arguments have so far been able to stop us from building them.
it's in my head