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How To Line a Thermonuclear Reactor
sciencehabit writes "One of the biggest question marks hanging over the ITER fusion reactor project — a giant international collaboration currently under construction in France — is over what material to use for coating its interior wall. After all, the reactor has to withstand temperatures of 100,000C and an intense particle bombardment. Researchers have now answered that question by refitting the current world's largest fusion device, the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, U.K., with a lining akin to the one planned for ITER. JET's new 'ITER-like wall,' a combination of tungsten and beryllium, is eroding more slowly (PDF) and retaining less of the fuel than the lining used on earlier fusion reactors, the team reports."
This is known as the "first wall" problem in fusion reactors. It's good to hear there's been progress.
It's discouraging to hear how slow progress is on ITER.
Solar is orders of magnitude simpler in technological complexity, but economic return on solar is just starting to happen. Not because of the technology, simply because population is growing and the cheaper black shit is running out.
Same thing with Fusion. Technologically, we have enough engineers and scientists in the world to make it a world-scale Apollo type endeavour and get Fusion to market by 2020-2030.... if we wanted to. But honestly, the economy doesn't want to. Not until it runs out of whatever is cheaper.
With the heath issues around using beryllium, that will be inconvenience. Preparing alloys of W and Be are likely to be expensive for the quantities need too. Melting W takes a lot of heat, fabricating it is hard, if you are machining it with Be you have the heath issue from the finds. Doing it all by PM leads back to the heath issue.Well maybe we can get it fabricated in China or India.
The Space Shuttles TPS tiles are some amazing material... though even they are only spec'ed to maybe 1500C, but what is facinating about them, to me, is that they don't hold heat. They can be seared to 1200C and seconds later will be cool. So maybe a system that uses this technology combined with an extra liquid-based fast heat-removal system?
What material can withstand 100,000C ??? How do we test that?
The Admin and the Engineer
Its a little like the old puzzle "What do you use to hold an acid that can eat anything?" Difficult, but interesting, problem.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
If this is the alternative, I say we start developing rare earth mining in this country ASAP.
Have gnu, will travel.
how long will it last with homer at the controls?
BTW, my grammar in my above comment sucks I know lol
Thorium is better, it's clearly doable, much safer, and it's incredibly abundant.
It's not supposed to work economically, experiments are like that.
Troll harder next time.
Where are these temperatures of 100,000 C ? - Tungsten BOILS at 5660 C and Beryllium at 2970 C - Of course, that's at 1 atmosphere pressure. Something doesn't seem right to me unless the 100K is a good ways away from the walls or the pressure inside is incredibly high (doubtful).
Indeed, who needs people to run power companies, anyway, man? Energy should be free, man~
I've been working at PPPL this summer, and that's the latest idea
You're absolutely right. We also should never have sent people to the moon. What a waste of money that was. Not like anything ever came out of that right? Computers, satellites, GPS, your cell phone, etc.. Go back into your hole...
Had to google, that and learned something! It appears biodiesel is at the very bottom of the EROEI list: per this Wikipedia chart. How it's produced will have to change dramatically for it to become economically viable to meet current demand. The only emerging technology that seems to have that potential is algae, in some form or another. Of course it will be another decade at least before those technologies can scale to even begin to meet some demand, so it's still unproven at this point.
I find the weirdest shit every time I go there.
Twenty years ago I was a program officer at the Office of Fusion Energy, US Department of Energy. The ITER planning had started. My take -- there is no way on Earth that a tokamak can be cost competitive. Even if it works, even if the first wall problem is solved as may be indicated above, the engineering costs are so prohibitive as to price the whole concept out of consideration.
I earlier worked on Trisops, a simpler fusion concept that might be economically feasible, but I even doubt that. In the official fusion community, which is fixated on the the tokamak, it suffered from the NIH ( Not Invented Here ) syndrome and was defunded.
If containment is lost it's hardly a problem. For one thing there's very little fuel in the reactor and for another it stops producing energy the moment the magnets lose power, in contrast to fission reactors.
In descriptive linguistics, grammaticality has been supplanted by acceptability a long time ago.
Ezekiel 23:20
Company B sells solar panels.
Both companies provide products for the electrical generation market.
One company provides the resource, and another provides a conversion technology and not the resource itself.
Both companies are expecting exponential demand growth in the electrical generation market. Company A's resource is limited and finite. Once it's used up, it's done.
Company B's conversion technology allows an unlimited resource to be tapped.
At some point, Company A's finite resource will cost too much in overhead to keep prices low.
Company B's conversion technology will offer a cost competitive advantage to Company A's energy source.
Company A will panic, drop prices and ramp up production. Their existing customers will hold on, but eye Company B's product as a backup.
Because Company B's conversion technology only gets better with R&D cash from new sales. They ramp up production and features (efficiency), again becoming cheaper than Company A.
Company A really panics, pulls from savings and drops their price further, providing the customers who absolutely require Company A's resource.
By now, the market has realized Company B's business strategy is more sound. They aren't selling a finite resource, they're selling a widget that converts an inexhaustible resource into electricity. Therefore it's company overhead isn't bound by finite laws, but simply how efficient it's manufacturing is. It's a gadget manufacturer, not an energy supplier.
Unless you got a better theory than Einstein and can prove it, you've proven your ignorance.
There may be limits on how materials are used today, but that's what R&D is all about.
New, more effective ways of doing things with existing resources/technology.
The critical problem is the power of the disruptions in the machine, which will be strong enough to destroy the machine quickly.
These disruptions can't be avoided and are a flaw of tokamaks which is becoming a problem at this scale.
The wall being made of beryllium will also be a problem, together with the tritium in the chamber will make this thing extremely dangerous. If this thing releases materials after damage due to disruptions, we will not really be able to clean the mess.
aaaaaaa
From the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility with rush delivery
This sounds like it would be worth a try:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5158972/Starlite-the-nuclear-blast-defying-plastic-that-could-change-the-world.html
The inventor sounds a little eccentric, but if it does the job I'm sure someone can deal with that
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
Technologically, we have enough engineers and scientists in the world to make it a world-scale Apollo type endeavour and get Fusion to market by 2020-2030
Bullshit. They've been at it for 30-40 years and still haven't broken Q 1, where Q is the ratio between power inputted and power generated. You need a ratio of 5:1 just to sustain the plasma. 10:1 is needed for power production. The best verifiable results have been Q=.75.
You can't claim a problem is solvable just by throwing enough money at it.
Please help metamoderate.
You are dumb.
Where's the horse?
Research on tokamacks started in the 50's. They've been at it for 62 years, and they still can't solve a number of problems, including the fact that the high energy electrons generated tear the machine apart. Nevermind the fact that large parts of the machine become (effectively) permanently radioactive.
Please help metamoderate.
I listened to a talk by someone doing materials research for the first wall. Apparently disruption of the plasma is not the big problem, what they are doing is optimizing the whole process of producing, running, cleaning and recycling the first wall tiles. They are testing different materials by bombarding them with neutrons, then they are trying to separate the nasty stuff and recycle what's useful.
Sorry, closer to 300% expected profit because the first 5 years are a wash.
Don't forget Dr. Bussard's Polywell concept.
It's under a publishing blackout because it's a project currently being funded by the Navy, but the fact that it's still being funded is encouraging.
We just have to kill off the blue monkeys to get to it.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Nothing melts it.
So it's okay to use energy for your comfort and convenience as long as you demand that other people conserve it, since clearly you can't be expected to go without if you can't get a "green" device (which still uses energy that needs to be generated, but that's okay - just condemn the power companies for generating it after you've bought it)?
Got it.
Your logic would be more like demanding that others eat less while you continue stuffing your face. And great-grandparen'ts solution would be to go and kill the farmers - which, admittedly, would solve obesity pretty fast.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If you run a 60watt laptop all day but then ride your bike to work you'll be using far less energy than someone who commutes 60 miles and never touches a computer.
It's also not hypocritical to be resentful of your only good options. If the people in power only are willing to offer you a bad option then you can simultaneously use that *bad* option while also resenting them.
I HATED my old cable company. 200ms pings. 1mbps internet and extortionist prices. But you know what my other alternative was? Dial up. I could wish the people running my cable company would go to jail or something so that something would take their place while still using the best of the worst options available to me. Since then they have been bought out 3 times and now are great!
There is a natural monopoly in energy. It's a monopoly formed by the billions and trillions of dollars necessary to compete. If it was an area I could do something about I would definitely put my money into a 'good' and ecologically sound option--but the option isn't available to everyone. I actually can pay a premium to my energy company and get 100% carbon free energy. I'm sure the electrons reaching me are from natural gas but I'm paying for the higher cost wind turbines and solar elsewhere.
It's only hypocritical to complain about your options when you have a good option that you're not utilizing. We can sit on our high horse and demand that our leaders create policies which force good options to be made available while forcing those who cause damage to the public sphere to pay for the true cost of their product.
Metallic Hydrogen.
You can't handle the truth.
We can sit on our high horse and demand that our leaders create policies which force good options to be made available while forcing those who cause damage to the public sphere to pay for the true cost of their product.
That used to be called progress, now it's called interference.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If you run a 60 watt laptop all day that's a choice you made. You have the option of not running it, or installing solar batteries or paying a premium on wind power or whatever. But if you make a decision to run a 60 watt laptop and buy the power needed to do so from your local coal/nuclear/kitten-burning power plant, please don't pretend that it was the power company's fault rather than your own decision to put your entertainment above whatever negative consequences producing that power had..
And someone who commutes 60 miles probably does so because they have to, unless you're claiming that they like to waste their time and money.
So energy is a natural monopoly, except that it isn't. And the people in power are only willing to offer you a bad option except that they're more than happy to offer you better option provided you're willing to pay cost difference of providing them.
But even assuming that the local power company executives of Jeremiah Cornelius and kelemvor4 are card carrying mustache-twirling villains adamnt of providing only power generated by burning kittens, those two still had the option of not buying such ghastly elecricity for the sole purpose of posting on Slashdot how much they hate the people they bought it from and how it's others, not them, who should choose to forego luxuries - such as posting on Slashdot - when there are no "green" ways to do so. Jeremiah could had chosen not to deal with the people he apparently wants dead just to tell a bunch of strangers that he wants those people dead. Kelemvor4 could had chosen to conserve energy by not posting a message telling these same strangers how he can't be expected to go without these luxuries but conservation is desirable so presumably others should give up theirs. Both chose differently.
Or to put it blunter: people who visit brothels shouldn't condemn prostitutes.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The problem is that if you hit the wall you lose all the energy in the plasma as it is used to melt it away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migma
"I don't which is worse, that everyone has a price, or that the price is always so low"--Hobbes
Fusion. Technologically, we have enough engineers and scientists in the world to make it a world-scale Apollo type endeavour and get Fusion to market by 2020-2030.... if we wanted to. But honestly, the economy doesn't want to. Not until it runs out of whatever is cheaper.
If the market does not want it, the states can do it. The market is unable to cope with most of potential economic growth because it is not priced. You noticed Apollo was not drived by the market, did you?
Too bad solar together with pretty much all other renewable energy sources utterly suck for providing baseline energy load.
What the coal industry desperately wants you to think is that "base load" is referring to something more important than a flat output curve. It's irrelevant if the output curve is flat or variable, no single technology comes close to matching the demand curve, thus all individual energy sources suck at matching the demand curve and nothing is maintenance free (eg: 1 in 7 coal plants are shut down for scheduled maintenance at any point in time).
Coal and Nuclear output a steady supply that has to be shaped to meet the demand curve, they have traditionally managed this problem with fast switching gas turbines and hydro in the day and pumping water uphill at night. There is fuck all logical reason that variable output cannot do the same thing, in fact it must since it does not match the demand curve either.
Someone, somewhere, has convinced you that "base load" is essential to meeting demand, yet it's obvious that demand is variable and somewhat unpredictable. The real problem of meeting the demand curve is about fixed and variable sources of energy and the speed at which each technology can be "switched". The question "how can variable supply X output steady supply Y" is completely irrelevant to the real world problem of meeting a fluctuating demand curve. A more practical question would be - how can we combine the various technologies to make it both profitable to reduce emissions AND keep the lights on.
The energy market is one of the main reason we have 7 billion people instead of 1-2 billion. A market in the economic sense is nothing more than the set of laws governing trade, how those rules are structured determines the benefit/detriment the market has on society. For example there is no known market for slaves that is considered beneficial to modern society.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The Electrostatic Fusion Machine is to use an alternate layer of tungsten and boron carbide(W/B4C) to act as an X-ray. http://www.crossfirefusion.com/reactor/
...so try and embrace it instead.
The probability of getting it to work in the near future demands we don't throw everything at it, the same probability combined with the potential payoff demands we keep tinkering and finding solutions to sub-problems or trying completely different designs. Some of those solutions will inevitably be useful in unrelated fields, most won't. We may never get a working fusion reactor but big science (such as the LHC and Fusion) is not just about the questions it was designed to answer. Look at how the LHC was funded and the engineering challenges that were overcome in building it, the skills learned (both technical and organizational) just by building and mainlining the thing are of more immediate and tangible benefit to mankind than confirming Mr Higgs was correct to within five decimal places. Not to mention the intangible benefits of providing a place where scientists from around the globe can more easily exchange ideas and techniques.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So why are we still funding fusion research at a billion dollar level? Why can't program officers get the message up the chain that funding should go elsewhere? There are similar fields ticking along with $100M/year funding.
I'm just getting started reviewing programs, but I can't wrap my head around this concept that wasting money is what you have to do as part of government scientific oversight. There are way too many good projects that go unfunded to spend money on things serious scientists agree will never work.
I have seen that periodic cuts in government funding due to lack of progress spur research communities into being more creative and pragmatic. Old tired ideas just don't die otherwise.
We must band together to stop this erosion of the power of prayer to the All-Mighty YHWH. If these disgusting, sub-religious people and their filthy, filthy heresies were to gain a foothold, then you never know but the altars of Zeus will one day not be piled high with burnt offerings. And where would we be then?
No longer in a state of God-given grace, but instead we'll be wallowing in hygiene where we should be sitting in our shit. And no-longer would half our children die by the age of two years and go to feed the ever-hungry maw of God. Our people "injured in the stones" might get some sort of effective medical treatment, instead of having their familes tomented for the next seven generations (and their goods going to the temple!!).
What sort of a world would that be, I ask you? It would be Hell. On Earth.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Or Ducky and Bunny wallpaper. I think an eastern exposure picture window would be nice too.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Twenty years ago I was a program officer at the Office of Fusion Energy, US Department of Energy. The ITER planning had started. My take -- there is no way on Earth that a tokamak can be cost competitive. Even if it works, even if the first wall problem is solved as may be indicated above, the engineering costs are so prohibitive as to price the whole concept out of consideration.
...
Right you are, and the economics are even worse than what you suggest. Consider the breeding blanket problem. Putting aside the immense difficulty of creating a blanket that meets its stringent neutron economy and heat transfer issues (it may be as hard as the break-even problem, and may not even be possible), the capital cost for such a blanket - just price din term of the raw materials - makes fusion power more expensive than conventional nuclear power, and nuclear power's high capital cost is already the key factor preventing new plants from being built.
No - it is not unfavorable regulations, or those dirty hippies, holding nuclear power back (the regulatory environment has been very favorable toward nuclear power since Reagan was elected 32 years ago) is is simply that competing power plant types provide a faster return on investment. Only government intervention in the marketplace (of which the right wing now professes absolute horror) can bring more nuclear power (which the right loves) into existence.
It as been argued that an engineering program on the same scale as ITER is needed to build a full-scale breeding blanket prototype (using a nuclear reactor for the neutron and thermal load) to prove it can be done and validate a design if it can. The absence of such an effort fusion power is not going to materialize even if ITER is a smashing success.
And even if this happens, fusion power will be by far the most expensive source of electricity of any proposed technology.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Great idea! Ok, so when are you going to give me some? See where this leads?
One aspect is that we are part of an international consortium, and to pull back would initiate an diplomatic scuffle. In a more rational world we would't be building this.
To put things into perspective it is not more money than we use to bail out one sleazy banker so he can get his bonus, or run a few days of a stupid war.
While I fully support the work with fusion, at the same time we need equal investment in renwables AND infrastructure.OUr existing cables, poles and distribution system is a relic of the 50s.
We need cables undergraound, we need poles gone, we need higher quality cable that leaks less power as heat (through cable resistance) and gapping at connections that wear out over time. We are losing unimaginable amounts of power every day, and when demand increases the percentage of loss increases.
Just as the health care system required a renovation, our electircal power systems require renovation. The systems of the 50s that we are using today cannot hold up to, were not designed to hold up to modern demands.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Wasted time reading this article due to the poor title. Should have been "How To Line a Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor"