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The Bizarre Reactor Scientists Hope Will Save Fusion Research (sciencemag.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the hard-problems-are-hard dept.

sciencehabit writes: In a gleaming research lab in Germany's northeastern corner, researchers are preparing to switch on a fusion device called a stellarator, the largest ever built. The €1-billion machine, known as Wendelstein 7-X looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet. Stellarators have long been dark horses in fusion energy research but the Dali-esque devices have many attributes that could make them much better prospects for a commercial fusion power plant than the more popular tokamaks: Once started, stellarators naturally purr along in a steady state and they are not prone to the potentially metal-bending magnetic disruptions that plague tokamaks. Unfortunately they are devilishly hard to build.

137 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. that One Weird Trick which will make you click by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    no...you didn't.....c'mon man.

    1. Re:that One Weird Trick which will make you click by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Tokamak researchers HATE them!"

  2. Escape from castle Wendelstein by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    when this blows up

  3. Q: heat by khallow · · Score: 2

    So how are they heating up the plasma? The discussion of the comparison with the tokamak talks a lot about the instability of the latter, but not much about how they'll replace the heating mechanism (the pulsing of the plasma, is supposedly replaced with something more steady).

    1. Re:Q: heat by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heating (and confinement) are now basically solved problems in magnetic confinement machines. The Wikipedia article says that they'll be using bog-standing microwave heating (they don't say exactly what), and neutral-beam heating in W-7X.

      Both tokamaks and stellarators have to 'twist' the magnetic field around the torus (since paths around the inside of the torus are smaller than the outside, leading to instabilities). Tokamaks achieve this by inducing a current through the plasma to induce the twist in the magnetic field using a huge solenoid or other means; stellarators use external coils.

      The former are prone to catastrophic disruptions (which in extreme cases, can unleash strong forces that could, in the absolute worst case, physically break the machine); the latter are more stable, but much harder to manufacture.

    2. Re: Q: heat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, "Borg standing-microwave."

    3. Re:Q: heat by RuffMasterD · · Score: 1

      I don't know, but the first result on Google is some committee dedicated to the activity. They've been doing it since the 70s.

      --
      Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
    4. Re:Q: heat by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      " bog-standing "??? What kind of expression is that? What does it mean?

      It's "bog-standing microwave heating" so I assume they're locating the microwave in a bog for cooling purposes. Apparently, these fusion thingies get quite hot, even more so than household microwave ovens!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:Q: heat by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 3, Funny

      And if it melts down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp, we'll just build another, which will be the strongest reactor in all the lands.

    6. Re:Q: heat by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Microwave and radio frequency antennas are used to heat the plasma. Specific frequencies are used to resonate with the electrons and ions in the plasma. 10MW of electron cyclotron resonant heating and 4MW of ion cyclotron resonant heating.

  4. Title is misleading by benjfowler · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There's nothing "new" about the stellarator at all.

    I'm pretty sure that Lyman Spitzer came up with the idea at Princeton before the Russians did at the Kurchatov Institute. The only reason why the tokamak is more famous, is that the physics performance (particle, energy confinement) was for the longest time, way better in tokamaks (and may well still be). Also, tokamaks are way easier to build (but harder to operate).

    That said, I've read suggestions that stellarators might be able to be optimised in ways that are impossible in tokamaks, pending further breakthroughs. The machines will still cost a fortune to build though -- and cost is going to be a BIG barrier to adoption of fusion as a power source at any rate.

    1. Re:Title is misleading by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Title doesn't mention "new", neither does summary.

      The summary also correctly implies stellarators are in fact old. Stellarators have long been dark horses

    2. Re:Title is misleading by knightghost · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We blew $5 trillion on useless wars and $20 trillion so that wall street could get some short term bonuses. A billion dollar fusion engine isn't even a rounding error.

    3. Re:Title is misleading by benjfowler · · Score: 1

      In the minds of laypeople, yes. There are quite a few other concepts that have been worked on over the years, none of which have any kind of public profile at all.

    4. Re: Title is misleading by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Especially if you want to "generously" lend those countries money so they could pay for your weapons, as is the case with Germany and Greece.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: Title is misleading by muecksteiner · · Score: 1

      Mind you, if you are Greece, and have the current Turkey of Mr. Erdogan as neighbour, you might also be inclined to find some way to buy arms. Lots of arms, actually.

    6. Re:Title is misleading by SuperDre · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should read the original article, the machine has already been built and is ready for it's first test run with plasma, but is waiting aproval to do so.. Yes it did cost a lot of money to build, but if it works it will reduce the cost of generating energy enormously and it's 'clean'..
      But even if the test works perfectly, it's still a long way off before we see it used for our daily use..

    7. Re:Title is misleading by swb · · Score: 1

      Forgetting the politics, economics and global events surrounding those $25 trillion, if we *had* decided to spend $25 trillion (which is nearly 2 years of total US GDP) on fusion would we have even a small scale utility version by now?

      I'm assuming that given the size of that amount of money and the actual US GDP, it would take a massive effort just to practically even spend that kind of money, let alone perform the science and engineering it might enable (such as building facilities, etc).

    8. Re: Title is misleading by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Mind you, if you are Greece, and have the current Turkey of Mr. Erdogan as neighbour, you might also be inclined to find some way to buy arms. Lots of arms, actually.

      I might be wrong, but I think if Turkey invaded Greece that would put quite a dampener on their EU membership bid. Plus they're both in NATO, so they'd be pissing off the US as well.

      And, no, North Cyprus isn't the same thing.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    9. Re: Title is misleading by muecksteiner · · Score: 1

      Implying that membership of the EU is something that would matter to certain parts of the political establishment in Turkey in the long run. For some, re-establishment of the Sultanate seems to come way higher on the list of priorities.

    10. Re:Title is misleading by tkrotchko · · Score: 1

      It would be difficult, if not impossible, to absorb that kind of money without starting a small nuclear war.

      --
      You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
    11. Re:Title is misleading by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      You do realize that the banks repaid the bailouts right?

      https://projects.propublica.or...

      Also, it was "only" $600B

      http://www.politifact.com/new-...

      It was a temporary cash influx to keep the banks from folding. I am actually surprised it wasn't handled through FDIC insurance, but I don't know much about the banking industry.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    12. Re:Title is misleading by slew · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should read the original article, the machine has already been built and is ready for it's first test run with plasma, but is waiting aproval to do so.. Yes it did cost a lot of money to build, but if it works it will reduce the cost of generating energy enormously and it's 'clean'..
      But even if the test works perfectly, it's still a long way off before we see it used for our daily use..

      AFAIK, the Wendelstein 7-X is an *experimental* reactor, it wasn't planned to be an economical power plant.. It is designed for demonstrating the features required for continuous operation (important for a power plant), but I don't think it was designed for actual continuous 24-7 operation (as I recall it is supposed to operate in short stretches of plasma containment for about a half an hour or so and then gather test data, not actually do continuous fusion and extract power)

      The idea is that its design is very close to that of what you would want for an actual stellarator reactor. If it works well, someone could tweak the design and build the plant that you might want to try to do fusion tests, and then later you would build on that the one for daily use and be pretty sure it works. This is not unlike ITER (which is also an experimental tokamak that is doing something similar). Neither is designed to be a power plant, (ITER doesn't even have a way to capture the fusion energy released and convert it to electricity, and I suspect neither does the W7-X reactor).

      Unlike software, you don't ship the alpha nuclear reactor and let the unsuspecting population beta test it...

    13. Re:Title is misleading by amicitas · · Score: 1

      Wendelstein 7-X is "new" in the sense that it not a classical stellarator (such as those built by Spitzer) but rather an optimized design. What this essentially means is the shape of the magnetic coils was carefully chosen using a set of theoretical calculations to minimize energy loss (improve confinement) and improve stability. This will be the first large scale stellarator with an optimized design. Several smaller optimized devices have been constructed, however these have been short pulse university scale machines and could not be used to fully explore this confinement concept. Up until the computation tools to create a optimized design became available, it was generally considered that the energy loss in a stellarator would always be much greater than in a tokamak, and that therefore tokamaks were a better path towards fusion energy. Using modern optimization techniques however it is possible to design a stellarator with equivalent expected energy loss as a tokamak design but with much better stability and no need for current drive (which is very energy intensive).

    14. Re:Title is misleading by SuperDre · · Score: 1

      Yes, I didn't mean that specific reactor itself would be used for production, but if this prototype works it clears the way for an actual production version in the near future, which will reduce the cost of energy in the long run.

    15. Re:Title is misleading by slew · · Score: 1

      Yes, I didn't mean that specific reactor itself would be used for production, but if this prototype works it clears the way for an actual production version in the **near** future, which will reduce the cost of energy in the long run.

      Fusion has always been in the **near** future...

      The fact that the W7X reactor is 8 years behind schedule already^ and it's only the experimental reactor might give some pause to the enthusiasm around this technology being deployed in a time frame that might be considered the near future from today. In the long run, it **might** prove to be a promising technology to reduce the cost of energy in the long run, but many potential revolutionary technologies suffer a great infant mortality rate and I wouldn't be betting too much on any of them at this point in the game...

      I'm not saying we shouldn't be trying, but everything deserves a critical analysis, and that include the dream of clean fusion energy...

      ^(sadly, that magnitude of delay is not bad compared to other fusion projects like ITER and NIF)

    16. Re: Title is misleading by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      How does one exclude the other?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope. With these kind of magnetic confinement machines and the way they scale, the bigger the better (quite literally).

    This is why we need to build a stupendously huge and expensive machine like ITER to demonstrate anything approaching economic power output for the energy required to confine and heat the plasma.

  6. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    Woosh.

    Mr Fusion.

  7. Just stop. by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Funny

    looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.

    Sure, in the same way a croissant does.

    Meaning, not at all.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    1. Re:Just stop. by Ecuador · · Score: 1

      looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.

      Sure, in the same way a croissant does.

      Meaning, not at all.

      OK, I'll give you that, it doesn't look like a croissant, but how about a cronut? Do you see it?

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
    2. Re:Just stop. by Robotbeat · · Score: 1

      looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.

      Sure, in the same way a croissant does.

      Meaning, not at all.

      Now that you mention it, it kind of does look like a croissant.

    3. Re:Just stop. by camperdave · · Score: 1

      looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.

      Sure, in the same way a croissant does.

      Meaning, not at all.

      Indeed! In every encounter I've seen between the Millennium Falcon and Imperial ships, whether it's dodging TIE fighters in an asteroid belt, playing tag with Imperial Star Destroyers, or tackling a Death Star, it's the Imperial ships that wind up being turned into scrap metal.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    4. Re:Just stop. by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Han fairly won the Falcon in a card game. Lando just didn't think the Falcon counted as "at his ship yard".

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  8. Presses button and... by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Funny

    Whirr Whir Whir Whir CLUNK.

    "They told me they fixed it! It's not my fault!" as they furiously poke at buttons.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  9. This tech is going nowhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    They're just spinning in circles at this point.

    1. Re:This tech is going nowhere by benjfowler · · Score: 1

      That's what you think.

      When ITER ignites a plasma early next decade, people will be completely blindsided. Progress has actually been staggering -- the state-of-the-art in fusion triple-product has grown faster than Moore's Law for decades.

    2. Re:This tech is going nowhere by khallow · · Score: 1

      When ITER ignites a plasma early next decade

      Still not going to cut it. You have to substantially reduce the cost as well. That means either figuring out how to do the fancy tech cheaper, or more likely redo the whole mess with technology that is more affordable.

      Progress has actually been staggering -- the state-of-the-art in fusion triple-product has grown faster than Moore's Law for decades.

      Still could have been faster if we were serious about it.

    3. Re:This tech is going nowhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If built, the only way ITER won't reach a Q of 1 is if there is some fundamental wrong in plasma physics that would revolutionize things in terms of scientific discoveries. The more boring outcome is it will quite easily exceed a Q of 1, but just turn out to not be that helpful at solving engineering problems necessarily to make fusion more economical as a commercial power source. There is also the possibility it won't get completed, due to political reasons which are greatly inflating costs (e.g. distribute the production of the same item among multiple countries, because they all demand experience, and hence no price savings from economy of scale when multiple shops have to work out how to build the exact same thing in different places... like producing the specialized klystrons in multiple countries instead of one shop).

    4. Re:This tech is going nowhere by backslashdot · · Score: 1

      Yup post it anonymously, so you won't be accountable as one of the people trying to derail fusion. Fools like you used to claim space travel and airplanes were impossible because of all the failures that came before it was successful. We have ITER, MagLIF, and loads of other promising concepts left to try.

      Post a proof that fusion is impossible and then maybe we'll listen. You know a proof is something other than "fusion didn't work when we cut the budget by 90%".
      We know fusion is possible not only because the sun is powered by it, but also because the thermonuclear weapons work.

    5. Re:This tech is going nowhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And it will be the most expensive source of electricity yet devised by man, but we don't have a shortage of electricity.

      Technology always gets better, remember? So our windmills and solar panels got better and our appliances got better. We got better at making electricity and we need less of it.

      Fusion research is a dinosaur trying to solve the problems of the past.

      It's useless. And ITER isn't even meant to be a power plant, that's DEMO which is even further out and more improbable.

    6. Re:This tech is going nowhere by camperdave · · Score: 1

      That's what you think.

      When ITER ignites a plasma early next decade, people will be completely blindsided.

      Don't worry. The US will have ground troops go in long before that happens.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    7. Re:This tech is going nowhere by SuperDre · · Score: 1

      That's where you're wrong, the research done for decades provided A LOT, theory is there, it should be possible, but to put that theory in practice is where the problems arise, it cost a lot of money (which not everyone is interested in pouring into it) and knowingly that it will take some time for technology to advance to actually make it possible..

      And if you believe some of the stories around, the 'two people did this in a shed' can also be put to use to various other energymaking devices, but noone actually believes those people...
      Also comparing a home build airplane to a fusion reactor is not really a good example..

    8. Re:This tech is going nowhere by beerbear · · Score: 1

      We got better at making electricity and we need less of it.

      Maybe per person consumption of energy is declining (doubtful), but the population explosion and industrialization of current third world areas will more than make up for. Every projection of world wide energy consumption shows an increase in total energy needs, not a decrease.

      --
      Hold my beer and watch this!
    9. Re:This tech is going nowhere by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      >Don't worry. The US will have ground troops go in long before that happens.

      You win the internet for today.

    10. Re:This tech is going nowhere by backslashdot · · Score: 1

      I never said life extension was impossible, we *SHOULD* be researching that. However with life extension only a few people have theories that after peer review seem plausible. The people who do have valid scientific theories on it are getting the funding needed -- none of which require a huge budget. In the case of fusion, tokamak has had a solid case since the 70s that it would work if built the size of ITER .. and this theory has been open to public scrutiny for a while. ITER was originally supposed to have been built in 1985. Between 1985 and today there has been nothing widely accepted saying that ITER won't work.

    11. Re:This tech is going nowhere by backslashdot · · Score: 1

      There is not even a half-way plausible theory on how to convert ourselves safely into photons. We do have plausible theories on making fusion work.

    12. Re:This tech is going nowhere by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of unknowns, plasma physics isn't evolved enough. Edge Localized Mode issues alone could doom the thing

  10. Why it's hard by phantomfive · · Score: 2
    Lots of curves in the construction, and

    Wendelstein 7-X’s bizarrely shaped components must be put together with millimeter precision. All welding was computer controlled and monitored with laser scanners.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Why it's hard by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      How long until we can just 3D print one of these things? :)

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  11. princton Ppasma Physics Lab by basecastula+ · · Score: 1

    Weird how the PPPL sent out papers on these like 15 years ago and the summery make it seem like something obscure.

  12. Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    Could the sale of the power from a ITER-like or W7X-like power plant pay better than 10% more than the interest on the capital used to build it added to the operating cost? (Assume the market is priced according to the cost of generating electricity from ALTERNATIVES to coal.)

    If not, I can't see fusion competing with energy alternatives..... No one would ever invest the money to build commercial fusion plants if you couldn't make sufficient profit on the invested capital.....

    --PeterM

    1. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by david_bonn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For all of this, in the very best case W7X will only sustain fusion for thirty minutes (according to Wikipedia). That is an extremely long way from being practical.

      Even assuming it works very well, we are an extremely long way from solving all of the problems required to build a practical working fusion reactor.

      Some of the problems remaining to be solved:

      • Neutron flux (part 1). Most of the energy from the deuterium-tritium reaction is in the high-energy neutron produced by the reaction. The best estimate is that the neutron flux from a 1GW fusion reactor would be one or two orders of magnitude higher than from a fission reactor. No known material can withstand that neutron flux. One other way to look at it is that in five years of operation, every atomic nucleus in whatever radiation shield you build will be hit hundreds of times over a five year period.
      • Neutron flux (part 2). the deuterium-tritium reaction produces one neutron. That neutron has to (1) heat a working fluid that can be used to run a turbine, and (2) strike a lithium nucleus with enough energy to breed tritium. You need to do that with every damned neutron to have a self-sustaining system. This is made even more challenging by the fact that neutrons will be emitted isotropically from the reactor. Yes, there are materials that can act as neutron amplifiers, but no one has ever done that on a large scale and it probably won't be easy or simple.
      • Lithium. You are going to need a lot of it. A 1GW reactor will probably need around 10000 tons of lithium. At $7/kg, that is seventy billion dollars worth of lithium. That is also a significant percentage of the world's annual production of lithium.
      • Tritium. Once you've made the tritium from the lithium, you need to get it back into the plasma where it can do some good. I note that both tritium and lithium will easily react with each other and separating them will be tricky.
      • Helium removal. Your fusion reaction will produce helium. Too much helium in the plasma will interfere with the reaction and lower the efficiency of the reactor. You need a system to get the helium out of the plasma without cooling it down. This system must operate continuously.
      • Scaling. W7X has a plasma volume of around 30 cubic meters. A 1GW fusion plant would need a plasma volume on the order of 1000 cubic meters. W7X will cost around a billion dollars -- straight-up extrapolation implies a cost north of 30 billion dollars. That doesn't include all of the systems described above or a turbine to actually generate electricity. I also point out that scaling up isn't necessarily cheaper either.

      I'd also note that solving each of the above problems is not going to be cheap. It is hard to imagine how a fusion plant can be made for less money than an existing fission plant, and those plants are already not competitive. Chances are it would be better and cheaper to build lots of batteries with all that lithium and a lot of wind turbines and solar panels. That would get you the same amount of energy, probably.

      Sources: matter2energy, Do The Math

    2. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by david_bonn · · Score: 2

      I messed up, 10000 tons of lithium will cost roughly seventy million dollars. However, since you need "enriched" lithium with more Li-6 a price north of $100/kg is probably more realistic, which still puts you in the billion-dollar range on how much your lithium blanket is going to cost.

    3. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      These machines aren't meant to be the Boeing 747 of fusion power. They're more like the Wright Flyer -- which was not even close to being a commercially viable flying machine, but did demonstrate that heavier-than-air flight was possible, and provided the engineers with experience that helped them engineer the next generation of aircraft.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    4. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The bullet points where you give numbers make no sense. 10000 tons of lithium? Design studies for DEMO, which would have several GW of thermal output, have a blanket volume on the order of 500 m^3. Even if assuming that was all lithium, you are talking about 300-400 tons, much smaller than 10000 tons. 10000 tons would be a block of lithium about 27 m on a side, which is much larger than the whole reactor vessel design.

      Scaling the costs is very difficult to do. A production reactor would be far cheaper in many ways, because you don't need as much diagnostic access. A lot of compromises have to be made to just get enough space between the magnets of many designs for diagnostics, plus the costs of diagnostics (millions of dollars each for the many of them), plus the costs to use, maintain and analyse them. This is part of why designs for DEMO are only about 15% larger than ITER, but of a much more compact design considering it is producing nearly 4-8 times as much thermal output.

    5. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      You're right. That is still a heck of a lot of enriched lithium. I got my numbers from skimming my sources.

      I still think there is no guarantee that scaling up will necessarily be less expensive. New engineering problems are likely to arise as you scale up. And yes, while you will not need as much instrumentation in a production reactor, there is a lot of stuff a production reactor will need (like the ability to run more than thirty minutes) that isn't included in that cost. My own guess is that it will probably be a wash.

    6. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by david_bonn · · Score: 1

      My point is that there are a lot of daunting challenges to building a reliable commercial-scale fusion plant. They are probably all solvable. It is an open question whether you can solve all of those problems and produce a competitive source of electricity. For myself, I doubt it.

    7. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My own guess is that it will probably be a wash.

      There are plenty of design studies that vary from all physics to heavy economics, and they go into far more detail thank just guesing. The first search result for something recent pulls up papers like this one that amount to construction + decades of operation costs on the order of 10-20 billion euros for DEMO, which still includes science equipment, while being bigger than ITER. That is on par with just construction cost with ITER.

    8. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      We knew heavier than air flight was possible LONG before the Wright brothers got involved.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    9. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by SomeoneFromBelgium · · Score: 2

      All of these are engeneering challenges and not insurmoutable barriers. Each and everyone of them has been studied and solutions proposed (how to handle the neutron flux, what materials to use, how to remove helium and how to make an efficient blanket of Lithium to assure self sustainable fueling starting from raw deuterium and lithium.
      These will all be sought out an tested on Iter and then Demo.

    10. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      Could you briefly explain why a 1 GW reactor would need 10.000 tons of Lithium?

      thanks in advance

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    11. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      I messed up, 10000 tons of lithium will cost roughly seventy million dollars. However, since you need "enriched" lithium with more Li-6 a price north of $100/kg is probably more realistic, which still puts you in the billion-dollar range on how much your lithium blanket is going to cost.

      Yeah, and also "1000 cubic meters" is more accurately called "a cubic kilometer". Yeah.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    12. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're off a few orders of magnitude in cost and volume...there are a lot of unknowns in future of fusion, but this isn't cosmology. You just kind of lumped a bunch of things together without clearly indicating how some of them were just your guesses (and wrong at that), some are issues that have a list of likely solutions (tritium breeding ratios are well studied, so getting enough neutrons to react to become tritium is not expected to be a problem even if untested on large scales) to the actual serious open ended issues (like structural materials that can handle the neutron flux).

    13. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      We knew heavier than air flight was possible LONG before the Wright brothers got involved.

      There's a big difference between knowing something is possible, and actually doing it.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    14. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      > There are plenty of design studies that vary from all physics to heavy economics

      Indeed, and every single one of them that's not written by the fusion research establishment universally states with overwhelming numbers that it will not be competitive.

      Go ahead and look up Euratom's numbers. They predict that fusion will be the most expensive form of power even 100 years out, after 50 years of design refinement.

      People who actually work in the power industry have been saying this since the 1970s. The fusion community simply circled its wagons and ignored it.

    15. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      Birds did too.

    16. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by dlingman · · Score: 1

      And we know that fusion is possible too.

      Look up. Look way up... See the glowing ball of fire in the sky?

    17. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by ericloewe · · Score: 1

      1000m^3 = 10^-6 km^3

      You're way off and I recommend you take an hour to learn how to deal with powers of units.

    18. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and also "1000 cubic meters" is more accurately called "a cubic kilometer". Yeah.

      Even more accurately, it's 1/1000000th of a cubic kilometer.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    19. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      A nice summary except for the turbine part.
      A fusion plant is supposed to generate electricity directly via the magneto hydrodynamic effect.
      Considering that the plasma is magnetic confined I wonder how difficult that would be in practice ;D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    20. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1


      Yeah, and also "1000 cubic meters" is more accurately called "a cubic kilometer". Yeah.

      No it is not. A "cubic kilometer" is 1km * 1km * 1km = 1000 * 1000 * 1000 cubic meters = 1billion cubic meters.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    21. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      If we could develop a solar cell with 30% efficiency that is cheap to manufacture and better storage technology we would not need fussion power at all. Those research areas seem a whole lot easier to solve than fusion energy. They just lack funds.

    22. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      There's a big difference between knowing something is possible, and actually doing it.

      In 1848, Sir George Cayley built a glider that carried a child, years before the Wright brothers were even born.

      In 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first flight higher than his point of departure, by having his glider "L'Albatros artificiel" pulled by a horse on a beach. He reportedly achieved a height of 100 meters, over a distance of 200 meters.

      In 1877, Enrico Forlanini developed an unmanned helicopter powered by a steam engine. It rose to a height of 13 meters, where it remained for some 20 seconds, after a vertical take-off in Milan.

      in 1894, Sir Hiram Maxim constructed a large test rig to investigate aerodynamic lift. It's twin propellers were powered by two lightweight compound steam engines and it took three people to operate. It didn't have any flight controls so it ran on rails, with a second set of rails above the wheels to restrain it. On its third run it broke from the rail, became airborne for several hundred feet at two to three feet altitude.

      On 14 August 1901, Gustave Whitehead carried out a controlled, powered flight in his Number 21 monoplane at Fairfield, Connecticut.

      Wilbur and Orville Wright... Last inventors of the airplane.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    23. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by mikael · · Score: 1

      They do, it's called a startup neutron source:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The problem is that the startup neutron sources receive the neutron flux themselves, changing their composition as an isotope, thus making them unusable. On the other hand, you get inert elements that become more radioactive as they receive neutron flux. So it's a juggling act to maintain optimum radioactivity.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    24. Re:Even if ITER or W7X works, is it economical? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Looks like we'll need two whooshes today.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
  13. DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Went and looked for answers to my own question:

    This report from DOE
    http://web.ornl.gov/~webworks/...

    has figures showing that they forecast the cost of fusion power to be between 68 to 80 "mill/kWh", (apparently mills are thousandth's of a 1999 dollar) which is more expensive than any alternative they examined. Wind power they forecast to cost between 20 to 40 "mill/kWh".

    If the people at DOE who wrote that report are good forecasters, then fusion is DOA. Alternatives will be less expensive.

    Yes, you can make "technology advancement" arguments that the DOE forecasters are wrong, but the cost of wind and solar generators are dropping all the time, too, and storage options might get radically cheaper as well. I think investment in solar + wind + storage actually dwarfs investments in fusion, so the market seems intent on fulfilling DOE's prophesy.

    Fusion may really only come into its own when we go live in the asteroid belt or the outer solar system.

    --PeterM

    1. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Price has never been a good indicator of whether an energy source is viable. Especially not current price. If you suggest things like fracking or even oil sands to someone from the 70s he'd probably look at you like you're suggesting mining iron on the moon. Far too expensive to do, for there are far cheaper sources of oil.

      Just because something is cheap today doesn't mean it is going to be cheap tomorrow. Resources like coal, oil and gas are getting more and more expensive as the cheap sources run dry. Nuclear (fission) power may well jump in cost if countries decide that companies running them should be responsible for disasters and waste disposal. And wind and solar power are dependent on there being areas where putting them actually makes sense. Real estate can actually become the issue here in the future.

      Whether a power source is economically viable is by no means static.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by blindseer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, you can make "technology advancement" arguments that the DOE forecasters are wrong, but the cost of wind and solar generators are dropping all the time, too, and storage options might get radically cheaper as well. I think investment in solar + wind + storage actually dwarfs investments in fusion, so the market seems intent on fulfilling DOE's prophesy.

      Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission. Part of this is because wind and solar require viable (read that as cheap, reliable, etc) storage to provide 24/7 power. Any energy storage system that can make wind and solar reliable will also serve to make coal and fission cheaper.

      A big problem with any power plant that works by steam power, which coal and fission do, is that it does not respond well to large daily swings in power demands. To rectify this there are a large number of solutions, the most popular one because it is cheap is natural gas turbines. In this case "cheap" is relative because even though natural gas turbines cost three times that of coal and fission it is still the cheapest solution we have. Right now that is the same for wind and solar, to make wind and solar "work" there must be a ready reserve of natural gas turbines.

      If we develop a technology that can store energy cheaper than it takes to produce it by natural gas turbines then all we'd need to do to get cheap and reliable power is to couple that storage with coal and fission. To compete with that wind and solar would have to be a fraction of the cost of operating a coal or fission power plant. Why a fraction of the cost? Because coal and fission can operate with better than 80% up time. Wind and solar can only operate with something like 30% up time. To compete with a one GW fission power plant would require three GW capacity wind and/or solar, along with this as yet undeveloped storage technology that is cheaper than natural gas.

      I believe that after all the gains we've made in wind and solar in the last few decades we're seeing diminishing returns. We're getting real close to theoretical maximum efficiencies already, there just isn't much more room for improvement. If wind and solar require some cheap storage system to be viable then they are both fool's errands. While wind, solar, and storage are all noble efforts in solving our future energy needs none of them can compete with fission. Our future is a fission powered one, nothing else we've seen so far can compare, and that includes fusion.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    3. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by blindseer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Disasters and waste disposal issues for fission are only a concern if we keep doing it like we've done for the last 40 years. We've seen liquid fuel fission that promises to not only be "disaster" proof but can also "eat" the radioactive waste from the reactors we've used for decades.

      Liquid fuel fission reactors like liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) can be made to be walkaway safe, where any damage would be limited to the destruction of the reactor. LFTRs have safety mechanisms that prevent the possibility of "China Syndrome" style meltdowns. This is primarily because the fuel is already melted, loss of containment means removal of the mechanisms that maintain fission. If the reactor runs too hot a normal "scram" operation involves dumping the core fuel into a drain tank that removes the fuel from the core, the tank is designed in such a way that just air cooling prevents further damage. Thermal failure of the core, as in it gets so hot that it melts, mean the fuel spills onto the floor of the reactor building, and then flows into that same drain tank. It is impossible for a LFTR failure to result in a massive release of radiation.

      Once the powers that be in the federal government realize the value of LFTR we will see fission not only get cheaper but also prove that fission does not mean we have to pile up radioactive waste. That "waste" we have now exists only because of federal government policies that prevent the reprocessing of spent fuel into new fuel and valuable industrial material. LFTR could prove to be a means for making reprocessing of "spent" fuel that is both economically and politically feasible. Much of what makes up "spent" fuel from current reactors is unburnt uranium, stuff that is no more radioactive than what was dug from the ground. If we can get that uranium out and turn it into something useful then not only have we just solve 90% of the "waste" problem but we've also solved an energy problem.

      There's two ways to dispose of radioactive waste. One way is to store it away until it decays, which can take hundreds of years. (Anything that takes longer than hundreds of years to decay is "radioactive" only in the theoretical sense, it's not a hazard to life.) Another way to dispose of radioactive material is in a reactor. If we do it right then that reactor can not only destroy radioactive material but we also get valuable energy from it.

      Like you say, if you ask someone from the 1970s about nuclear power they'll tell you about The China Syndrome. The reason we still think of fission power like we do in the 1970s is because not much has changed in fission technology since then. Why haven't we seen anything new in fission technology since the 1970s? Likely because we have the same people in the Department of Energy that we did in 1979. Time will prove that nuclear fission is safe, cheap, reliable, and the only option we have. That time may come, sadly, only because the people that are holding the technology back have died of old age.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission.
      But actually they do. In Germany coal planets get decomissioned because they can no longer compete.
      Part of this is because wind and solar require viable (read that as cheap, reliable, etc) storage to provide 24/7 power
      That is nonsense, as no country is running 24/7 with "full power", power is a curve with a lower bottom at somewhere between 40% and 60% of your peaks during daytime.

      A big problem with any power plant that works by steam power, which coal and fission do, is that it does not respond well to large daily swings in power demands. That is wrong. A coal plant adjusts to demand in a few minutes.

      the most popular one because it is cheap is natural gas turbines.
      That is double wrong. The most popular is pumped storage, because it is cheap and the secondary one is gas turbines because gas turbines are horrible expensive, however nearly as fast in reaction as pumped storage.

      fission it is still the cheapest solution we have That is again wrong, in most countries fission power is the most expensive power.

      Wind and solar can only operate with something like 30% up time.
      That is wrong. Wind plants have a very high uptime, and build at suitable places a very high CF, too. Solar PV plants run with the sun. Solar thermal plants with molten salt storages run around the clock. With their peak around the daily peaks and at roughly 60% at night when demand is low.

      Storage is overrated. Storage becomes usefull, when you are far above 50% renewables, approaching lets say 75%. With 50% "baseload", you had 25% surplus at night, which you could store and use at daytime (to have 75% + 25% = 100%) The point where storage becomes interestnig depends on where your baseload line in relation to your peak is. Or what you can distribute in your grid.
      And ofc. you would basically only store energy from baseload plants or from renewables. Storing energy from gas turbines makes no sense as a gas turbine gos from zero to 90% load in 30 seconds and is on 100% load in roughly a minute. Storing energy from coal or fission akes no sense either (unless you refill a pumped storage ... because you will need it the other day, but for that you prefer a baseload plant at night)

      Instead of sitting in the corner of your room and dreaming up "facts" about energy production,you should read a bit about it.

      Basically every claim you made or idea you had in your post: is wrong

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

      > Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission. Part

      Which is funny, when one considers they are being installed faster than fission was at any time in history, and people are turning off their coal plants because they can't compete.

      I find it amazing the lengths that people will go to in order to avoid accepting the measurable facts that are staring them right in the face.

      > even though natural gas turbines cost three times that of coal and fission

      Natural gas turbines cost about 1/2 coal plant, and 1/3rd to 1/5th that of a fission plant. Look on page 11 of this:

      https://www.lazard.com/media/1777/levelized_cost_of_energy_-_version_80.pdf

      > To compete with a one GW fission power plant would require three GW capacity wind and/or solar

      Sure, and as they already cost less than 1/3rd as much, this part is already solved. In fact, to put actual numbers to it, CF adjusted CAPEX for wind is about $4.50 compared to fission at $7.60. It's almost half as expensive even after building three times as much of it. And whereas fission costs keep going up (current average price for all western in-construction reactors is over $9) the price of wind power continues to decline at rates never before seen.

      Anyone looking at a chart of LCoE over the last 25 years would be *ape shit crazy* to suggest starting a fission reactor at this point in time. At a minimum you're going to wait to see if the Gen 3+ reactors don't continually overrun their price estimates, which they have.

    6. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission.
      But actually they do. In Germany coal planets get decomissioned because they can no longer compete.

      Germany was found to be giving state aid. Also is it really old inefficient coal plants or more modern ones that can't compete. I think its a good idea to get rid of them for various reasons but the pricing structure in Germany seems atypical at the very least and designed to make some solutions more cost effective than others. This could be argued to be a more accurate reflection of cost to society but that does involve some crystal ball gazing.

      Storing energy from coal or fission akes no sense either (unless you refill a pumped storage ... because you will need it the other day, but for that you prefer a baseload plant at night)

      Fission is baseload.

    7. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Zak3056 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission.
      But actually they do. In Germany coal planets get decomissioned because they can no longer compete.

      The reason that coal is not competitive in Germany is because the playing field is severely tilted in favor of wind (wind power gets a premium price that is, IIRC, funded by fossil, and also has priority in the grid. If there is renewable available, the fossil plans have to spin down). That climate makes it absolutely uneconomical to run a large powerplant that is slow to respond to changes in supply and demand.

      Please note that I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing (though some of my German colleagues think the situation is untenable for various reasons), but your argument above is not nearly as simple as you frame it.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    8. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by CaptainLard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Whether a power source is economically viable is by no means static.

      Can't argue that but this brings up an interesting question (for me anyway). What could make wind and solar more expensive in the future? The raw material costs are basically nothing compared to fossil fuels (where they are essentially basically 100%). There is plenty of silicon just lying around on the surface. Some of it may be easier to process but I think that problem is largely solved.

      I don't know what the global lithium supply looks like but I do know LiIon batteries can be recycled. The reason China has all the rare earth mines is because their government subsidized them to corner the market in the short term. Rare earths aren't really that rare.

      For wind you need resins and what not but again, the material input is minuscule compared to the lifetime energy output. You mentioned real estate and places that make sense....but there are a LOT of those places where it does make sense. Often the real estate is pretty cheap (deserts, etc) and hey, the solar panels covering just a little over 1/3 of my roof provide 110% of my yearly electricity use! (yeah storage...that's being resolved faster than even I thought it would)

      Given all that I know about wind and solar it seems that if anything, prices will only get cheaper.

    9. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Nuclear fission is as safe as any other form of power generation including Solar, Wind and Hydro.

      I can't hear you through the hysteria and panic.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    10. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Change comes from stress. Only under duress change will occur. As long as we let the owners of nuclear plants get away with dumping their waste (figuratively, c'mon...) on the public the things you describe will not happen.

      Make them liable for the cleanup and we'll get clean fission power in 5 years. Tops.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      Storage is not an insurmountable problem. We already have ways of storing energy, and we can improve them.

    12. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Why do you think pretty much any country with some sense invests heavily in wind&solar? The cost for the power "source" is zero. What's left in running costs is cost for upkeep.

      That is admittedly currently insane. Along with rather high initial cost this makes wind&solar power more expensive currently. With improvement in technology and increasing cost for fossil fuels (and those costs will only go up, not down, since production will get more expensive as less accessible sources have to be exploited), power from wind&solar will become far more interesting in the future. And then, countries that have an edge in the relevant know how will be where you order those power plants.

      Don't rejoice, though. This means that power will become more expensive in the future. It's likely that wind&solar don't drop too dramatically in price, but fossil fuels will have to hike up prices.

      What could increase cost for wind&solar? Well, real estate prices. Don't laugh. Wind and solar power are highly dependent on location. A solar power plant only makes sense if the place receives ample sunshine, and placing wind turbines in sheltered valleys isn't going to produce a lot of energy. Once the "good" spots are taken, it might get a bit more costly to put up new plants. But I'd expect this to be rather insignificant.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by blindseer · · Score: 1

      That is nonsense, as no country is running 24/7 with "full power", power is a curve with a lower bottom at somewhere between 40% and 60% of your peaks during daytime.

      I did not claim that a national grid requires "full power" 24/7, only that power is consumed 24/7. Solar PV peaks at noon while demand peaks at sunset. Wind is unpredictable, weather forecasts only go out for a week or so and then can only give generalities, not hour by hour wind speed. To make wind and solar work would require storage, which is right now too expensive to be worthwhile outside of a few localities. Some estimates by people that study this sort of thing have stated that wind and solar can provide no more than 30% of grid power before very "interesting" things start to happen. The last thing a utility wants is an "interesting" day.

      That is double wrong. The most popular is pumped storage, because it is cheap and the secondary one is gas turbines because gas turbines are horrible expensive, however nearly as fast in reaction as pumped storage.

      Pumped storage requires specific and rare geological features, natural gas can be put nearly anywhere. Pumped storage is also unpopular because of the environmental impact. So, outside of a handful of locations where the geology and environmental impact are favorable the only remaining option is natural gas.

      That is again wrong, in most countries fission power is the most expensive power.

      Fission is only expensive because of the popular opinion created from black swan events like Chernobyl. It's a political problem creating the cost, not a technological one. Even with all the political induced cost nuclear is cheaper that solar. The price difference between fission, coal, gas combined cycle, and some wind is so small that it can be for the most part ignored as noise. Coal and gas is only going to get harder to find and therefore become more expensive. Fission fuels are such a small portion of the operating cost that it can be ignored as noise. Fission may be the most expensive power but that only means perhaps double the price, not tenfold, give it a decade and we shall see what happens to coal prices.

      That is wrong. Wind plants have a very high uptime, and build at suitable places a very high CF, too.

      Assuming you are correct, that wind farms have a high up time, this up time is largely irrelevant so long as utilities cannot rely on the wind to blow in sync with demand. We'd have to have enough wind farms to produce the maximum required output in the calmest of weather, that costs money. Adding in solar doesn't help much since that also peaks at the wrong time, power consumption tends to peak near sunset. Again, people that study this have found that wind and solar above 30% of grid power will make things interesting for the grid. This is not only because of the unpredictable nature of wind and solar but also because the spinning rotors on windmills introduce harmonics on the grid that are difficult to manage. This spinning rotor problem has been studied for a very long time and with every spinning rotor added the computations required to manage the harmonics become more difficult. With a large and controlled rotor on a fission or coal plant the harmonics can be controlled, in part, by throttling the power plant. There is no throttle control on the wind.

      Solar PV plants run with the sun. Solar thermal plants with molten salt storages run around the clock. With their peak around the daily peaks and at roughly 60% at night when demand is low.

      Solar thermal plants are largely theoretical and reliant on a favorable climate. A solar thermal plant is useless in Alaska. Fission and coal don't care about the weather. High temperature fission is also freed from the need for large amounts of fresh water, air cooling even in the Arizona summer is sufficient.

      Basically eve

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    14. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Natural gas turbines cost about 1/2 coal plant, and 1/3rd to 1/5th that of a fission plant. Look on page 11 of this:

      I was speaking of the cost of the power produced, not the capital expenses. Right now natural gas turbines are popping up everywhere because natural gas is cheap and because it isn't coal. Coal has it's own political problems preventing growth.

      I realize that wind is being built up very quickly right now, I see the windmill parts going down the interstate every day. That can only go on for so long, at some point it will reach a peak where wind capacity overcomes the grid capability to compensate for the unreliable nature of the wind. Combining gas peaking power with wind and you get a price on par with that of fission, and you can only do that until the wind provides 30% of the grid power. We've squeezed about all we can out of wind power, we can't make big gains on efficiency like we used to any more.

      Wind power will always rely on storage or peaking power. We don't have cheap storage outside of the few locations fortunate enough to have geologic features favorable for pumped water storage. If natural gas gets cheaper then we'll forget building the windmills and build more natural gas. Fission can only get cheaper by comparison either through changes in law, improvements in technology, or the rising cost of fossil fuels.

      Experts on power grids have done studies and just about all agree that wind and solar can only provide 30% of grid power before bad things start to happen. Even a best case scenario doesn't allow for more than 50% or so. Where is the rest of the power going to come from? Fission. Fission is proven, it exists, and does not rely on unobtanium or favorable locations like access to favorable climate, gobs of flowing water, or geologic features. High temperature fission just needs a patch of terra firma and air, both of which are abundant.

      What high temperature fission has is the capability to provide grid power on its own, it does not need peaking power plants and can be put anywhere.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    15. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Solar PV peaks at noon while demand peaks at sunset.
      And the difference between those peaks is? 5%? 7%?

      And no: as I said before. Everything you believe to know is wrong. The peak is not at "sunset". The peak is in the morning, and sunset is a bit lower and between those is a plateau of more or less constant consumption (not talking about typical fluctuations) very close to the peaks. Hence solar PV fits in nicely.

      The rest of your post makes even less sense then your other posts.

      A solar thermal plant is useless in Alaska.
      Very smart, indeed.

      High temperature fission is also freed from the need for large amounts of fresh water, air cooling even in the Arizona summer is sufficient.
      You mix something up here ...

      In the rest of the world we have droughts, calm winds, and clouds once in a while.
      No you have not. You have a small area with low wind, a small area with a drought and a small area with clouds.

      Even Germany is already to big to be plagued by one of them over the whole area, except for clouds perhaps. Not even thinking about several of those conditions combined, last time I was in school clouds implied rain, the antagonist of droughts.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    16. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You are mixing up a few things ;D

      Grid feed in fees: yes, renewables have priority (make sense as that stops coal from being burned), and the grid operators have to pay a relatively high price for that power (16 cents IIRC per kWh).

      However, even with those high prices coal plants often can not compete, as they have to compete amoung each others as well.

      run a large powerplant that is slow to respond to changes in supply and demand
      That is a misconception. First of all coal plants react quite fast, secondly they are reacting on the "big picture", like we have 6:00 in the morning and know the country wide power increase from 6:00 till 9:00 and adapt to that, thirdly, all other fluctuations are not covered by "load following plants" but by peak plants, pumped storage and gas turbines.

      but your argument above is not nearly as simple as you frame it.
      It is that simple. If you have questions, ask, and I explain ;D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    17. Re:DOE report says fusion is likely uneconomical by Agripa · · Score: 1

      What could make wind and solar more expensive in the future?

      The cost of the source and load balancing which is currently "free" in the sense that solar and wind and lowering the capacitor factor of base-load and peaking power plants.

  14. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by the_other_one · · Score: 1

    That would be an acceptable replacement for my VW Clean Diesel.

    --
    134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
  15. Re:What's the big deal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How was this word salad modded up?

  16. Re:Dat Title by fisted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dat device tho.

    --
    CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  17. Re:What's the big deal? by backslashdot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They havent been given the budget needed to build a breakeven facility -- basically people like you set them up to fail and then say look it failed!

  18. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by CODiNE · · Score: 1

    So you saying this thing won't go into the gaping hole in my chest to power my robotic suit?

    Damn.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  19. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    It would probably become a shining example of great fusion.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  20. "Built it" my ass! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 4, Funny

    As any student of history knows, Greifswald was the location of assorted secret Nazi research projects during WWII. This thing wasn't built recently, they dug it up from the mine where it was buried in 1945 to hide it from the advancing Russians. Look at the photo of the cryostat, that's classic 1940s engineering design. The reason for the "schedule slips" mentioned in the article is because they've had problems disarming all the booby traps left to kill Russian investigators. Next thing you know a previously unknown German research institute in the Owl Mountains will invent an antigravity device, and another heretofore-unknown research group at Hillersleben will announce the creation of a death ray.

    Remember, you read it first on Slashspot.

    1. Re:"Built it" my ass! by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      FTFY. (I think strich is more correct that schlitz, but schlitz sounds better because of the z.)

      The down side is that no self-respecting German would ever drink Schlitz.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    2. Re:"Built it" my ass! by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      An american beer brand, the company started back in the mid-1800s in Milwaukee, WI and somehow managed not to get bought up by Miller.

  21. Weird description by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    looks a bit like Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet.

    So, it's round.

    A lot of words to use to say that.

  22. Re:What's the big deal? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    Did you use Markov chains to generate that post?

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  23. No need for storage by burbilog · · Score: 1

    Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission. Part of this is because wind and solar require viable (read that as cheap, reliable, etc) storage to provide 24/7 power. Any energy storage system that can make wind and solar reliable will also serve to make coal and fission cheaper.

    No. Actually you don't need any viable storage, only viable power distribution network across the continent. Wind cannot stop blowing everywhere on the continent, no matter what. That's how Europe managed to get 10% of its electricity out of windmills in 2014.

    1. Re:No need for storage by blindseer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Getting 10% of your electricity from wind is trivial. Daily demand varies more that 10% so all you have to do is what you've been doing for the current mix of coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro. People smarter than the both of us have spent a long time looking at this and have convinced me that having more than 30% of power from wind and strange things start to happen with the grid.

      We can make wind power work but it would involve massive changes to how the national power grid works, which would be very expensive. Not only would it be expensive, because putting large power cables over or under the Mississippi river is not easy, but it would create a vary fragile network. If there was a catastrophic loss of connection on one of those Mississippi crossings we'd see blackouts and brownouts nationwide.

      Even if we could power the world with wind we would not want to. Making wind power work means relying on wind in California to power a Florida with calm winds. There's a lot of ways that could fail, badly.

      Wind power, right now, costs three times what nuclear power costs, right now. Even a quantum leap in wind technology cannot make it cheaper than what nuclear fission could cost if only the Department of Energy would allow the building of a modern liquid fuel fission reactor. The Department of Energy has been subsidizing wind power for decades and it still cannot compete with fission power from the 1970s. I don't see a great future for wind power. Wind power will never go away, it's just too easy to get in many places, but it cannot power a first world economy.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    2. Re:No need for storage by burbilog · · Score: 1

      We can make wind power work but it would involve massive changes to how the national power grid works, which would be very expensive.

      Upgrading power network is waaay cheaper than building huge amount of dams (while destroying huge amount of land). Or any flywheel or other SciFi madness. Recent surge in wind capacity factor (from 32% to 37% during this year alone) happened because of power network upgrade -- the better power network, the more electricity is shared across the country as needed.

      Wind power, right now, costs three times what nuclear power costs, right now.

      No. Recent BNEF report shows that wind electircity became cheapest power source in England and Germany without subsidies.

      Even if we could power the world with wind we would not want to. Making wind power work means relying on wind in California to power a Florida with calm winds. There's a lot of ways that could fail, badly.

      Wind can't fail everywhere. It just does not happen. And distributed generation is as robust as distributed networking: more distributed power plants means more plants can fail without serious damage to the network.

      The Department of Energy has been subsidizing wind power for decades and it still cannot compete with fission power from the 1970s. I don't see a great future for wind power. Wind power will never go away, it's just too easy to get in many places, but it cannot power a first world economy.

      How can you be THAT sure that nobody will ever let another Chernobyl happened? I remember that time we waited for the fallout in Moscow and could not do ANYTHING because some fucking stupid people did something wrong. How can you be sure that nobody will appoint beancounters to run a nuke plant near your house? Shit happens, but if shit happens with a windmill it just falls and that's it. And if shit happens with nuke plant then whole area dies and you have to move out. My relatives had to run from Ukraine and we had to house them at that time. One fucking screwup is more than enough to stop fooling around this kind of things.

    3. Re:No need for storage by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      > Wind power, right now, costs three times what nuclear power costs, right now

      *sigh*

      Every reference from the last couple of years says the exact opposite. EVERY one.

      How can you possibly believe this? What sources are you reading that say this?

    4. Re:No need for storage by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      People smarter than the both of us have spent a long time looking at this and have convinced me that having more than 30% of power from wind and strange things start to happen with the grid.
      Unfortunately those guys are either not smart or lying. because they are wrong ;D

      The grid does not care where the powr comes from.

      If you stard adding renewables you obviously have to take care for their variability.

      Not only would it be expensive, because putting large power cables over or under the Mississippi river is not easy, but it would create a vary fragile network.
      As other nations or mulit national organizations, e.g. the EU Show: there are no real Problems with such grids. Perhaps you want to google for "largest synchronized power grid"?
      Even a quantum leap ...
      You do know that a "quantum leap" is the smallest thinkable leap?`It describes when one electron goes either up one energy level or down.

      As mentioned in my other answer to you: you should read a bit about the topic, so you stop falling for the wiered ideas of your "smart friends".

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:No need for storage by khallow · · Score: 2

      Wind cannot stop blowing everywhere on the continent, no matter what.

      Except when it does. Sure, it'll be less common than for smaller regions, but there's evidence from Europe's experience that you can see significant becalming over a whole continent. Also, the local surpluses and deficits mean you either have to overbuild your grid in addition or put in enough local storage or variable generation/consumption to smooth out wind power variation.

    6. Re:No need for storage by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Wind is getting close to being cheap enough simply to safe on fuel for coal plants.

    7. Re:No need for storage by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      The Chernobyl installation used a flawed reactor design and was operated with inadequately trained personnel.

      That is not the face of nuclear power. No one sane is suggesting building another reactor like Chernobyl.

      Also, if someone wanted to use my back yard for a fission reactor using current designs, I'd be the happiest guy in town. Guaranteed.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    8. Re:No need for storage by mikael · · Score: 1

      With Chernobyl, the operational staff deliberately disabled the safety systems to see if they could manually shutdown a reactor in time before it went supernova.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    9. Re:No need for storage by blindseer · · Score: 1

      How can you be THAT sure that nobody will ever let another Chernobyl happened?

      Because Chernobyl happened. No one is going to ever repeat those mistakes again so long as people study their history.

      Chernobyl was based on a design stolen from the USA which had known problems with runaway fission. The US engineers fixed the, then theoretical, problems before it was used in the USA but the Soviets didn't care. During construction money was running low so the concrete poured was routinely mixed down with sand with no quality checks that it still met specifications. Then the reactor was tested with safeties purposefully disabled. The people at the controls at the time were inexperienced. After all of that stacked on top of each other the damage was not near what people feared. Yes, sadly, a lot of people died. Many of the deaths were also the result of poor procedures, improper or nonexistent testing, and so forth that plagued its construction.

      Not only have we learned from those mistakes we've learned more about how fission works. We will not build a reactor like that again also because we have found cheaper and safer ways to do it.

      To those that claim only government regulation can prevent another Chernobyl I will say that Chernobyl was a government project from top to bottom. That's the case in a communist society like the USSR, everything wrong is the fault of the government because the government runs everything.

      Look up a few things about molten salt reactors and you can see for yourself how safe fission power can be and has proven to be. A few acronyms you can look up: LFTR, WAMSR, IMSR, DMSR, ARE, MSRE, TEI, VHTR/LS-VHTR, MSW, MSFR, FLIBE, MSCR, EVOL.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    10. Re:No need for storage by jcupitt65 · · Score: 1

      Wind power, right now, costs three times what nuclear power costs, right now.

      New capacity offshore wind and nuclear cost about the same, in the UK at least. Wikipedia says:

      On 27 February 2015 Vattenfall Vindkraft AS agreed to build the Horns Rev 3 offshore wind farm at a price of 10.31 Eurocent per kWh. This has been quoted as below 100 UK pounds per MWh.

      In 2013 in the United Kingdom for a new-to-build nuclear power plant (Hinkley Point C: completion 2023), a feed-in tariff of 92.50 pounds/MWh (around 142 USD/MWh) plus compensation for inflation with a running time of 35 years was agreed.[41][42]

      On-shore wind is 30 - 50% cheaper than offshore, of course, so that would seem to beat nuclear by quite a good margin.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_Kingdom

  24. Ugg, more science by press release by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

    It makes no difference if this device "works" or not, no one will use it commercially.

    That's because the cost of the equipment needed to extract the energy from the system costs only a little less then an entire wind farm producing the same amount of energy. This problem effects any heat engine type source, including coal and fission, which is why no one is building these any more. Natural gas turbines, hydro, wind and PV do not have this portion of the system. These sources have always been, or recently scaled down to, prices points below the older sources.

    There's really not a lot of math involved, and people have been running the numbers since the 1970s. In spite of repeated statements from the power industry that they're not interested, the fusion field keeps sending out press reports like this one about how they're going to save the world. Meanwhile wind and PV are the two fastest growing power sources in history, and by the time any of these devices work the grid will have already completed its switch.

    A small number of know-nothings will now protest something about direct conversion in aneutronic systems, ignoring the fact that not one such device has come within multiple orders of magnitude of working, and we have very good reason to believe they never will.

    Others will protest that wind can't do X and Y, and in this case they're absolutely right. But unfortunately they don't pay for the construction. The banks actually pay for the construction, and they're giving all the money to the wind farms regardless of X and Y.

    If you want to run the numbers yourself, I wrote down some of them a couple of years ago: https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/why-fusion-will-never-happen/

    1. Re:Ugg, more science by press release by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      Wind and PV are intermittent, controlled fusion (should it ever reach financially viable over-unity energy production) is on demand.

      Still, I think at this point I'd rather see work go into a space-based PV system beaming power down to rectenna farms.

  25. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by RoccamOccam · · Score: 1

    Exactly! Why are they messing with this, when we already know that the arc reactor works?

  26. Re:What's the big deal? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    I suspect Google Translate.

  27. Save Fusion Research? by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

    Frankly it looks like the golden age of Fusion Research.
    Lockheed's High Beta Fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    The Polywell Fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
    ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Seem to me that there is a lot of research in this area. If any of them work then things get really interesting.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  28. This is Germany we're talking about by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    If they do get this thing working, the flat-earth lobby will still find a way to stop it.

  29. Re:What's the big deal? by Teun · · Score: 1

    Are you both illiterates that you need assistance in comprehending such writings?

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  30. Clickbait by jonathan.e.bell · · Score: 1

    Really, ./? Now our titles are clickbait instead of informative?

  31. What could possibly go wrong? by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    It does seem to bare a striking resemblance to this:
    http://images.static-bluray.co...
    and this:
    http://sayforward.com/sites/de...
    and eventually this:
    https://cinema1544.files.wordp...
    leading to this:
    https://unshavedmouse.files.wo...

    Hope it works out well! :)

  32. Greebles! by coldsalmon · · Score: 1

    You know you're in the future when you see greebles.

  33. Re: Shouldn't these things ... by Lije+Baley · · Score: 1

    No problem. You just need a bigger car.

    --
    Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
  34. Re:Fisted the do nothing nobody gets smoked by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    APK, you couldn't smoke a cigarette without directions, go play somewhere else.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  35. Re:Shouldn't these things ... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Why aren't all the cars powered by arc reactors? I'd build one to power my house, but I am having trouble getting it to start up, do I not have enough initial power?

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  36. Re:What's the big deal? by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

    How was this word salad modded up?

    Because Agile

    ( /me ducks and runs like hell )

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  37. Re:What's the big deal? by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

    Okay, on a more serious (and charitable) note, maybe the guy doesn't speak/write English natively, and took a run through Google Translate? The word structure and cadence is suspiciously German in nature.

    If this is indeed the case, I wish the dude would've included his original native-language text as well... some of us are actually literate in German (well, the Schweizerdeutsch dialect in my case, but standard and most other German dialects are easy enough to gut through and get the gist out of.)

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  38. How can solar/wind costs escalate? by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    What could make wind and solar more expensive in the future?

    Taxes as arbitrary support for deeply emplaced power sources such as coal and oil are one possibility. Contractor limitations and rules are another. Grid-tie requirements are another. Materials disposal is another. Licensing is another. Zoning is another. Etc.

    There is no technology that government cannot make more expensive, inconvenient, and less efficient than it needs to be.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  39. Only MTF can possibly work by StevenMaurer · · Score: 1

    Magnetized Target Fusion, such as is being developed by the Canadian company General Fusion, solves all these problems.You surround a microscopic amount of tritium and deuterium in a sphere, filled with a molten bath of metal, and hit the outsides of it with computer-controlled hammers. Properly calibrated, the shockwaves concentrate in the center to briefly allow fusion conditions to occur. All the neutron energy is absorbed by the molten metal, causing absolutely no damage to the machine. So it can actually operate indefinitely.

    While hundreds of billions of Euros are wasted on approaches that cannot possibly work, this little private company is plugging along, starting to scale up their first practical demonstration system.

  40. Re:Coren22 "security guru" wannabe fails security by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    So, I found information about an old petition when searching for more information about your hosts file engine (copyright infringement?)

    We hereby petition the government of the United States of America to review our proposal for putting Alexander Peter Kowalski (i.e. APK) to death by any means available. This individual is a menace to society and has proven himself to be a drain on the productivity for the millions of IT workers worldwide that spend so much time uncontrollably laughing at APK and his antics. We estimate that this phenomena is costing businesses in the US at least 100 million dollars on an annual basis. Given that APK only has APKTools to justify existence we have no problem recommending him for immediate execution. If at all possible, we would like the execution to be slow and painful.

    LOL, when you annoy people so much that they create a petition for your death, you know the trolling has succeeded. Oh and BTW, my corporate firewall has marked your tools as "Potentially Unwanted Software", isn't that great to be blocked from viewing it because it is so unwanted.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  41. Looks fun! by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    That thing looks like a playground for adults.... I could see me and my friends hanging out in and around a dummy replica of one of those things.

  42. Re:What's the big deal? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    At least 15% more. The necessary budget to achieve success is always at least 15% more than what has been allotted. Always. Every single budget cycle.

  43. Re:What's the big deal? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The flow of Overrated, Interesting, Flamebait was interesting to see. Very positive support was early on was removed by a flow of -1's much later.
    Quoting the advanced German skill sets, Germany keeping a science project well funded and getting support for the project did not seem to of much interest to some people with mod points :)
    The reminder over "stop/start political funding in other nations." part could have been an issue for some readers.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"