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Could a Helium-Resistant Material Usher In an Age of Nuclear Fusion? (sciencealert.com)
Researchers working with a team at the Los Alamos National Lab tested a new way to build material for nuclear fusion reactors, "and found that it could eliminate one of the obstacles preventing humanity from harnessing the power of fusion energy." schwit1 quotes Science Alert:
A collaboration of engineers and researchers has found a way to prevent helium, a byproduct of the fusion reaction, from weakening nuclear fusion reactors. The secret is in building the reactors using nanocomposite solids that create channels through which the helium can escape... Not only does the fusion process expose reactors to extreme pressure and temperatures, helium -- the byproduct of fusion between hydrogen atoms -- adds to the strain placed on reactors by bubbling out into the materials and eventually weakening them...
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers overview how they tested the behavior of helium in nanocomposite solids, materials made from thick metal layer stacks. They found that the helium didn't form bubbles in these nanocomposite solids like it did in traditionally used materials. Instead, it formed long, vein-like tunnels. "We were blown away by what we saw," said Demkowicz. "As you put more and more helium inside these nanocomposites, rather than destroying the material, the veins actually start to interconnect, resulting in kind of a vascular system."
The article points out that nuclear fusion generates four times the energy of nuclear fission.
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers overview how they tested the behavior of helium in nanocomposite solids, materials made from thick metal layer stacks. They found that the helium didn't form bubbles in these nanocomposite solids like it did in traditionally used materials. Instead, it formed long, vein-like tunnels. "We were blown away by what we saw," said Demkowicz. "As you put more and more helium inside these nanocomposites, rather than destroying the material, the veins actually start to interconnect, resulting in kind of a vascular system."
The article points out that nuclear fusion generates four times the energy of nuclear fission.
Before you start worrying about the walls of your fusion machine, you need a fusion machine that can provide net positive energy.
I’m been hearing fusion is only 20 years away for at least 30 years now. One of these days it will come true just like the year of Linux on the desktop. Wake me up when either one happens. You probably can’t because I’ll be old and dead by then.
In the quiet of his study, Elon reaches for the bottom drawer of his massive desk, and pulls out a sheaf of dog-eared, yellowing pages. Fusion, a promise not fulfilled...yet, he whispers softly to himself. He begins practicing a cackling megalomaniacal sounding laugh, like a poor man's impression of Dr Evil.
This is an interesting development in materials science, but helium diffusion weakening of containment vessels is pretty far down the list of critical problems standing in the way of producing commercial energy from fusion any time this century.
The key obstacle, even more important than the fact that no power producing fusion reactors have yet been built, nor are likely to be in the next 30 years, is that they will not be able to compete with other sources of electricity. Fusion power is going to be much more capital intensive than fission power plants that already have trouble competing with other sources of electricity due to their construction costs. No new material for a container wall is going to fix this.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Sure you can. That is what E=mc^2 means. You can convert mass into energy.
> helium -- the byproduct of fusion between hydrogen atoms -- adds to the strain placed on reactors by
> bubbling out into the materials and eventually weakening them
The problem with fusion is that it generates relativistic neutrons that displace atoms in metals and cause them to become brittle. This not only weakens the materials but makes some critical materials like the superconducting magnets rapidly turn into scrap.
While the helium -alphas actually- also present problems, they are not the same thing at all. The damage rate from such events is orders of magnitude lower than the neutron damage. And the idea that letting them just bubble out will remove them from the fuel at a fast enough rate makes me LOL.
The idea that this somehow fixes anything is so utterly ridiculous that it simply puts the black hole that is modern fusion research into stark perspective.
The press release doesn't seem nearly as cool as the summary suggests (though the press release says it as well.) The photos show some sparse channels, not an interconnected vein-like network, and most certainly not enough to show that the material wouldn't weaken over time. All it really appears to show is that Helium shoots through unabated, perhaps without losing enough momentum to even save the next material. Seems like a useful shielding if thick enough but then again so is anything, and it would be much cooler if it actually formed veins than it would be in any fusion-related research (nano materials which have vein-like structures could open the door to whole new types of diodes, microfluidic and MEMS devices - but this is basically "we shot some stuff and it made holes.")
Fossil fuel plants, other plants that burn material, nuclear fission plants, and the proposed fusion plants all take water, heat it up so that it's a vapour, and run it through turbines. In some places the use the remaining energy to heat buildings and heat water. But for the most part it's so inefficient to boil water just to let the vapour turn a turbine. What we really need is to find a better way to turn the heat from these sources into electricity.
Technically you are liberating the energy not creating it but even a fool can be right .
fine.....generates 4x the power...how is that?
Researchers working with a team at the Los Alamos National Lab tested a new way to build material for nuclear fusion reactors, "and found that it could eliminate one of the obstacles preventing humanity from harnessing the power of fusion energy.
This would be a great news, if there is only one obstacle to harnessing fusion, or just a few obstacles. Reducing the number of obstacles from infinity to (infinity -1 ) is of just academic interest.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The nuclear fusion community talking about helium diffusion in reactor walls is kinda like the space travelling community talking about the lack of clear sun hours in Martian wellness resorts.
Our demand for party balloons, helium filled disks and Goodyear blimps will never run out right? So after US stocks run out what then? Could fusion power possibly make helium a renewable resource?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Before you start worrying about the walls of your fusion machine, you need a fusion machine that can provide net positive energy.
Excuse me, but the point of this article is that the walls are part of the fusion machine.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's called the sun and we waste most of the energy it generates.
Solar, wind, and storage seem to be much easier to deploy now and far more cost effective than fusion will ever be.
And China hasn't even ramped up most of their battery factories yet.
Fusion is easy
The Farnsworth fusor is a commercially available neutron source, that is basically a fusion machine. There are ways to extract energy from it, but the math indicates it can't reach brake even, as currently conceived.
Getting useful power from fusion is hard
Scientific breakeven, getting closer, some designs claim this is a potential
Engineering breakeven - No design claims this yet
Ignition
commercial breakeven - not close - once the power is created, it needs to be extracted efficiently enough to create some profit.
Makes no sense. Fission ~ 200 mega-electron-volts/per, fusion ~ 16 mega-electron-volts per.
Maybe per gram?
See my handle. Guess what I do all day?
While some here talk about "many approaches have been tested" it's really not true - the huge majority - way over 90% - of the money is tokomak, the others can go pound sand, which means only the dedicated and independently wealthy can work with them. As mentioned elsewhere, no matter the approach, this isn't what is holding fusion back. Nor is it necessarily more capex - till we have it making gain, we don't know which approach works and therefore don't have a clue about costs. Making assumptions often makes you wrong.
I saw this paper in the puff-sheet science news. It's the usual "I found something the sources of funding might be bullshitted about so give me more money" that we see all day every day in just about every field. Most of us know to ignore that junk.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
So.....8 times as much theoretical power generation capability....event better....as to how this material plays into it, If it can be economically made, nothing but good....otherwise...yes, you are right....meh.
Wait I thought you become a trillionaire by inventing stuff, do you work at a nuclear power plant in between inventing things? Is that you Iron Man? Or more likely Homer Simpson.... I mean don't get me wrong I'm not doubting you here, it's not like Los Alamos has been home to some of the greatest nuclear breakthroughs in human history or that you need to be pretty good in your field to even go near the door, I'm sure Los Alamos ain't got shit on Dr Doom. Oh shit I just realised...
Most people become broke "inventing stuff" because it's stupid, been invented already, or they ask stupid bucks for something no one will pay that for. I did OK as an inventor, and yes, made enough bucks to be able to play with some pretty cool toys now - and no strings attached if I don't attach them. It's probably just luck, someone had to get lucky in the .boom, after all.
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I'd love to be Tony Stark, but I lack the hottie and the scriptwriter to have those fast witty comebacks and be able to do anything. I'm just me - a semi-retired engineer/physicist messing around in a pretty nice lab I built with my winnings from engineering real hard and according the customers, pretty good.
Having studied this problem for a few decades, I think I may have a handle on what's going on with it...and who is actually doing good things (and it ain't necessarily the guys who get the publicity or the big bucks).
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
so now, instead of energy producing nuclear fusion always being 30 years away, it will always be 20 years away. Progress Marches On.
must be sad to see everything with trump. is ok. in 7 years he be gone.
So, not only a new better way to streghten material, but maybe also a way to capture the helium that is being produced? (Helium is getting harder to find these days I've heard).
No, you can't "create" energy. You can "generate" energy by liberating it from an energy source into a useful form.
...fusion is only "about 30 years away"!
-Styopa
While some here talk about "many approaches have been tested" it's really not true - the huge majority - way over 90% - of the money is tokomak, the others can go pound sand,
So uh, what do you think of the stellarator?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is the kind of scientific illiteracy that /. is supposed to take up arms against, rather than promulgate.
Apparently, the dominant unit of concern is obvious, suitable for all purposes, and so dang telepathic, it doesn't even need to be written down. Besides, writing it down would upset the linguistic circuit optimized to process monadic more-than.
There's this Hollywood trope about ripping a soldier's stripes right off his (usually his) uniform. If you violently rip someone's geed cred off their geek uniform on the Internet, does anyone hear it? Probably not. And it's a damn shame.
He will be lucky to last 7 months. The man is demented in the true meaning of the word.
You cannot "generate" energy. Not one time, not four times.
Okay, Pedantic Avenger... how about using the utopian word 'liberate'... as if the anthropomorphically infused energy was kicking and screaming to get out? You could even have it breathe a sigh of relief and grin and bow to everyone like a genie.
In addition to pursuing the promise of liberating 4 times the energy that could theoretically but not practically be produced in today's water cooled solid fuel fission reactors... how about finding a way to increase fuel burn efficiency from their abysmal ~0.5-0.7% to something in, say, the high 90%s? Like one hundred times better?
Of course I'm talking about fuel dissolved in molten salts. Uranium burners like ThorCon now with a concerted effort to achieve the dream laid out (and prototyped) by Alvin Weinberg in the '60s, Thorium breeders that actively process salts to remove long-lasting products... to achieve a ~300 year walk-away-safe waste profile. Literally the best idea, ever! And if we do it before China does, we may even jump out in front again and save ourselves from financial ruin. Another plus.
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"DID SOMEONE SAY THORIUM?" TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR CONFESSIONS OF A SLASHDOT ENERGY AND LFTR FANBOI... Updated again! All original unless noted! Browse! Engage! Plagiarize!
My June 2017 letter to Energy Secretary Perry was focused on the vulnerability of US natural gas. It is a great pain to state the obvious, but necessary because utility wind and solar has made faux-environmentalists into useful idiot 'crypto-advocates' of gas grid generation. We are on the cusp where a coordinated attack on the gas distribution network in a few places would trigger cascading grid failure, as distant gas plants operating directly from the pipelines drop offline and stay offline for days or weeks. This sentiment has since taken shape as the Trump Administration proposes ways to protect utilities able to stockpile 90 days of fuel, and encourage them to do so. It comes down to a simple question: Can you supply a compelling reason why the United States electric grid should fail completely within hours of a relatively simple attack?
This letter of mine has been in Donald Trump's possession since May 2, 2016 . If you read it you may discover why I considered Trump the only candidate worthy of such a message. In his pronouncement to pursue energy self-sufficiency in general and consider nuclear an essential part of the mix, there is hope. The others offer nothing but more years of bad road and an obscenely stupid fixation on base load irredeemables (wind and solar). Trump is literally the only one with the courage to stand up to the tripe.
In 2013 I reached out to Senator Inhofe to propose an energy path for Oklahoma and the country.
Also in 2013 I reached out directly to Halliburton Corporate with a very specific idea that just might have laid groundwork for their secure long-term future. At the time their stock was climbing towards $70 and they probably thought they didn't have a care in the world. Not so good now. Not a glimmer from this one either. I had high hopes for it.
Mentioned in these letters is Faulkner's 2005 paper on Electric (HVDC) pipelines, and the two hour Thorium Remix 2011 video presentation (time index below).
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
"We were blown away by what we saw," said Demkowicz.
>Fission ~ 200 mega-electron-volts/per, fusion ~ 16 mega-electron-volts per.
This. Atom per atom, or per reaction, fission yields way more energy, because there are more nucleons involved in a heavy fissile atom than in a lightweight fusable one. In designing explosives, fusion usually functions as more of a high-energy neutron source for promoting more fission than for its own energy yield... unless you're building a neutron bomb, of course.
Per mass, OTOH, fusion produces more energy.
But also important is WHAT FORM of energy is released. Fission releases lots of stuff: highly energized atoms like Barium and Krypton, which themselves break down releasing more energy (some on-the-spot, others taking years or decades), and also enough high-energy neutrons to sustain chain-reaction, and finally a whole lot of gamma rays. Fusion, AFAIK, just produces stable (but hot) He and a really energetic Neutron. A key challenge to Fusion would appear to be how to convert that Neutron into useful energy, keeping in mind that the Neutron, being non-charged, won't by itself charge something like an alpha or beta particle might do, nor will it be contained by a magnetic field. It will shoot out and go where it wants until it hits another nucleus, and likely mess that atom up in some way as well as making it hot.
Not that what I think matters...Reality will let us know when we get this right, it'll be obvious.
I think that magnetic confinement of thermal plasma isn't the way at all, personally. Random thermal motion is not the best way to create collisions that are forceful enough to overcome the Coulomb repulsion long enough for tunneling into fusion to occur. There's a long list of issues with magnetic confinement, whichever topology is used for that. H fields still only turn charged particles with a normal (90 degree) force, and thinking that we can macroscopically twist and turn the field so as to effectively confuse charged particles is kinda wishful thinking (in my opinion, of course - I realize I'm in danger of committing a Rutherford and saying they're talking moonshine).
It's a simplistic attempt to duplicate the sun by using magnets instead of gravity. The thing is, the sun is a pretty lousy reactor (lucky for us because it and we are still here and so on). Many from "the bad astronomer" to wikipedia and various fusion info sources show the sun as very wimpy per CC. http://www.echochamber.me/view...
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An approach that brings together the reactants in a coherent way - think bullets colliding - looks a heck of a lot more energy-efficient in terms of the effective "activation energy" and a few people I know are working that with if not "threshold of gain" success, darn good compared to when no one was trying that angle. Non-thermal looks very promising at least to me, and almost no money or effort has gone into it - what has, has paid off handsomely in good reaction rates, and at least low energy in per successful reaction for the ones that are "aimed right" - which is only now possible as more precise things are now being made. Remember it isn't the temperature of a bullet that defines its ability or total energy. Doesn't matter if it's cold, just that it's moving fast on a desired vector.
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The trouble is, the people who hand out the money aren't scientists, and the scientists getting the money are politicians themselves these days - it's an art to get a grant, and some people are good at it, maybe not caring if they're really on to something good or not. Tenure, the nice corner office with the hot secretary, power, all corrupt even scientists and sometimes without them realizing it. Which is why I made my dough another way (engineering, VoIP, digital audio) and am using it to follow my own nose re fusion. Seems like it's the only way that can work. So, I'll put it on whip...
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Don't worry - his days will be numbered in low double digits right after the 2018 election, no matter who wins.
Heâ(TM)s already lasted more than 7 months... so...
Not only does the fusion process expose reactors to extreme pressure
That is nonsense. The fusion reactors we have right now operate with a near vacuum.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Instead of commercially viable fusion being 50 years away, now it's just... 49.9999999999997 years away!