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Experts Urge US To Continue Support For Nuclear Fusion Research (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: A panel of 19 scientists drawn from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended yesterday that the Department of Energy should continue an international experiment on nuclear fusion energy and then develop its own plan for a "compact power plant." A panel of 19 scientists drawn from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended yesterday that the Department of Energy should continue an international experiment on nuclear fusion energy and then develop its own plan for a "compact power plant."
But as the National Academies' report noted, major challenges must be overcome to reach these goals, beginning with how to contain and control a burning "plasma" of extremely hot gas, ranging from 100 million to 200 million degrees Celsius, that can produce more heat than it consumes. The report calls the resulting plasma "a miniature sun confined inside a vessel." The world's biggest experiment intended to create and draw energy from burning plasma is under construction at Cadarache, France. It's called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, and its centerpiece is a large, doughnut-shaped, Russian-inspired reactor called a tokamak. Several member nations have already developed their own national programs, and the assembled National Academies experts concluded that the United States should eventually follow, once the ITER experiment shows there are ways to contain and manipulate a sustained fusion reaction. "It is the next critical step in the development of fusion energy," says the report.
But as the National Academies' report noted, major challenges must be overcome to reach these goals, beginning with how to contain and control a burning "plasma" of extremely hot gas, ranging from 100 million to 200 million degrees Celsius, that can produce more heat than it consumes. The report calls the resulting plasma "a miniature sun confined inside a vessel." The world's biggest experiment intended to create and draw energy from burning plasma is under construction at Cadarache, France. It's called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, and its centerpiece is a large, doughnut-shaped, Russian-inspired reactor called a tokamak. Several member nations have already developed their own national programs, and the assembled National Academies experts concluded that the United States should eventually follow, once the ITER experiment shows there are ways to contain and manipulate a sustained fusion reaction. "It is the next critical step in the development of fusion energy," says the report.
Owning that technology seems monumentally valuable.
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There is a consistent level of research funding that simply pays for transferring and maintaining what we know so far about fusion from one generation to the next without actually gaining much ground.
It's been around that level of funding for as long as the "in 20 years" joke has been around, crawling along and occasionally something new and useful is figured out.
If a Kennedy-space-race-esque decision were made to say "fuck it, we're putting 50 billion dollars a year into getting this done," you'd have it within a generation as the skill and knowledge base expanded exponentially with specialized graduate degree programs and parallel research projects for everything remotely worth exploring.
Nobody that can afford to feels the need to take that gamble.
It sounds like you're saying we don't need to worry about our current CO2 outputs because technology will just come along that solves the problem effortlessly.
If only. Managing CO2 atmospheric levels is a difficult problem whose solution spans geography, cultures, economies, political systems ... it's not just about technology. Leaving it all up to The Invisible Hand of technological progress is wishful thinking that we just can't afford. We need to make plans and set goals.
Scientists and engineers have been trying to get a fusion reactor to work for decades. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a working fusion reactor in our lifetimes. But it's a mistake to depend on a technology that is, however worthy, still not viable yet. Wind, solar, tide, geothermal -- and yes, nuclear fission -- are all proven technologies that are not perfect but are viable now.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
"The predictions of "Lost in Space", "2001 A Space Odyssey", "The Jetsons" etc etc had all failed to materialise."
I think you deliberately left out "Brave New World" and "1984" because those _have_ come true.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Um... a fusion reactor canâ(TM)t explode. If you lose containment of the plasma it dissipates and you need to restart your reactor.
Fusion is hard. Fission is trivially (and therefore dangerously) easy.
In his apparent mad rush to drag the U.S. back to the 1940's technologically, socialogically, and politically, the gods-be-damned Trump administration will likely defund, kill off, and bury any and all research into practical fusion reactor technology, and instead insist on building more coal-fired power plants. Give 'em enough rope, and he'll probably try to outlaw solar power and wind power, too. Never mind what that'll do even in the short term to nationwide air quality and people's respiratory health, his science adviser assures him there's no connection between asthma, and other respiratory diseases, and air pollution.
Meanwhile countries like China will forge ahead and likely master fusion technology ahead of the U.S., and rub our faces in it in front of the rest of the world, making the U.S. look like even a bigger laughingstock than it already has been made to look like in the last 2 years, if you can believe that's even possible. If Trump, somehow, against all odds and against all common sense, manages to get re-elected in 2020, all I can tell you is: better start learning to speak Mandarin and Russian.
I am astounded that a group of people who probably have only one thing in common, they "do" research for a living, have come together and concluded that more research should be undertaken (and paid for). I'm sure all of them will invest their life-savings in it. No bias or conflicts of interest, I'm sure.
Disclaimer: I work in close proximity and collaboration with a DOE-funded fusion research center.
Fusion research has progressed significantly scientifically speaking, we can repeatedly trigger fusion reactions now, the only problem is input v. output (we still put more in than out) but everything else, containment etc. is pretty much figured out. The power differential is a hard problem made only harder by regulations on the fuels necessary. There are various fusion sites in the US that can't even get their hands on the fuels that have been delivering higher yields and if you've never worked with DOE - trying to hire or replace an employee can take 2-3 years, everything else that's done (hey we think we'll get better yields with a $10,000 modification or "let's replace that computer") can take ages as well.
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Lets not forget bio fuels. Our gasoline, diesel and jet fuel does not need to come from petroleum. It can come from biological processes so that these fuels become carbon neutral.
No, we need to forget about bio-fuels.
I saw the math on how much land, fresh water, and other resources needed for bio-fuels, and how much we actually get back from it, and bio-fuels are worthless. This cannot be fixed with genetically engineered algae, or improved farming techniques. The problem is that the highly diffuse sunlight is being converted to fuel, and no matter how you do it, or how efficiently it is done, there is a minimum amount of land needed to collect a given amount of energy. Bio-fuels compete with cropland for this sunlight and so long as people eat food the competition between food and fuel will not end well for anyone.
Internal combustion engines and jet turbine engines are not the problem, its only the *current* source of their fuel.
I can agree with that. There's ways to convert any given electrical source into liquid fuels suited for aircraft engines and other internal combustion engines. The US Navy developed such a process for the purpose of producing aviation fuel on nuclear powered aircraft carriers. This technology need not exist only on a ship at sea, put a nuclear power plant on any coast and it can produce the fuels we need. And do so without the need for land and fresh water like crops do.