> The only direct products you make will be Helium-4 (stable), Helium-5 and Helium-6.
Yeah...
ITER will experiment with the use of a lithium "blanket". This is a must-have feature of any power-producing reactor. It consists of a meter-thick layer of lithium surrounding the core. Neutrons that make it through the first wall go into the blanket, where most of them (hopefully) interact with the lithium to produce tritium, which is required to fuel the reactor. In that respect, fusion reactors like ITER actually run on deuterium and lithium, the tritium acts as a catalyst. The blanket serves the secondary purpose of (hopefully) capturing enough neutrons to slow degradation of the materials outside it, like the magnets.
At any given time, there will be about a kilogram of tritium in the lithium blanket, which is about the level where its concentration is too small to remove it. Lithium is a flammable metal that burns well, which I'm sure anyone who's watched a video of someone's eCig exploding knows too well. It also has the ability to burn quite well in water, which will be the case because the blanket is water-cooled. If the lithium catches fire, the tritium in it will burn with atmospheric oxygen to produce tritated steam. A kilogram of tritated steam is a massive radiological event, because it is chemically identical to water, and will fall from the sky as rain and be breathed in by anyone under it.
To put this in perspective, the IAEA defines an "acute atmospheric release of tritium" to be 10g.
Now what might cause such an event to occur? Well, one possibility is a relativistic electron cascade, which has burned holes right through the sides of tokamaks, or more likely, a magnet quench which would destroy the entire side of the reactor. Either way the blanket would be exposed and superheated.
Don't get me wrong, a fusion reactor will be much safer than a fission one, but your dismissal of the risks demonstrates you're not really sure what those risks are.
Well, Canada for one. Quebec is pretty much entirely hydro powered and has tonnes of excess capacity they have trouble getting to market. In the spring, there are six months of Canada's entire energy behind a single dam at Grande Baleine. And I'm not talking electrical energy, I'm talking *all* energy.
Coast to coast, we're already something like 75% carbon neutral when it comes to electricity, and we already have the capacity and distribution needed to switch all are cars to EV.
> We will never reach zero carbon energy without nuclear power
False dichotomy: *zero* carbon is not a goal nor should it be. No one is proposing this except people pushing some sort of political agenda, typically to tell us why its impossible, like here. So, as is typical, let's start the stream of completely incorrect BS... 3...2...1...
> Solar power is shit, it costs too much,
Solar power is among the least expensive forms of electrical energy ever introduced by humanity.
In CAPEX terms, it is the cheapest, ever. Utility-scale PV plants in the US currently cost around $1/Wp, whereas wind is about 1.50, gas about 1.25, coal ~3 and nuclear ~10.
In LCOE terms, it is among the cheapest, along with wind and gas. PV 20 year PPAs are currently being signed at price points under 5 cents/kWh, and the last record I saw was a plant in Arizona at 2.49 cents:
In contrast, nuclear PPAs are around 12 cents/kWh.
> doubles the cost and we can put plants on rooftops too
Well, I've seen lots and lots of PV on rooftops (including my own), but I have yet to see a nuclear reactor on someone's roof. So BS on that.
> Transportation energy needs to be from synthesized hydrocarbons primarily
Which is funny reading on/., where we are all aware of Tesla (which propelled EVs to become 8% of the Canadian market *in total*) and outselling the Corolla. And in contrast, we have ethanol?
> make those large cargo ships nuclear powered too
This has, of course, been tried and repeatedly abandoned. It's hopelessly expensive.
> There will not be any steel industry without large amounts of reliable energy
There's a very large concrete plant up the road (St. Mary's), and a very large steel plant (Arcelor). They spool up and down based on the spot price.
So it's clear you know nothing about any of these topics. I suspect you have not actually worked in any of these industries.
"adding up to around 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions"
Don't get me wrong, reducing this is a good thing.
But consider the fact that half of all the CO2 comes from cars. So in other words, improving fuel economy of cars by 10%, which we can do trivially, would have the same effect of reducing emissions in the steel industry by 100%, which is impossible.
When solving a problem, you start with the biggest bang. That's cars.
> I thought that the carbon in steel making was charcoal deriving from trees?
Yikes, dude, they stopped doing that 200 years ago.
They used to use charcoal because it contains very few contaminates. The process of making it, which is lengthy and energy intensive, burns off many of the remaining nasties. However, the cost of making it, and the amount of wood it required, was astonishing, and was the primary reason steel was so expensive.
Everyone knew that coal was cheap and plentiful, but when you tried to use it for steel production the results were useless. Today we know that the problem is the sulphur content, which at the time was simply it's "offensive odour". The solution was found, IIRC, the beer breweries, who were going out of business because they couldn't afford wood to burn because the steel makers were using it all up (one of the reasons lager/pilsner became so popular). They found that if you heated the coal it would off-gas, and when that stopped the result is "coke" and burns clean. This had been known since the 1500s, but never became popular until there was a need for it.
Adopting coke for steel production was one of the great advances of the 18th century.
> Sure, we need to clean up our power generation grids too. But that's no reason not to be reducing the actual CO2 emissions of the car itself.
And this is a double-whammy. If we clean up the grid, it lowers the CO2 in the manufacturing AND the operation. And it cleans the operation for cars already on the road.
But hey, I'm all for building the batteries in Quebec too. I'm not at all sure why they don't already (FYI, it's all hydro and its CHEAP).
> they would need a MOX fuel processing plant just as the US would.
Its about 45 minutes up the road from me in Port Hope.
AECL did argue that some minor changes to the CANDU plant design would allow unmixed fuel to be burned, they called it EC6 and the overall project was CANMOX:
> The engineers are beholden to... OMG!... politicians
They are beholden to their bosses, who are beholden to the shareholders.
You've never actually worked anywhere remotely need the power industry, have you?
> Nuclear power in the US is highly politicized
If the industry is so bad at public relations, then are you sure you want that industry building reactors.
I mean, just stop and think about what you're saying. You're saying that the industry group is so disorganized that it can't overcome some patchouli scented retirees?
Because "the competition" here is the same group that can't stop a hiway offramp, but you're saying they're the reason the industry is sucking wind?
You have a much lower opinion of the nuclear industry than I do.
Lots of people did things in the 1970s we don't do know. Like smoke, put led in gasoline, drive cars without seatbelts, and build nuclear plants that suck flames into inaccessible wiring conduits.
Now if you compare France's projects in the 1970s with today - Flamanville - you come to a rather different conclusion than the one you're suggesting.
> The Russians have had nuclear powered radar satellites for a long time.
Oh geez, read about them more. They were a disaster, leaking coolant into orbit, failing constantly, crashing in northern Canada, etc.
If you're going to promote reactors in space, Soviet examples are likely not something you want to mention. Kinda like promoting cars with the Trabant.
Yeah, but I'm worried. Joule is one of several Elsiver energy-related journals opened in the last few years that appear to have little in the way of review. Here's another example:
Plasma. And the fact that people have been working on them for decades with nothing to show for it.
This was a big story in Canada circa 1989 because they built a surfatron and reached some new limit. Now it's 30 years later and we're still not using them. Maybe in another 30 years?
Slashdot Mirror
Comcast also stated they will be raising fees on their buggy whip rentals, and mandating you buy one.
> The only direct products you make will be Helium-4 (stable), Helium-5 and Helium-6.
Yeah...
ITER will experiment with the use of a lithium "blanket". This is a must-have feature of any power-producing reactor. It consists of a meter-thick layer of lithium surrounding the core. Neutrons that make it through the first wall go into the blanket, where most of them (hopefully) interact with the lithium to produce tritium, which is required to fuel the reactor. In that respect, fusion reactors like ITER actually run on deuterium and lithium, the tritium acts as a catalyst. The blanket serves the secondary purpose of (hopefully) capturing enough neutrons to slow degradation of the materials outside it, like the magnets.
At any given time, there will be about a kilogram of tritium in the lithium blanket, which is about the level where its concentration is too small to remove it. Lithium is a flammable metal that burns well, which I'm sure anyone who's watched a video of someone's eCig exploding knows too well. It also has the ability to burn quite well in water, which will be the case because the blanket is water-cooled. If the lithium catches fire, the tritium in it will burn with atmospheric oxygen to produce tritated steam. A kilogram of tritated steam is a massive radiological event, because it is chemically identical to water, and will fall from the sky as rain and be breathed in by anyone under it.
To put this in perspective, the IAEA defines an "acute atmospheric release of tritium" to be 10g.
Now what might cause such an event to occur? Well, one possibility is a relativistic electron cascade, which has burned holes right through the sides of tokamaks, or more likely, a magnet quench which would destroy the entire side of the reactor. Either way the blanket would be exposed and superheated.
Don't get me wrong, a fusion reactor will be much safer than a fission one, but your dismissal of the risks demonstrates you're not really sure what those risks are.
> Like who?
Well, Canada for one. Quebec is pretty much entirely hydro powered and has tonnes of excess capacity they have trouble getting to market. In the spring, there are six months of Canada's entire energy behind a single dam at Grande Baleine. And I'm not talking electrical energy, I'm talking *all* energy.
Coast to coast, we're already something like 75% carbon neutral when it comes to electricity, and we already have the capacity and distribution needed to switch all are cars to EV.
> Modern reactors can be made effectively totally safe
Unfortunately, they cannot be made economic.
That's all anyone really cares about.
> We will never reach zero carbon energy without nuclear power
False dichotomy: *zero* carbon is not a goal nor should it be. No one is proposing this except people pushing some sort of political agenda, typically to tell us why its impossible, like here. So, as is typical, let's start the stream of completely incorrect BS... 3...2...1...
> Solar power is shit, it costs too much,
Solar power is among the least expensive forms of electrical energy ever introduced by humanity.
In CAPEX terms, it is the cheapest, ever. Utility-scale PV plants in the US currently cost around $1/Wp, whereas wind is about 1.50, gas about 1.25, coal ~3 and nuclear ~10.
https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-110.pdf
In LCOE terms, it is among the cheapest, along with wind and gas. PV 20 year PPAs are currently being signed at price points under 5 cents/kWh, and the last record I saw was a plant in Arizona at 2.49 cents:
http://www.cap-az.com/documents/meetings/2018-06-07/1704-8b-Action-Brief-Power-Portfolio---060718--solar--rev.pdf
In contrast, nuclear PPAs are around 12 cents/kWh.
> doubles the cost and we can put plants on rooftops too
Well, I've seen lots and lots of PV on rooftops (including my own), but I have yet to see a nuclear reactor on someone's roof. So BS on that.
> Transportation energy needs to be from synthesized hydrocarbons primarily
Which is funny reading on /., where we are all aware of Tesla (which propelled EVs to become 8% of the Canadian market *in total*) and outselling the Corolla. And in contrast, we have ethanol?
> make those large cargo ships nuclear powered too
This has, of course, been tried and repeatedly abandoned. It's hopelessly expensive.
> There will not be any steel industry without large amounts of reliable energy
There's a very large concrete plant up the road (St. Mary's), and a very large steel plant (Arcelor). They spool up and down based on the spot price.
So it's clear you know nothing about any of these topics. I suspect you have not actually worked in any of these industries.
"adding up to around 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions"
Don't get me wrong, reducing this is a good thing.
But consider the fact that half of all the CO2 comes from cars. So in other words, improving fuel economy of cars by 10%, which we can do trivially, would have the same effect of reducing emissions in the steel industry by 100%, which is impossible.
When solving a problem, you start with the biggest bang. That's cars.
> I thought that the carbon in steel making was charcoal deriving from trees?
Yikes, dude, they stopped doing that 200 years ago.
They used to use charcoal because it contains very few contaminates. The process of making it, which is lengthy and energy intensive, burns off many of the remaining nasties. However, the cost of making it, and the amount of wood it required, was astonishing, and was the primary reason steel was so expensive.
Everyone knew that coal was cheap and plentiful, but when you tried to use it for steel production the results were useless. Today we know that the problem is the sulphur content, which at the time was simply it's "offensive odour". The solution was found, IIRC, the beer breweries, who were going out of business because they couldn't afford wood to burn because the steel makers were using it all up (one of the reasons lager/pilsner became so popular). They found that if you heated the coal it would off-gas, and when that stopped the result is "coke" and burns clean. This had been known since the 1500s, but never became popular until there was a need for it.
Adopting coke for steel production was one of the great advances of the 18th century.
"the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens"
Cyanobacteria wiped out 90% of life on the planet. They still have us beat by a landslide.
> a selection of video on demand
Which doesn't address:
> I can play them when I want to play them
If you think "a selection" is somehow addressing that statement, you need to go back to grade school.
For myself, it's its not on-demand, I don't watch it. I'm not alone.
> Sure, we need to clean up our power generation grids too. But that's no reason not to be reducing the actual CO2 emissions of the car itself.
And this is a double-whammy. If we clean up the grid, it lowers the CO2 in the manufacturing AND the operation. And it cleans the operation for cars already on the road.
But hey, I'm all for building the batteries in Quebec too. I'm not at all sure why they don't already (FYI, it's all hydro and its CHEAP).
Pretty amazing job my ass. Looks absolutely terrible.
Yeah I know this is a fanboi job and I give *him* credit for this, but boo on Gizlozer for overhyping it.
> it can burn under the right circumstances. (i.e. heated with a blowtorch
Like a rocket engine?
> finely divided than subjected to flame
Like an exploding rocket?
Wait, are you defending or criticizing this concept?
> they would need a MOX fuel processing plant just as the US would.
Its about 45 minutes up the road from me in Port Hope.
AECL did argue that some minor changes to the CANDU plant design would allow unmixed fuel to be burned, they called it EC6 and the overall project was CANMOX:
http://www.snclavalin.com/en/projects/the-canmox-solution.aspx
Originally pitched to the UK, but ultimately went nowhere.
> The engineers are beholden to ... OMG! ... politicians
They are beholden to their bosses, who are beholden to the shareholders.
You've never actually worked anywhere remotely need the power industry, have you?
> Nuclear power in the US is highly politicized
If the industry is so bad at public relations, then are you sure you want that industry building reactors.
I mean, just stop and think about what you're saying. You're saying that the industry group is so disorganized that it can't overcome some patchouli scented retirees?
Because "the competition" here is the same group that can't stop a hiway offramp, but you're saying they're the reason the industry is sucking wind?
You have a much lower opinion of the nuclear industry than I do.
> $48B to build a reactor. WTF. That's absurd.
No, $48B MORE than $7.6B.
More absurd.
> In other words, it's an environmentalist problem just like 30 years ago
Well that's the dumbest thing I've read all week.
Shipping US bomb fuel to foreign countries is controversial because shipping bomb fuel is controversial.
But sure, let's blame this on some ill-defined group you made up in order to assuage your political leanings.
> US to export its MOX to Canada isn't entirely uncontroversial
I don't know why, they paid for Russian Pu to be sent here to mix. I find it difficult to believe it would be more controversial to send US Pu here.
> Makes it harder to misappropriate or for amateurs to machine into a bomb core.
Right, so the guys that strap a bomb to their belt and blow themselves up are going to be deterred by radiation?
Sure.
> but nothing catastrophic
Wow... you should write ad copy.
Lots of people did things in the 1970s we don't do know. Like smoke, put led in gasoline, drive cars without seatbelts, and build nuclear plants that suck flames into inaccessible wiring conduits.
Now if you compare France's projects in the 1970s with today - Flamanville - you come to a rather different conclusion than the one you're suggesting.
> The Russians have had nuclear powered radar satellites for a long time.
Oh geez, read about them more. They were a disaster, leaking coolant into orbit, failing constantly, crashing in northern Canada, etc.
If you're going to promote reactors in space, Soviet examples are likely not something you want to mention. Kinda like promoting cars with the Trabant.
Yeah, but I'm worried. Joule is one of several Elsiver energy-related journals opened in the last few years that appear to have little in the way of review. Here's another example:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379
So my hackles are up.
> With wireless headphones I could buy a pair with decent sound for $20 and be happy
Equally important, you could buy them *anywhere*. I've yet to see a wireless pair at a corner store.
Took a 4-hour train trip recently. Guess what I forgot? Lots of stores in the station had headphones, none of which would work.
Plasma. And the fact that people have been working on them for decades with nothing to show for it.
This was a big story in Canada circa 1989 because they built a surfatron and reached some new limit. Now it's 30 years later and we're still not using them. Maybe in another 30 years?
> Thank fuck the endless barrage of 3D printing hype spam has finally abated on slashdot
Only to be replaced by the endless barrage of XR hype spam.