Thanks for the response. We often forget that nukes actually have a good (to excellent) track record. Yes, some of the failures have been spectacular. I think dialogs like this help, people get educated (mostly). It's hard to gain confidence in institutions that, I believe, could have treated the populous to a better dialog (I think folks would have supported nukes if the discussion had been more open).
Having lived 'down wind' from the twin sisters at Zion Illinios where, for some years, their operational record was not so good (aec kept them from running to spec and getting 'hot', so that worked pretty well).
I certainly don't believe that full fusion power has no potential problems. I also believe that they can be made as safe as our will requires.
Again, thanks for the feedback.
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?"
The plasma disperses and the fusion stops. What do you think happens when they shut the field down now after their tests?
Yeah, just like I 'just shut down' a diesel or spark ignited engine. I don't. You don't. They don't just shut down a mag confinement in normal shut down. Also, plasma density for sustained fusuion, appears to be, significanly more interesting than what is being done today.
Personally, I hope it works.
Personally, I believe I will not be the only one that holds the utilities to task when it comes to making this public. Nuclear power was sold the citizans of the good old U.S.A. with lies, deciet and the worst examples of representation of the public trust.
Having a million degree stuff in your back yard is not usually considered a 'safe' thing.
"Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also."
Really? Why?
"The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered."
And it would have been had the anti-nuclear nutters who stopped the whole thing in its tracks. Yes 3 mile island happened and then chernobyl. So what? When an airliner crashes 400 people die. Do we stop all flight? Tens of thousands of people die in car crashes every year. Do we ban cars? No.
"The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion"
If the halfwitted political loudmouths of society can be convinced this new form is "better" than the old form (whether it is or not) then we may get somewhere with it. If it ever works that is.
Yeah, I know I'm ill informed. It's true. I've never worked on a tokomak or any other nuclear facility. I do know that it takes more than two degree C from ambient to make fusion happen with known methods. And the product of twenty years of operation is not well understood, there is more than one person in the nuclear field (possibly informed, and/or just crazy) that wonders what happens to materials even if the neutrons are not 'hot'. The argument that nearby materials will not get dangerous appears to be based on statistics (of course because this is all you've got).
So who is looking at real failure modes (versus the ones where things get two degrees out of wack and the confinement politly disipates into a safe cloud of well behaved plasma)?
Take another look at the density goals for these operations, recalculate the energy moderation outside a confinement, then let me know if you still come up with only two degrees. (I'm also pretty bad at arithmetic, so I get exponents wrong all the time, just by one or two, but hey, a few degrees of magnitude make all the difference, don't they)
Why would anyone think fusion will be 'clean'? What will happen to the material that stops all those neutrons? What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field? It's not good! How about intertial confinment failures? Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also. Please stop waiting for fusion power to be our friend. Current nuclear reactors have a GREAT track record, by any other industry standard. However, those who worked on the years of clean up at three mile island know how bad these failure modes are. Fusuion power will NEVER be safe, and, consequently never cheap. Try going back to the 50's and early 60's and look at the literature/propaganda being put forth to get approval for current nuclear power plants. The promises were "Cheap", "Abundant", "Clean". The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered. There would be so much power we could never use it all and would only have to pay a yearly subscription. The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion. Sorry.
We used this method to support a more rigours production process when time constaints made things otherwise impossible. Our situation was: migrate existing functionality to a new platform (as the manufacturing of critical parts was being obsoleted) while introducing both improvements to the existing base and new functions at the same time. The systems folks had a pretty good handle on this, however, having to wait for the better part of a year for the I/O drivers, execution and memory management pieces would have put us in a very bad position (compared to competitors who were not suffering obsolecence...). We used a SCRUM team to initialize the new hardware and start with a planned introduction of I/O drivers. Our initial execution manager was trivial and memory management static. This allowed us to get something to the systems folks "asap". While they (the systems folks) were getting thier algorithms in place and tuned, we would then review our installed code, identify weakness in style and make improvements for maintenance and robustness. Then another I/O driver or two and turn the cycle again. Eventually the system integration became difficult (and needy) enough that we worked on memory and execution managment as well as power-down and other (not RUN=NORMAL) tasks. This model worked very well for us. Of course we had experienced people who could handle the a) "just get it work at all" followed by b) "rigourous requiremnts" followed by major revision. None of which would have been possible without management "buy-in". That is to say, most of the XP (or SCRUM) efforts that I have had experience failed to see the light of day. This one, however, took to the delight of (most) everyone concerned.
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Thanks for the response. We often forget that nukes actually have a good (to excellent) track record. Yes, some of the failures have been spectacular. I think dialogs like this help, people get educated (mostly). It's hard to gain confidence in institutions that, I believe, could have treated the populous to a better dialog (I think folks would have supported nukes if the discussion had been more open). Having lived 'down wind' from the twin sisters at Zion Illinios where, for some years, their operational record was not so good (aec kept them from running to spec and getting 'hot', so that worked pretty well). I certainly don't believe that full fusion power has no potential problems. I also believe that they can be made as safe as our will requires. Again, thanks for the feedback.
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?" The plasma disperses and the fusion stops. What do you think happens when they shut the field down now after their tests? Yeah, just like I 'just shut down' a diesel or spark ignited engine. I don't. You don't. They don't just shut down a mag confinement in normal shut down. Also, plasma density for sustained fusuion, appears to be, significanly more interesting than what is being done today. Personally, I hope it works. Personally, I believe I will not be the only one that holds the utilities to task when it comes to making this public. Nuclear power was sold the citizans of the good old U.S.A. with lies, deciet and the worst examples of representation of the public trust. Having a million degree stuff in your back yard is not usually considered a 'safe' thing. "Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also." Really? Why? "The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered." And it would have been had the anti-nuclear nutters who stopped the whole thing in its tracks. Yes 3 mile island happened and then chernobyl. So what? When an airliner crashes 400 people die. Do we stop all flight? Tens of thousands of people die in car crashes every year. Do we ban cars? No. "The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion" If the halfwitted political loudmouths of society can be convinced this new form is "better" than the old form (whether it is or not) then we may get somewhere with it. If it ever works that is.
Yeah, I know I'm ill informed. It's true. I've never worked on a tokomak or any other nuclear facility. I do know that it takes more than two degree C from ambient to make fusion happen with known methods. And the product of twenty years of operation is not well understood, there is more than one person in the nuclear field (possibly informed, and/or just crazy) that wonders what happens to materials even if the neutrons are not 'hot'. The argument that nearby materials will not get dangerous appears to be based on statistics (of course because this is all you've got). So who is looking at real failure modes (versus the ones where things get two degrees out of wack and the confinement politly disipates into a safe cloud of well behaved plasma)? Take another look at the density goals for these operations, recalculate the energy moderation outside a confinement, then let me know if you still come up with only two degrees. (I'm also pretty bad at arithmetic, so I get exponents wrong all the time, just by one or two, but hey, a few degrees of magnitude make all the difference, don't they)
Why would anyone think fusion will be 'clean'? What will happen to the material that stops all those neutrons? What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?
It's not good!
How about intertial confinment failures?
Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also.
Please stop waiting for fusion power to be our friend.
Current nuclear reactors have a GREAT track record, by any other industry standard. However, those who worked on the years of clean up at three mile island know how bad these failure modes are.
Fusuion power will NEVER be safe, and, consequently never cheap.
Try going back to the 50's and early 60's and look at the literature/propaganda being put forth to get approval for current nuclear power plants. The promises were "Cheap", "Abundant", "Clean". The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered. There would be so much power we could never use it all and would only have to pay a yearly subscription.
The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion.
Sorry.
We used this method to support a more rigours production process when time constaints made things otherwise impossible.
Our situation was: migrate existing functionality to a new platform (as the manufacturing of critical parts was being obsoleted) while introducing both improvements to the existing base and new functions at the same time.
The systems folks had a pretty good handle on this, however, having to wait for the better part of a year for the I/O drivers, execution and memory management pieces would have put us in a very bad position (compared to competitors who were not suffering obsolecence...).
We used a SCRUM team to initialize the new hardware and start with a planned introduction of I/O drivers. Our initial execution manager was trivial and memory management static.
This allowed us to get something to the systems folks "asap". While they (the systems folks) were getting thier algorithms in place and tuned, we would then review our installed code, identify weakness in style and make improvements for maintenance and robustness.
Then another I/O driver or two and turn the cycle again.
Eventually the system integration became difficult (and needy) enough that we worked on memory and execution managment as well as power-down and other (not RUN=NORMAL) tasks.
This model worked very well for us.
Of course we had experienced people who could handle the
a) "just get it work at all"
followed by
b) "rigourous requiremnts"
followed by
major revision.
None of which would have been possible without management "buy-in". That is to say, most of the XP (or SCRUM) efforts that I have had experience failed to see the light of day.
This one, however, took to the delight of (most) everyone concerned.