Nuclear Fusion...nearly, maybe.
Discussion
Posted by Chris Hadfield today:
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/#!/content/1.2534140
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/#!/content/1.2534140
Edited by Lefty on Thursday 13th February 07:13
https://www.iter.org/
You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
MiseryStreak said:
https://www.iter.org/
You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
ITER is SO frustrating, given its worldwide importance the amounts spent on it are tiny!You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
Also the only reasons it started construction in 2010 and results not due for a decade is bickering and childish arguments between the countries involved, if they'd just pulled their finger out when they moved on from JET it would be running already!
The planet needs Fusion probably more than anything else right now and they are wasting time on every tiny point.
This is not net energy, far from it. The return is only about 1% of the energy input to the entire system.
Just due to the nature of NIF they can measure this energy input level, Tokamak probably achieved this years ago.
Tokamak is a white elephant, some useful research came from JET, but ITER is a waste and the money should be invested into other concepts such as, but not limited to: DPF, Z-Pinch and Polywell.
NIF is for weapons research, not power generation, the 'power generation' is a distraction from their other research to justify the investment to the US public.
Unfortunately many governments are putting all their eggs in one basket with Tokamak.
Just due to the nature of NIF they can measure this energy input level, Tokamak probably achieved this years ago.
Tokamak is a white elephant, some useful research came from JET, but ITER is a waste and the money should be invested into other concepts such as, but not limited to: DPF, Z-Pinch and Polywell.
NIF is for weapons research, not power generation, the 'power generation' is a distraction from their other research to justify the investment to the US public.
Unfortunately many governments are putting all their eggs in one basket with Tokamak.
annodomini2 said:
Tokamak is a white elephant, some useful research came from JET, but ITER is a waste and the money should be invested into other concepts such as, but not limited to: DPF, Z-Pinch and Polywell.
I disagree. The tokamak approach will work and ITER will demonstrate that beyond any doubt. The other novel approaches may get there but it would be foolish to push ahead with them at the expense of ITER. Of course, in an ideal world, there'd be plenty of funding to go around them all.I agree over NIF. It's a bomb simulator to validate simulations and make up for the fact that full scale tests are now politically impossible. It might generate some nice science as a by product but it's never going to be a path to a viable power reactor.
hairykrishna said:
annodomini2 said:
Tokamak is a white elephant, some useful research came from JET, but ITER is a waste and the money should be invested into other concepts such as, but not limited to: DPF, Z-Pinch and Polywell.
I disagree. The tokamak approach will work and ITER will demonstrate that beyond any doubt. The other novel approaches may get there but it would be foolish to push ahead with them at the expense of ITER. Of course, in an ideal world, there'd be plenty of funding to go around them all.I agree over NIF. It's a bomb simulator to validate simulations and make up for the fact that full scale tests are now politically impossible. It might generate some nice science as a by product but it's never going to be a path to a viable power reactor.
hairykrishna said:
annodomini2 said:
Tokamak is a white elephant, some useful research came from JET, but ITER is a waste and the money should be invested into other concepts such as, but not limited to: DPF, Z-Pinch and Polywell.
I disagree. The tokamak approach will work and ITER will demonstrate that beyond any doubt. The other novel approaches may get there but it would be foolish to push ahead with them at the expense of ITER. Of course, in an ideal world, there'd be plenty of funding to go around them all. They've already admitted that an ITER sized reactor will not be big enough for a commercial solution.
They also originally claimed JET could achieve break even, when it was built, which it hasn't.
There are a lot of engineering challenges with commercial reactors to overcome and it will not be a simple solution.
Commercial generation is focussed on bigger, this is because pretty much all large scale generation uses steam, and with steam. The bigger it gets, the cheaper/MW it gets and making it more efficient becomes cost effective.
Fusion generation doesn't have to be steam based, there direct generation possibilities out there, I specifically say possibilities, conceptually it could work, but has not been directly proven yet.
The other benefit of direct generation is it could potentially be more efficient than steam generation.
Unfortunately DEMO, ITER's successor, has timescales into the 2050's. So we're probably looking at minimum 50 years before a commercial Tokamak comes online.
Other solutions may need this timescale, but the reasons are simply based in the commercial providers requirements, not realistic solutions.
Magnetic confinement works much better at smaller scales, due the nature of magnetic fields and I believe the breakthroughs will be at the smaller scale.
Not that magnetic confinement is the only potential solution.
This is my point, Tokamak is promoted as the only solution, whereas after approximately 50 years of intensive research and investment of the GDP of a small country every year, it has yet to yield a solution.
If this was being privately funded, it would have probably been cancelled years ago.
We have to invest more in other solutions.
scubadude said:
MiseryStreak said:
https://www.iter.org/
You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
ITER is SO frustrating, given its worldwide importance the amounts spent on it are tiny!You can join the ITER mailing list where they send you a weekly email with latest news. This will be the first proper fusion plant to produce net energy. 500MW from 50MW input is the goal, the idea being it becomes the protoype for many commercial fusion plants the world over. Still about 10 years away from it going online but construction only started in 2010 and they're going great guns.
Also the only reasons it started construction in 2010 and results not due for a decade is bickering and childish arguments between the countries involved, if they'd just pulled their finger out when they moved on from JET it would be running already!
The planet needs Fusion probably more than anything else right now and they are wasting time on every tiny point.
As it is fission is stuck in the 1960s with PWR and BWR designs as the only thing available commercially, and the onerous expense of safety systems steam necessitates and the complexity and inefficiency of the solid fuel cycle.
annodomini2 said:
If this was being privately funded, it would have probably been cancelled years ago.
this is why science should be funded publicly. and it's why successive governments have got it wrong with their science funding strategies. and it's why privatisation of electricity generation was a bad idea.real scientific advancements don't really happen on the timescales that companies (shareholders) are concerned with. infact, successful private research labs (e.g. bell labs) operated on the basis that the scientists working there should research whatever they want, just talk to the applied people every now and then. application/profit driven research is a fast track to technological stagnation.
but there we go.
Russian Rocket said:
If they did that the oil companies would have them hunted down and eaten by ravenous dogs. Not very likely, as they reckon on having a prototype(100mW? 100MW presumably) in 4 years yet have not demonstrated anything at all at a laboratory level.Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff