Fusion - breakthrough or another false dawn

[anonymous-user]

Kawasicki said:

Toltec said:

Kawasicki said:

Why not throw eleventy billion trillion at the problem?

Feel free, but you'll get less than 1% back.

Not my money, are you nuts? Taxpayer funded!

er, that kinda is your money you know..... ;-)

[anonymous-user]

Dr Jekyll said:

I was on a tour round the fusion research centre at Culham a few years back, and the staff did whinge a bit about the size of their budget compared with what oil companies spend looking for supplies. I'm not sure they really considered that the oil companies are paying for their own research out of what they find, not getting government grants in the hope of something useful in 50 years time.

For the sake of balance we should remember that the oil & gas industry is the single biggest recipient of goverment money in the world!

[BorkBorkBork]

We’ll know when we’ve cracked fusion as the stars will align to read “Level 2”.

[glazbagun]

BorkBorkBork said:

We’ll know when we’ve cracked fusion as the stars will align to read “Level 2”.

I would absolutely love that to happen.

[AER]

Max_Torque said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I was on a tour round the fusion research centre at Culham a few years back, and the staff did whinge a bit about the size of their budget compared with what oil companies spend looking for supplies. I'm not sure they really considered that the oil companies are paying for their own research out of what they find, not getting government grants in the hope of something useful in 50 years time.

For the sake of balance we should remember that the oil & gas industry is the single biggest recipient of goverment money in the world!

When I google "how is the oil industry subsidized" and have a bit of a read, claims like this seem to be made not understanding how business is actually run, the cost and depreciation of capital equipment, taxation on profit rather than income etc. For sure there are special cases for the oil and gas industry but it also cuts the other way too, in many cases. Governments recieve royalty payments on resources extracted and on top of that they apply enormous duties to much of the end product. It's hard not to get the general feeling it's just a huge money merry-go-round rather than actually an enormous funnel of government cash into shareholders pockets.

[Fusion777]

Dr Jekyll said:

I was on a tour round the fusion research centre at Culham a few years back, and the staff did whinge a bit about the size of their budget compared with what oil companies spend looking for supplies. I'm not sure they really considered that the oil companies are paying for their own research out of what they find, not getting government grants in the hope of something useful in 50 years time.

Where do you think the funding came from in the early phases of fission development? It wouldn't take anywhere near 50 years. From the first chain reaction at the Chicago Pile to commercial generation at Calder Hall took less than 14 years. We've been talking about, planning and constructing Hinkley Point C for 15 years, and it's not going to be online for over another 4 years.

[Dr Jekyll]

Fusion777 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I was on a tour round the fusion research centre at Culham a few years back, and the staff did whinge a bit about the size of their budget compared with what oil companies spend looking for supplies. I'm not sure they really considered that the oil companies are paying for their own research out of what they find, not getting government grants in the hope of something useful in 50 years time.

Where do you think the funding came from in the early phases of fission development? It wouldn't take anywhere near 50 years. From the first chain reaction at the Chicago Pile to commercial generation at Calder Hall took less than 14 years. We've been talking about, planning and constructing Hinkley Point C for 15 years, and it's not going to be online for over another 4 years.

I'm not objecting to government funding of fusion, just saying that since it comes out of a different pot from oil research it doesn't make sense to compare the amounts.

[glazbagun]

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/67

National Ignition Facility further improve efficiency with their method. The reaction produced ~72% of the energy consumed if I read that right, and parts of the plasma began to set fire to itself.

[Fusion777]

glazbagun said:

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/67

National Ignition Facility further improve efficiency with their method. The reaction produced ~72% of the energy consumed if I read that right, and parts of the plasma began to set fire to itself.

Good news. Great to see progress, just wish it was happening faster. It would be great to have fusion energy on the horizon, would surely give humanity a lift.

[Allegro_Snapon]

Would be nice to see but still a fair way to go.......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamsh...

Even some of the supporting magnetic experiments are away behind schedule / proving not possible and if you're wanting a supply chain to build and certify to a high QA standard plant, pipework and process that tolerate some of the tricky material properties of Tritium (gets everywhere) you'd need the supply chain to be doing their development work now, in anger, rather than "OK, we will think about it in a few years".

Or course, setting a 2040 date on a building might catalyse some of the supply chain if enough wonga crosses hands to start work.............

Is it me, or does the building have a bit of a design throwback to Oldbury Magnox Power Station?

[hidetheelephants]

If we're speculatively breaking ground on power stations that aren't designed yet I'd prefer it if the technology itself was pretty nailed down, like fission maybe?

[Allegro_Snapon]

Is it true that as Tritium was originally produced for bombs, but isn't any more and it decays away, that by the time ITER comes to do its "experiment", 20 years late as fusion always is, there won't actually be enough available Tritium?

So the fusion nuclear boom could be a bit of a damp squib, or is there another way to get Tritium (if allowed to mention) other than from bomb production programmes.

I know it is in the environment but i s such hard low concentrations to recover that it was in the news that the Japanese at Fukishima just have to let it go to sea as they can't recover the liquid form of it.

So where in the fusion cycle does the fuel get produced? Not that mad Lithium pellet business they haven't yet proved in the last 40 years?

(I hear a recalibration from the Projects Departments that SMRs are only "10 years away" which must be the metric equivalent of Fusion always being 20 years away in Imperial units).

[annodomini2]

It's produced in heavy water fission reactors such as CANDU

[hidetheelephants]

A lithium target, isotope lithium 6 IIRC, will produce a load of tritium if hit with neutrons; this can be done in any fission reactor, but is obviously quite disruptive for anything other than a non-generating reactor like HFIR at ORNL etc as the targets don't need to be exposed for very long and then need to be removed and processed to extract the tritium.

[Leithen]

Speculation that they have achieved net energy gain at Livermore.

https://twitter.com/OilSheppard/status/16020029748...

[essayer]

Comments on that tweet are depressing. Why can’t people just be positive

[ATG]

Net energy gain, as it is usually defined, doesn't mean a great deal. If the system as a whole managed to extract more energy in a useful form then was required to run the plant, hurray! That would be huge. Let's hope someday someone manages to achieve that.

[Simpo Two]

essayer said:

Comments on that tweet are depressing. Why can’t people just be positive

Well, some cynical which I can understand, some ignorant. For example this reply: 'Created more energy? Where did this energy come from? The principal of conservation of energy says this is not possible. Until this is confirmed by others, I will be skeptical.' He doesn't know that it came from matter via e=mc2, and I can't be bothered to register and tell him..

[anonymous-user]

^Quite. Reinforces my view of Twitter: too many stupid people on there, unaware they’re stupid and trying to sound like what they imagine clever sounds like.

[Flooble]

essayer said:

Comments on that tweet are depressing. Why can’t people just be positive

I had a quick look but other than the usual weirdos (something something marxism is best something something) and a few people who demonstrate they have a little knowledge (as per the post Simpo mentioned) I don't see anything particularly depressing?