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Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

nytimes.com

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Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#181

Post by dfsegoat »

Tossrock wrote: post #150

I wish these people the best, and I really hope they get a working fusion plant soon. That said, I can't resist sharing Admiral Rickover on academic reactors vs practical reactors: Important decisions about the future development of atomic power must frequently be made by people who do not necessarily have an intimate knowledge of the technical aspects of reactors. These people are, nonetheless, interested in what a…

Rickover was focused on safety, and specifically solutions that could be safely maintained and operated in a steel pipe full of men, 100' beneath the sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Safety_recor...

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#182

Post by closetohome »

ElFitz wrote: post #137
mdorazio wrote: post #16

Here's the actual summary: "Although many significant challenges remain, the company said construction would be followed by testing and, if successful, building of a power plant that could use fusion energy to generate electricity, beginning in the next decade." In other words, "very likely" in this case means "if several roadblocks are overcome, it might be a net-positive power generator in a decade". Even so, this…

> this is still exciting given how anemic advancement in the fusion space has been for 50+ years. "Nuclear fusion. 30 years away since 1950" Joking aside. I too am glad to see some progress of any kind, and new (seemingly credible) initiatives being funded and pursued

> "Nuclear fusion. 30 years away since 1950"

Those projections usually include the caveat "if properly funded" - https://i.imgur.com/3vYLQmm.png

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#183

Post by ClumsyPilot »

m0zg wrote: post #109
jvm_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that fission and fusion both use the same Nuclear Power Plant sized facility. Fusion just replaces the radioactive bit, you still need steam/electricity conversion/transmission/cooling... it's not like a suitcase you can plug wires into, you still need a massive 'factory' to make electricity, just the one bit is a safer.

Just the little bit responsible for Chernobyl and Fukushima is not a part of the design at all. No big deal. :-)

I am really tired of this line - the taunami killed 18,500 people. The reactor incident killed no-one through radiation and 32 people through physical injuries.

One failure of Banqiao Dam killed an estimated 240,000 people. That's more than all people who have ever died from anything to do with nuclear, reactors and bombs combined.

Air pollution kills about 2,000 people every single day.

Reactor incidents are like plane crashes - they get attention. Fissil fuels are like car crashes - they kill more people every day and noone gives a shit.

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#184

Post by [deleted] »

credit_guy wrote: post #177
Tossrock wrote: post #150

I wish these people the best, and I really hope they get a working fusion plant soon. That said, I can't resist sharing Admiral Rickover on academic reactors vs practical reactors: Important decisions about the future development of atomic power must frequently be made by people who do not necessarily have an intimate knowledge of the technical aspects of reactors. These people are, nonetheless, interested in what a…

Admiral Rickover was a smart dude. But none of these points are applicable here. This development here is about fusion, not fission, those who are pursuing it are not amateurs at all, they are MIT people and they are not shy to pick up a wrench and use it in a lab. One by one, the points made by Rickover against his adversaries are not relevant here: 1. It is simple: no, nobody says here that fusion is simple. 2. It…

[deleted]

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#185

Post by Retric »

fghorow wrote: post #165
m0zg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Unlimited, non-radioactive fuel and inherent safety of the system alone could tip this scale pretty severely in favor of fusion once it becomes energy-positive. And remember, once that happens, investment is going to be through the roof, which will accelerate progress. Either the "scientific community" (whatever that means) is either too pessimistic about this, or you've just made this up.

"Non Radioactive Fuel" is technically correct. But. The fusion produces neutrons.[1] That means that at least some parts of the infrastructure can't avoid becoming radioactive. Decommissioning -- at the very least -- is still a problem. Any actual nuclear physicists want to chime in here? [1]Yes, the concept of "Aneutronic fusion" exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion >. But read the parts about the…

Deuterium is a stable isotope, but Tritium’s half life is only 12.32 years making it quite radioactive.

There is significant effort put into using lithium blankets to create tritium at which point arguably the fuels are lithium and deuterium. But that’s also going to require irradiate the relevant equipment.

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#186

Post by ClumsyPilot »

simonh wrote: post #112
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is still exciting given how anemic advancement in the fusion space has been for 50+ years At the top of my list for when I'll be king for a day is - massive, national-scale investments (think: reaching towards one percent of GDP) in fusion research. This is a major roadblock, but things look awesome on the other side. We just need to get our stuff together to hop over this fence somehow.

I think it’s generally very hard to force technological progress along by just throwing money at it. Let’s suppose this proposal works out, ITER will become a very expensive boondoggle. A technological dead end. But if you’d taken the ‘Manhattan Project’ approach and thrown 10x as much money at fusion research 20 years ago we’d most likely have spent most of it on a super-ITER. It might be operational by now and migh…

"would now be just as redundant and superseded by this new approach."

And this approach will be superceded by something else. And that will be superceded in turn. Should we wait forever? We'd still live in caves.

These new approaches don't just show up, they come from the knowledge and scientists trained in whatever the previous approaches were.

Lastly, if this approach results in having cheaper fusion power, but needs extra 20 years of R&D, thats time we don't have.

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#187

Post by sien »

JustAPerson wrote: post #75

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 Here's a video lecture from the MIT Professor (Dennis Whyte) who was leading the research group that provided some of the key designs for the SPARC reactor. As the NYT article explains, that research has been spun out into a startup that raised $200M. The key breakthrough is the advancement of REBCO tape superconductors which allow you to (1) generate record breaking magnet…

Another excellent talk for those interested is MIT's Pathway to Fusion Energy (IAP 2017) - Zach Hartwig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk

He goes into detail about SPARC as well and why a higher magnetic field using HTS superconductors enables performance that can otherwise be obtained by greater size as ITER is trying.

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#188

Post by a1369209993 »

ElFitz wrote: post #137
mdorazio wrote: post #16

Here's the actual summary: "Although many significant challenges remain, the company said construction would be followed by testing and, if successful, building of a power plant that could use fusion energy to generate electricity, beginning in the next decade." In other words, "very likely" in this case means "if several roadblocks are overcome, it might be a net-positive power generator in a decade". Even so, this…

> this is still exciting given how anemic advancement in the fusion space has been for 50+ years. "Nuclear fusion. 30 years away since 1950" Joking aside. I too am glad to see some progress of any kind, and new (seemingly credible) initiatives being funded and pursued

To be fair, we have known how to build a working nuclear fusion power generator (probably with less than 30 years of construction) since the 1950s (see Project Orion); it's just a ridiculously huge construction/engineering project (basically a internal combustion engine powered by thermonuclear bombs).

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#189

Post by justatdotin »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #173
Maursault wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just isn't the case. Nuclear (fission) has always been the single most expensive way to generate electricity, and the expense has only increased. Uranium is crazy expensive. Security is very expensive. Spent fuel storage effectively never stops costing, and it isn't ever cheap. If nuclear was simply expensive because of regulations, investors would find a way, and you could not beat them away from building nucle…

Thats not accurate at all, Uranium itself is much cheaper than coal / any fuel per unit energy. Some contries have permanent, final storage for nuclear waste, it does not cost any more once created. Furthermore, not only was solar power borderline non existent when those reactors were built, it is also still intermittent. You are just glossing over the biggest challenge of energy - balancing the powe grid. No-one nee…

> Uranium itself is much cheaper than coal / any fuel per unit energy.

well, that's silly: sunlight is cheaper than uranium.

Re: Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest

#190

Post by ClumsyPilot »

woeirua wrote: post #90

After watching the video posted in the top comment, I have to wonder why we would keep dumping money and time into ITER. I know, don't put all your eggs in one basket, but if the ITER design is so out-of-date, why wouldn't we just scrap it in favor of something that we could build 10 years faster and for much less money? It seems that if we can't make fusion work for SPARC it won't likely work in ITER either since th…

Are you so sure ITER is obsolete? For instance, what prevents ITER to be upgraded with better magnets, like the ones used here, and to achieve higher power?
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