Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#61

Post by samwillis » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:17 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #40

samwillis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with solar is the land area usage in densely populated countries, less of a problem in the US but here in the UK the is a lot of push back against building solar farms on agricultural land. There is a convincing argument that we need to discourage the practice in order to maintain domestic food production. Obviously there are alternative locations such a roofs of commercial buildings and over the top of car…

There is absolutely no problem with land area for solar and wind. First, the amount of land used for fossil fuel extraction today is less than the total needed to park all the power generation equipment we will need. All of that land will soon be unused. Second, putting up solar over existing farm and pasture land increases yield and reduces water needs. Solar over canals and reservoirs cuts evaporation loss. Solar o…

Oh I’m not saying for a second it shouldn't be done. The main issue here is a combination NIMBY and misaligned incentives.

Quite right you can graze sheep (and other cattle) under solar. You cannot grow crops though, which is what I was suggesting by “agricultural” land, should have made that more clear.

I live about two miles from what is proposed to be the UKs largest solar farm [0], I believe it will be 8.7x the size of the next largest by area [1]. The local community largely don’t want it [2], personally I would not be unhappy if it happed. However I can see and understand the arguments about placing it on such fertile land that should be used for growing crops - their main argument against it. But there is also a NIMBY sentiment too.

There are good reasons for placing it in that location, there is a significantly large substation there and it’s either side of a major railway line.

The point is, we in the UK need to be growing as much of our own food as possible. Solar is a potential threat to that under the current incentives. The government absolutely should be incentivising solar but in other locations, all that you have listed, but currently farmers can get a better return from solar than crops.

0: https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/

1: https://www.deegesolar.co.uk/uks_biggest_solar_farms/

2: https://www.mallardpassactiongroup.com/

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#62

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:20 AM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #54

ncmncm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokamak fusion can only ever be far more expensive, per watt and per watt-hour, than existing fission. Fission is getting more expensive all the time.

> Tokamak fusion can only ever be far more expensive, per watt and per watt-hour, than existing fission. Why?

The energy flux density in the most compressed plasma imaginable is orders of magnitude less than in fissile uranium. So, to match power out, it has to be big. Really, really big. And a fusion reaction chamber is a much more expensive affair than a fission pile: super high-tech materials and construction, enormous magnets (blasted by the hot-neutron flux output), piping for thousands of tons of melted lithium that have to be replaced (by robots! because super radioactive) every couple of years as the neutrons destroy them. The (radioactive) lithium itself, and containment for if it breaks out of the piping. Continuous processing of the lithium to extract synthetic tritium for fuel. Heat exchangers for lithium to a working fluid that won't pick up radioactivity, and more heat exchangers from that to water for steam. And then the usual steam turbines, which demand regular, very expensive maintenance. Cooling towers to condense the steam, after.

A hundred billion dollars estimated for one several GW plant, and decades for construction. Meanwhile, solar and wind get cheaper every year, with no bottom in sight. The longer they take on fusion, the less competitive it gets, and it starts out way behind, with no possibility of ever catching up.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#63

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:28 AM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #57

ncmncm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokamak fusion can only ever be far more expensive, per watt and per watt-hour, than existing fission. Fission is getting more expensive all the time.

I'm not that familiar with the subject, but this phrase sounds suspiciously like the 1943 IBM executive saying there is a market for only five computers in the world - i.e. it completely discounts technological progress. Of course, this progress has been painfully slow until now, but comparing it with fission is still unfair - fission is well-researched and it getting more expensive is tied to the inherent dangers of…

Fission getting more expensive is tied to the very lucrative fully-legal corruption industry. Once a fission plant construction project is started, the money starts flowing, and is practically impossible to stop. If it is ever finished, the money would stop, and nobody actually involved wants that ever to happen, at least not until their kids graduate college. So the project blows through deadline after deadline, and cost overruns pile up without limit, until somebody manages to pull the plug. Once it looks like the money will stop regardless, there is some incentive to deliver a reactor; we saw that in Finland recently. South Carolina is the more typical cancellation after billions are spent, except in that case with a few indictments.

Normally nobody gets indicted, and nobody ever has to give any money back.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#64

Post by _0w8t » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #62

chmod775 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tokamak fusion can only ever be far more expensive, per watt and per watt-hour, than existing fission. Why?

The energy flux density in the most compressed plasma imaginable is orders of magnitude less than in fissile uranium. So, to match power out, it has to be big. Really, really big. And a fusion reaction chamber is a much more expensive affair than a fission pile: super high-tech materials and construction, enormous magnets (blasted by the hot-neutron flux output), piping for thousands of tons of melted lithium that ha…

This was with previous designs of fusion reactors. Read about proposed Ark and currently constructing Spark reactors. By using stronger superconductive magnets it was possible to reduce the size of the plant by order of magnitude. Spark even has a chance to get to Q>1 before ITER and it’s chamber is less than 2m in diameter. Plus it is possible to replace its parts without disassembling the whole reactor.

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_(tokamak)

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#65

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:40 AM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #59

t43562 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we build N Wind turbines or blow the money on more fusion research? I would guess that we need to keep fusion research alive but the real bulk of the money should be for things that will work now.

Why not do both? Unless the wind turbines are in my back yard of course (which they can't be, according to the rules where I live wind turbines have to be ~2 km away from anyone's back yard, but still).

Because money is fungible.

A dollar spent on fusion is a dollar not spent on solar panels or turbines that would displace fossil fuels immediately. And, it would be a dollar wasted, because the fusion work will never produce any commercially competitive power, anyway. So, it is a choice between buying something that contributes to a solution, or just pissing it away.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#66

Post by belter » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #4

pixelpoet wrote: post #2

Excellent news, we need this so badly, especially now in Europe with Germany shutting down its nuclear (fission) plants and NS2 being cancelled. It's astonishing to me that the world isn't pulling out all the stops on fusion development, something like the space race or Manhattan project. Unfortunately, last I heard ITER building has halted: http://news.newenergytimes.net/2022/02/21/french-regulator-h...

Even if fusion succeeds in net positive energy (which is still a ways off - even ITER, planned to finish in 2030, will not actually generate energy, they didn't even add a turbine to try), there are huge hurdles to scanning it up. It's impossible for fusion to be a significant source of energy in the time left to avert catastrophic global warming. Even with the most optimistic estimates, we will at best have a handfu…

ITER is a scientific experiment. Even if goes according to plan ( and they are already late again ) and according to their official documents, the experiment will only start in 2035.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#67

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:45 AM UTC

samwillis wrote: post #61

ncmncm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no problem with land area for solar and wind. First, the amount of land used for fossil fuel extraction today is less than the total needed to park all the power generation equipment we will need. All of that land will soon be unused. Second, putting up solar over existing farm and pasture land increases yield and reduces water needs. Solar over canals and reservoirs cuts evaporation loss. Solar o…

Oh I’m not saying for a second it shouldn't be done. The main issue here is a combination NIMBY and misaligned incentives. Quite right you can graze sheep (and other cattle) under solar. You cannot grow crops though, which is what I was suggesting by “agricultural” land, should have made that more clear. I live about two miles from what is proposed to be the UKs largest solar farm [0], I believe it will be 8.7x the s…

You can, in fact, grow crops under solar. And they yield more that way.

The panels do not cover every square inch of farm; 50% is common. Most plants, including the most productive crops, will only do a certain maximum of photosynthesis in a day; insolation after that just adds heat stress.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#68

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:46 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #38

Aeolun wrote: post #17

As much as I enjoy reading this news. It is feels heavily sensationalized. "Smashes" the energy record. We're talking about a fusion generator here, that after 25 years of work, now manages to output 'double' the energy, to 59 MJ in 5s -like 20 MW- while requiring 180 MJ input power. Somewhere hidden in the article is the news that this could mean a input/output ratio of 10 in a full scale reactor, but that's also so…

They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides. But it is always a con. If they ever do get Q high enough to make energy production conceivable -- it will need Q > 100, when said and done -- a Tokamak reactor will cost 10x much as the equal-grade fission reactor, and cost >10x as much to operate. As fission reactors are today no…

> fission reactors are today not competitive, and get less competitive by the day

No, we are just incompetent idiots. This has nothing to do with fissions and everything to do with degradation of contruction and practical egnineering skills - now it takes 30 years and 100 billion dollars to make a small railway in California. Victorian England or China could do this without much trouble.

The english-speaking western nations have definitively and measurably degraded - every time an airport or a port or any major piece of infrastructure needs to be built, its a source of drama and infighting for 30 years. A nuclear powerplant is just a big construction project, and nations that can build a railway without a fuss, have demonstrated their ability to build a reactor without a fuss.

We are going to have to fix this if we don't want to decline into barbarity in the next 100 years. We can trade and launder the world's money and stocks but we can't build a bridge. Eventually the physical really will catch up to us "cough climate change', and you can't bribe laws of nature.

Sure you can 'cheat' by buying pre-built solar panels and wind turbines made in China, but you will have to build storage for them, the only proven viable storage is large scale hydro, so you are back as square one.

I have a suspicion that the layer of our society responsible for management and oversight of these projects, both in government and private sectors, is much more inconpetent than that of rival nations, and maybe that's an area to explore.

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#69

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 10:59 AM UTC

_0w8t wrote: post #64

ncmncm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy flux density in the most compressed plasma imaginable is orders of magnitude less than in fissile uranium. So, to match power out, it has to be big. Really, really big. And a fusion reaction chamber is a much more expensive affair than a fission pile: super high-tech materials and construction, enormous magnets (blasted by the hot-neutron flux output), piping for thousands of tons of melted lithium that ha…

This was with previous designs of fusion reactors. Read about proposed Ark and currently constructing Spark reactors. By using stronger superconductive magnets it was possible to reduce the size of the plant by order of magnitude. Spark even has a chance to get to Q>1 before ITER and it’s chamber is less than 2m in diameter. Plus it is possible to replace its parts without disassembling the whole reactor. [1] - https…

That might be nice if they had solutions to the other problems not addressed (see above). But operating it will necessarily still be enormously more expensive than solar or wind, which cost practically nothing.

Somebody with one leg can do a lot better in a race than somebody with none, but that is not the measure to consider when the competition is with two-legged runners. (Hint: they win.)

Re: Nuclear-fusion reactor doubles record for energy made from fusing atoms

#70

Post by sdesalas » Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 11:00 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #68

ncmncm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides. But it is always a con. If they ever do get Q high enough to make energy production conceivable -- it will need Q > 100, when said and done -- a Tokamak reactor will cost 10x much as the equal-grade fission reactor, and cost >10x as much to operate. As fission reactors are today no…

> fission reactors are today not competitive, and get less competitive by the day No, we are just incompetent idiots. This has nothing to do with fissions and everything to do with degradation of contruction and practical egnineering skills - now it takes 30 years and 100 billion dollars to make a small railway in California. Victorian England or China could do this without much trouble. The english-speaking western…

> This has nothing to do with fissions and everything to do with degradation of contruction and practical egnineering skills - now it takes 30 years and 100 billion dollars to make a small railway in California. Victorian England or China could do this without much trouble.

Not to mention over-regulation driven by a general lack of political will. Its easier to win some votes by bashing nuclear than stand by it, even if it is the most likely alternative for baseload power in a carbon-free energy mix.