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More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

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Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#461

Post by ncmncm »

unchocked wrote: post #295
acidburnNSA wrote: post #153

But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…

Fuckin’ A… I don’t have a charitable explanation for why folks are holding their breath for another neutron source, while the world burns.

We don't actually need or want extra neutrons. We have all the neutrons we will ever want, right where they already are.

Protons will become increasingly valuable, after being separated from oxygen.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#462

Post by goodpoint »

lambdaba wrote: post #190
goodpoint wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not "too good".

So the fear is we’ll use the extra energy to literally warm the planet? Seems like a scale mismatch. Climate “engineering” like blocking out the sun seems like a much more real danger

Why people keep asking the same questions? felixmeziere wrote it very clearly in the parent post.

The evidence clearly shows that humanity is not acting rationally and we are letting consumerism run unchecked.

A good example is plastic: we are aware of the health impact of particulate and yet we can't even have a conversation around stopping using plastic worldwide. Rather than a choice it looks like an addiction.

felixmeziere wrote about cultural change.

Additionally, it's very likely that fusion will be viable primarily in developed countries, further increasing energy inequality.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#463

Post by Galaxeblaffer »

ncmncm wrote: post #436
toxik wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a myth doesn’t make it a myth. Power companies have been saying exactly this for years: they need PLANNABLE power generation. Building 3x solar or wind plants means 3x volatility.

Building 3x renewables in widely distributed places radically reduces volatility. Wind is always blowing somewhere. Sun is always out somewhere. Storage is transportable.

Is storage really transportable ? Like how much energy in any form could you realistically transport for any meaningful distance without using too much of the energy that you are transporting ? Since you made the claim I'd like you to paint any kind of realistic scenario.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#464

Post by 7952 »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #317
AughFuckFusion wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tf say does the public have? This is a terrible excuse. The public doesn't have any say in the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of decision making that happens in this country.... blame politicians ffs, not people who don't matter.

You have clearly never been in the public comment session at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting. The public has a huge amount to do with it.

Have you been to a consultation event for a wind farm? It can get pretty aggressive.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#465

Post by willis936 »

thriftwy wrote: post #31

I believe that there might be a way to have a compact and efficient fusion reactor which we just don't know yet (and a time traveller would be able to "hold my beer" us into it) For example, there's this plasma-producing microwave + cut grape trick, what if you use something like this to supply really hot deuterium plasma?

That's actually exactly what existing MCF machines do. The gyrotron (ECRH, same as a microwave's magnetron) resonant frequency is tuned to the confinement field strength of the plasma so it absorbs the energy. On top of that there's a vacuum so air doesn't pull all the heat away and a magnetic bottle so the plasma doesn't touch the wall. Fusion is very far away from happening spontaneously on Earth.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#466

Post by ncmncm »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #315
acidburnNSA wrote: post #153

But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it impossible for fusion to generate a nuclear meltdown scenario that fission has the potential for?

A fusion reactor would have at least a thousand tons of molten lithium coursing through miles of plumbing, that if breached explodes and burns uncontrollably; and the reaction product dissolves mucus membranes.

Fortunately none will be built.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#467

Post by adrian_b »

orzig wrote: post #132
sva_ wrote: post #109

Something I wondered about fusion is, where does all that 'excess energy' go? I mean don't understand me wrong, it is obvious that is a much better form of energy release than all the other forms of energy production we have; but let us consider we manage to gain energy from fusion, the electricity released still releases heat, so how does it dissipate, if we have near-infitite energy, and anyone can spend as much as…

It is a valid question, but to put it in perspective, the sun bathes us in dramatically more kWh than we need to annually power the world every few minutes. So fusion would be a drop in the bucket at a global scale.

In the beginning, of course.

Nevertheless, the heating of the Earth puts a limit on the total usable nuclear power on Earth, both fission and fusion, it cannot be "infinite", but it must remain forever a small fraction of the power of the incoming Solar radiation, otherwise it would cause an excessive heating of the Earth by itself.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#468

Post by _ph_ »

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #463
ncmncm wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building 3x renewables in widely distributed places radically reduces volatility. Wind is always blowing somewhere. Sun is always out somewhere. Storage is transportable.

Is storage really transportable ? Like how much energy in any form could you realistically transport for any meaningful distance without using too much of the energy that you are transporting ? Since you made the claim I'd like you to paint any kind of realistic scenario.

High voltage DC lines are quite practical over 1000 kilometers and more - Germany already operates an 1.4GW line to Norway, using the Norwegian grid as a storage for electricity.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#469

Post by 7952 »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #345
miles wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's basically a judge saying it. The scientific basis is very unclear. "In January 2015, the MHLW [Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare] compiled medical knowledge on lung cancer and radiation exposure in a report resulting from a review meeting of medical experts, and published the immediate view similar to that for thyroid cancer. The first claim for case of lung cancer was approved by MHLW in August 2018,…

I understand that he received an estimated 74 mSv of radiation, somewhat below the level of 100 mSv acute / 300 mSv annual that has been shown to cause a measurable increase risk of cancer (e.g. from 40% lifetime risk to 40.1% lifetime risk). It's extremely dubious to say that this was definitely from Fukushima radiation. If that dose is accurate, the likelihood of it being from Fukushima radiation is probably less t…

It seems dubious to apply this kind of population statistics to individuals at all.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#470

Post by drtgh »

Filligree wrote: post #10
eatonphil wrote: post #3

The article doesn't seem to mention why exactly but I'm guessing it's some combination of 1) visible climate change (extreme heat, wildfires, drought, etc.) so people want better energy sources and 2) the mayhem Russia started seeing as it is one of the bigger energy providers. Or has there been anything else?

Some breakthroughs in plasma modelling, too. https://www.sciencealert.com/physics-breakthrough-as-ai-succ...

Interesting. By that link, it seems they was able to stabilizing 'droplets' where two plasmas co-existed simultaneously inside Tokamak.

I wonder if they thought if it would be possible to accelerate such plasma droplets in opposite directions for to take Helion's aproach [1] if needed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29119180

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