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Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#151

Post by XorNot »

tsenkov wrote: post #140
sam wrote: post #47

It is an important milestone. But to have a commercially viable fusion reactor, you'll need a factor of 50-100 more energy out than in to make up for inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme. The real story here is that this facility allows the US to do nuclear weapons research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty. If the goal was to develop a commercially viable fusion reactor, the…

I wonder, what more do they need in nuclear weapons? Smaller size? Harder detection? Bigger contamination radius? Somehow, I am sure, if people start a nuclear war, even the WWII's initial nuclear weaponry will be enough to destroy ourselves, knowing how many countries can now chime in with their own.

Cover the bases: you can't be sure someone else won't discover a new type of nuclear weapon or something you haven't thought of. The big one would be if someone figured out how to get kiloton->megaton yields, from a weapon which didn't produce radioactive fallout.

Sure, target a city and it's functionally indistinguishable, but what about against military formations or bunkers? It would be a big game changer if someone eliminated the fallout problem, since it changes how one could plan to use nukes in a defensive posture.

So you do the research to make sure you're always within a year or two of whatever the next state-of-the-art will be. Being the dominant hegemon has a lot of cost-of-living expenses.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#152

Post by XorNot »

drjesusphd wrote: post #133
dekhn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether the sun is capable of fusion isn't super important. We can take advantage of that, but it doesn't mean we can build many safe plants based on an evolution of the NIF design. If your alternative fuel requires hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the future, just to show viability of the basic research concept, before it can actually be useful, you will be at a massive competitive advantage relative…

> What I am saying, is that relative to other potential investments, fusion does not seem to be a worthwhile investment, as the risk/payoff ratio is worse. I disagree. There exists MILLIONS of years worth of fuel on earth, compared to a few decades of oil and gas, and a few hundred years worth old coal or fissionable uranium. That's quite a huge payoff for relatively little risk (compare fusion research funding with…

The ITER project's lifetime cost is currently less then the California rail system or a British rail extension.

When people start talking about cost, let's put those numbers in perspective.

The AIG bailout alone would've bought 6-7 ITERs.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#153

Post by andygates »

pdonis wrote: post #123
rlucas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't "the Japanese" that didn't do it safely at Fukushima. It was GE, which is about as American as you get, along with Toshiba and Hitachi. Also it was the 1960s, which is the age of the technology deployed in these relative archaisms. See http://blog.rlucas.net/tech_and_market_reflections/fukushima...

It wasn't "the Japanese" that didn't do it safely at Fukushima. It was GE Was GE responsible for the siting of the backup diesel generators and switchgear behind a seawall that was overcome by the tsunami? That was the root cause of all the problems; it wasn't anything to do with the reactor design itself, other than the fact that it needed active cooling after shutdown (which PWR designs from the same time period al…

But the backup generators could be moved (and were in similar US installations). Raising the backup generators to protect them against inundation was recommended, but the delay there is pure sclerotic TEPCO.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#154

Post by simonh »

swamp40 wrote: post #89
darkmighty wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it's not certain that we will ever be able to have a stable, viable fusion plant. There are even somewhat recent works showing that certain kinds of confinement which were being tried in the early days are not theoretically viable. We're still a few orders of magnitude away from energy, and we're probably quite a few reactor design innovations and material breakthroughs away, I'd say, as far as my layman kno…

Well, ever is a long time. Give it another 1000 years. We will get fusion sooner or later - just to say we did it, if for nothing else.

That may well be true. But it also may well be true that absolutely none of the methods currently conceived are at all viable.

If we are spending money fast because we think we're in a sprint to achieving viable fusion power, but it turns out we're actually in a marathon, then it's quite possible we're wasting vast amounts of money unnecessarily. That's not an argument to stop funding fusion research, but it is an argument to moderate it and possibly even broaden the types of research being done to more projects but at overall lower funding rates.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#155

Post by XorNot »

anirul wrote: post #147
jameshart wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Say you go to a fusion laboratory that employs the top ten fusion scientists in the world, with a current budget of a few hundred million dollars, and you say to them "I've got 2 billion here in additional funding for you. You need to spend it in the next few months because I'm trying to stimulate an economy right here." Does that hire you forty more world class fusion scientists? Are there forty more world…

I can answer to one of your question, there is forty more world class fusion scientists (especially young one with new ideas). They usually are kicked out of research because of no money and send into the job market into financial and other jobs. So this could help everyone if these more qualified people could stay in research and not take a spot in a job that can be filled by a less skilled person.

Also, high-level research projects push the state-of-the-art in the private sector. When CERN order up a new type of magnet, that contract goes to a company who does magnet winding who in turn usually revamp their entire process as part of the collaboration to achieve the desired field strength, homogeneity and size.

Suddenly, there's now a company which can do that - and is eager to sell the service on since they now have the capability. Not only do subsequent magnets get cheaper, but things which weren't feasible due to their smaller scale but precise requirements suddenly become possible.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#156

Post by [deleted] »

tsenkov wrote: post #140
sam wrote: post #47

It is an important milestone. But to have a commercially viable fusion reactor, you'll need a factor of 50-100 more energy out than in to make up for inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme. The real story here is that this facility allows the US to do nuclear weapons research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty. If the goal was to develop a commercially viable fusion reactor, the…

I wonder, what more do they need in nuclear weapons? Smaller size? Harder detection? Bigger contamination radius? Somehow, I am sure, if people start a nuclear war, even the WWII's initial nuclear weaponry will be enough to destroy ourselves, knowing how many countries can now chime in with their own.

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#157

Post by ars »

crystaln wrote: post #137
mquander wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal power creates that kind of crisis every day, so we don't bother calling it a crisis anymore. A total of 240,000 years of life were said to be lost in Europe in 2010 with 480,000 work days a year and 22,600 "life years" lost in Britain, the fifth most coal-polluted country. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-...

"commissioned by Greenpeace International" who I'm sure would back the position that nuclear fission plants are safer than coal. Of course, nuclear power plants are safe short term. Their threat is catastrophe, which given time, is inevitable.

Even with a catastrophe every 50 to 100 years nuclear kills far far less people than coal.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#158

Post by nextw33k »

crystaln wrote: post #91
beloch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NIF is probably more useful for coming up with new fusion bomb designs than for stockpile stewardship, as you say, but what makes you say hot fusion can never be economically viable? The sun is proof that nature can do this on a grand scale! It may be a long ways off, but "a long ways" becomes "never" without experimental work like the NIF. Yes, the U.S. is probably doing this primarily to create new weapons just…

Coal power is more deadly than fission power? When has coal power ever created the sort of crisis that occurred in Fukushima? Because of fission reactors, the safety of entire regions of the world is dependent on a consistent power supply and lack of human error, something that clearly we can not rely on. In the event of a cosmic emp or major meteor strike, these power plants are at risk.

How many people died as a result of the reactors at Fukushima? How many miners die each year from coal mining?

Coal directly impacts global climate change and is a crisis which dwarf Fukushima.

I don't get your point.

However whilst I am pro-nuclear, I would like to see a move away from the current fission reactors to molten salt or fusion reactors.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#159

Post by lmm »

hyperbovine wrote: post #107
nikatwork wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just that the western nations decided to go stupid about fission I have many highly intelligent friends who subscribe to your view. Unfortunately they forget that fission is only as safe as the weakest link, and the consequences of failure are severe, especially when near a water source. I'm not talking about crumbling old soviet-era reactors or even older Japanese ones. Witness Australia's only nuclear facili…

If the Japanese can't do it safely, it can't be done safely.

The Japanese are many things, but models of incorruptibility they are not. I'd bet German reactors are safer.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#160

Post by rdl »

ballard wrote: post #111
beloch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NIF is probably more useful for coming up with new fusion bomb designs than for stockpile stewardship, as you say, but what makes you say hot fusion can never be economically viable? The sun is proof that nature can do this on a grand scale! It may be a long ways off, but "a long ways" becomes "never" without experimental work like the NIF. Yes, the U.S. is probably doing this primarily to create new weapons just…

Would fusion only weapons be covered under any existing non-proliferation or test ban treaties?

Pure fusion weapons also essentially destroy current non-proliferation efforts, which are mainly built around controlling access to fissile materials, and only secondarily some technologies.
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