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ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

bbc.co.uk

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Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#101

Post by cesarb »

jjoonathan wrote: post #62
andrepd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a fusion power fanboy but >nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone This is just not true, there's no way you can say this. Solar costs are going down massively. Hydro is dirt cheap already. So renewables can absolutely be part of an energetic transition in the near future, while fusion is a…

Hydro is actually pretty bad in terms of big safety incidents (Banqiao: 171000 dead, Machchu: 5000 dead, South Fork: 2208 dead) and solar/wind have trouble beating nuclear on metrics like death/watt because you need lots of infrastructure per watt. Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contrac…

> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series.

Most solar power will not be distributed power, but large-scale solar power plants. All large-scale solar power plants I've read about are on the ground, which makes sense since, unlike with wind power, increasing the height of the panels on a solar power plant gains nothing.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#102

Post by AngryData »

cwhiz wrote: post #88
andrepd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a fusion power fanboy but >nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone This is just not true, there's no way you can say this. Solar costs are going down massively. Hydro is dirt cheap already. So renewables can absolutely be part of an energetic transition in the near future, while fusion is a…

I would like to see some models on how solar power could work in northern cities, or honestly any city. The NYC metro area has over 23 million residents and there is essentially zero space for a solar farm. In the winter it's cloudy almost all day and there are only 9 hours of sunlight. Rooftop solar is an option but the models I have seen show a theoretical max around 1,200 MW which is about 1/30th of the NYC metro…

That isn't even the major electrical cost of supporting those people. The fertilizer needed to feed them, metal refining/recycling, chemical reagent production, shipping fuel, all dwarf the usage by individuals in their homes.

Personally I don't think solar is ever feasible for industrial scale work, covering like 1/3 of your landmass is a ridiculously large project and needed to fuel industrial operations that currently use fossil fuels to fuel them including fertilizer production. Even if you can shrink that down a bit, how much of it is competing for farmland? Or replacing natural forests or plains or other wildlife housing.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#103

Post by sam »

gclawes wrote: post #23

At this point I've got a lot more hope in the MIT/Commonwealth Fusion Systems approach with REBCO magnets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk At this point it looks like ITER is hampered by it's relatively old supeconductor technology (ultra low temp/moderate field strength traditional magnets vs high temp/high field REBCO magnets).

ITER and Commonwealth can (and in my opinion should) be seen as complimentary endeavors.

ITER has been designed with relatively conservative magnet technology and will very likely provide the physics results that need to be understood in order for fusion power to become a reality. This includes experimental tests of the physics of plasmas where the heating is dominated by high energy alpha particles rather than external heating. This is a regime that's not yet been studied in a laboratory and there is important research to be done there.

Commonwealth is pushing the envelope of high temperature superconductor magnet technology and is relatively high risk compared to ITER's magnets (and this is a good thing). Lots of ITER technology will be useful to Commonwealth even before ITER turns on. For example decisions about which low activation steels and the huge amount of physics work that's already gone into planning for ITER.

I think the most likely outcome is that both accomplish their goals and contribute to making commercially viable fusion energy a reality in the future.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#104

Post by sam »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92

Is there a good single compendium of ongoing fusion projects?

Yes, check out https://www.fusionenergybase.com/ which I've put together. List of organizations are here, https://www.fusionenergybase.com/organizations and individual projects are here, https://www.fusionenergybase.com/projects

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#105

Post by jpdus »

jjoonathan wrote: post #62
andrepd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a fusion power fanboy but >nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone This is just not true, there's no way you can say this. Solar costs are going down massively. Hydro is dirt cheap already. So renewables can absolutely be part of an energetic transition in the near future, while fusion is a…

Hydro is actually pretty bad in terms of big safety incidents (Banqiao: 171000 dead, Machchu: 5000 dead, South Fork: 2208 dead) and solar/wind have trouble beating nuclear on metrics like death/watt because you need lots of infrastructure per watt. Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contrac…

> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series.

This is a very flawed and short-sighted argument. Averages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions. Nobody would be opposed to PVs on roofs in their neighborhood b/c some construction workers fall to death every year - this risk is well calculable. But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so.

Without enormous direct and indirect subsidies, nuclear (fission) isnt commercially viable anywhere in the world. Heck, you still can't insure a fission plant.

Yes, in theory fission would have been the best option for carbon-free energy. No, in practice humanity never figured out how to safely and efficiently use this power source and now renewables are a way safer and cheaper bet. You won't find any objective economic analysis (that incorporates such indirect subsidies as the implicit state guarantee and realistic building and waste handling/storing costs) that can show otherwise.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#106

Post by foxrider »

eximius wrote: post #73

It is hard for me to conceive of the steps required in these projects that add up to years - just in assembly. Is it due to precision requirements being difficult to achieve? Supply chain delays for custom parts? Lots of experimental runs that require dis-assembly and tuning?

Making complicates shapes these sizes is very very hard. And the fact that it's a one-off project for now makes it so much more expensive and hard. From my understanding somewhere some factory would have to dedicate a whole production line just to this one device.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#107

Post by cheerlessbog »

Certhas wrote: post #44
vosper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone I assume by "energy crisis" you mean "how do we continue to generate energy while drastically decreasing climate effects"? Because if we're not worried about climate there's no looming energy crisis. There's plenty of oil, gas, and coal out there still. And…

Methanization is currently expected to be the critical storage component for CO2 neutral energy systems. A major driver of storage need in many places is not renewable fluctuations but seasonal fluctuations: You need more heating in winter/AC in summer. So make Methane and store the gas. Technologically this is all solved.

New opportunities to leak methane and we've seen it's often cheaper to ignore leaks, given the cost of it is incurred by the planet.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#108

Post by 6nf »

jjoonathan wrote: post #62
andrepd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a fusion power fanboy but >nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone This is just not true, there's no way you can say this. Solar costs are going down massively. Hydro is dirt cheap already. So renewables can absolutely be part of an energetic transition in the near future, while fusion is a…

Hydro is actually pretty bad in terms of big safety incidents (Banqiao: 171000 dead, Machchu: 5000 dead, South Fork: 2208 dead) and solar/wind have trouble beating nuclear on metrics like death/watt because you need lots of infrastructure per watt. Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contrac…

Hydro's main problem is that it's just not available in most countries / areas.

Solar's main problem is that it's not reliable everywhere. Try setting up solar in Chengdu and you'll find that there's just not enough cloud free days in the year to make it worthwhile.

We need baseline power and renewables are not usually enough. If you're lucky enough to have a river or sunny climate then great, but that's not possible in some places.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#109

Post by mhh__ »

eximius wrote: post #73

It is hard for me to conceive of the steps required in these projects that add up to years - just in assembly. Is it due to precision requirements being difficult to achieve? Supply chain delays for custom parts? Lots of experimental runs that require dis-assembly and tuning?

There is no supply chain for a lot of the parts in these projects. Even for a board that doesn't require a custom chip (You can buy some ridiculous high-spec chips off the shelf these days), the silicon will be expensive, the PCB will have to be made to a very high tolerance etc. To top it all off you may require engineers who are not only experts in their own field but also require some in depth knowledge of aspects of theoretical physics (i.e. If you are looking for new particles your usual rules of thumb may not work) which for the most part engineers don't go anywhere near in their normal education.

On top of all the custom hardware you have to be able to set up the infrastructure to use your shiny new hardware, places for staff to work and then land to put it all on (And this is on top of the cost of actually building the main experiment).

In short, everything involved in experimental science is expensive.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#110

Post by toohotatopic »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #79
toohotatopic wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, will it lead to a crisis? The hunger for new things simply dies down if they are not affordable. It's already happening. Energy is much more expensive than it used to be. Resources are more expensive so that new products have tighter margins and waste less materials. People buy as much as they can. If they get less energy for their money, they buy less. Everybody had had-made clothes and ate organic food. Th…

What on earth are you talking about, shortage of energy would be a total ecobomic collapse, not just a crisis. 6 months of people staying at home are causing economic crisis. Large cities literally depend on cheap energy to survive, to bring in food and move away the trash. If there is no power for a week, London and every other megacity turns into a mass graveyard

It's a crisis because it is happening abruptly. The price for hydrocarbons will rise much slower, like the increased consumption of the growing population of the world. Meanwhile, more renewable energy will be installed.

There will be energy in the future, even if there is not the abundance of nuclear fusion. So I don't see why there is a looming crisis.

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