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MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

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Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#201

Post by gfodor »

pfdietz wrote: post #194
gfodor wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion doesn’t have the stigma of fission, or a lot of the risks, and so if we can get to a point where we are actually building new fusion reactors, we should assume the technology will improve rapidly.

It's a common error to think that fission power plants aren't being built because of "stigma". The actual problem is failed economics. Fusion promises to be even more expensive, for the reasons I explained. It's not clear why one should expect fusion to have good experience effects. Fission didn't, and the non-nuclear parts of fusion power plants will be mature technologies.

Your argument is that the stigma of nuclear meltdowns hasn’t impeded the deployment of nuclear energy?

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#202

Post by pfdietz »

gfodor wrote: post #201
pfdietz wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common error to think that fission power plants aren't being built because of "stigma". The actual problem is failed economics. Fusion promises to be even more expensive, for the reasons I explained. It's not clear why one should expect fusion to have good experience effects. Fission didn't, and the non-nuclear parts of fusion power plants will be mature technologies.

Your argument is that the stigma of nuclear meltdowns hasn’t impeded the deployment of nuclear energy?

If reactors were ten times safer but no cheaper, they still wouldn't be being built.

If reactors were ten times cheaper but no safer, we'd be building them like hotcakes.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#203

Post by neltnerb »

mikepurvis wrote: post #169
mauvehaus wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point of order: if the space shuttle were grabbing satellites out of the air, something has gone terribly wrong with both launching the satellite and the shuttle.

I think the idea was that early spy satellites would use film rather than digital transmission, so it would be at the very least necessary to potentially grab one's own satellites. In any case, this exact question was asked here, and the top-rated response indicates that it's unlikely that the design requirement was ever meant to refer to grabbing an uncooperative payload: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41…

I think the joke was that the satellite isn't supposed to be in the "air".

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#204

Post by ncmncm »

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #197
ncmncm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same process we see everywhere that massive cost overruns and unlimited delays manifest. Modern management methods can control cost and schedule where that is an actual goal. Where they don't demonstrates the actual goal. Every penny of cost overrun goes into some pocket. Smart management ensures many, many pocketholders are allied to keep the gravy train running.

Don't attribute to conspiracy what can be adiquately explained by beurocracy.

Millions of large buildings, and tens of thousands of huge ships, dams, and bridges are built on time and on budget.

The alternative would be that management cannot be judged on its results.

Some bridges, invariably urban, go massively over budget and schedule. Urban tunnels, routinely. Military procurement, routinely. Are people who manage those systematically dumber than the rest? Or do they have different measures of success?

What is common to those apparent failures is that they serve as a reliable, legal, long-term conduit from public funds to a multitude of private pockets. F-35 can never be cancelled, no matter what, because it has subcontractors in 48 states. The F-35 is a massive success to its backers: it secured monumental patronage. That it can actually take off and land, too, is a miracle.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#205

Post by pontifier »

Fusion is on my plate too. I've got a design that I really need to test, an I've finally got the funds to begin construction.

My method uses much lower magnetic fields that could be provided by permanent magnets, but should allow containment times on the order of weeks for small quantities of D-D fuel.

I have more information at http://www.DDproFusion.com

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#206

Post by Nevermark »

pfdietz wrote: post #190
stjohnswarts wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably counting in the cost of unlimited global warming and all the damage it will do if we don't stop it, which we won't if current efforts are par for the course.

That would make sense if he's comparing only against fossil fuels. But what was written was: > I like to think of solar, batteries, fission, and wind as compelling ways to go mostly carbon free and lower energy costs about 2x over the next 20 years or so. > Fusion is what reduces energy cost potentially another 10x, which really changes the game for lots of things. Exciting stuff. Kudos to this team. If the 10x is fr…

> which we won't if current efforts are par for the course.

Because while renewable energy production is increasing rapidly, it is nowhere where we need it to cancel fossil fuels.

Nothing will be soon enough. That would have been now or ten years ago.

But anything that gets us there sooner will reduce the damage we have done, and fingers crossed, allow us to start undoing it.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#207

Post by xyzzyz »

clusterfish wrote: post #155
mchusma wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, people who flippantly dismiss fusion just don't understand it. -Fusion has made consistent improvement, roughly in line with expectations for the level of investment (20 years away predictions were considering if we invested massively, which we did not). - Fusion is in theory something that could give us true energy abundance. Want to just desalinate water like crazy? Want to extract gigatons of carbon…

Is it really limitless if both generating and consuming energy produces heat? Or is that too small of an effect even despite the heat inefficiency of fusion?

Earth gets multiple orders of magnitude more heat from the Sun than humans can ever hope to generate. In concrete terms, Earths gets 153 PW of energy in terms of solar radiation. It also radiates as much. In comparison, humanity uses something like 20 TW in total (that includes not only electricity, but also transportation etc). So, we could increase our energy use 100 times, and still be only around 1% of what we get from the Sun.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#208

Post by Edman274 »

ncmncm wrote: post #204
IntrepidWorm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't attribute to conspiracy what can be adiquately explained by beurocracy.

Millions of large buildings, and tens of thousands of huge ships, dams, and bridges are built on time and on budget. The alternative would be that management cannot be judged on its results. Some bridges, invariably urban, go massively over budget and schedule. Urban tunnels, routinely. Military procurement, routinely. Are people who manage those systematically dumber than the rest? Or do they have different measures…

An experimental fusion reactor is not a large building, or ship, or dam, or bridge. We've been building large buildings since the pyramids of Giza. We've been building large ships since before the Dreadnought. We've been building large dams since at least the Great Depression. The same goes for bridges. I don't think it's intellectually honest to compare budget and time overruns for fusion reactors to budget and time overruns for skyscrapers. You kind of say it without realizing it - "millions of large buildings", well yeah: if we have a lot of practice doing something - like building millions of large buildings - then wouldn't you expect us to do a better job of being on time and on budget than the handful of research efforts into the holy grail of energy production?

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#209

Post by baybal2 »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #50
anonuser123456 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the catch this time? This is D-T fusion. Which means you have to have T. Which currently comes from fission reactor and has a half life of 15 years. So the plan is to use a molten salt blanket with Be to breed T. But Be isn’t scalable for consumption, so maybe lead eventually. That’s probably do-able, it just slows down the rate new reactors can come online since Pb is not as good a neutron multiplier. Once…

> But are they surmountable AND cheaper than existing nuclear or other energy sources? DT fusion solves the two biggest arguments that are always raised by nuclear energy opponents: storage of nuclear waste (it doesn't produce high-level waste) and safety (it's not perfect but it can't explode). I wouldn't call it a "meh", even if it comes off as much more expensive than fission.

> storage of nuclear waste (it doesn't produce high-level waste)

It does. You cannnot fuse just D+T, other trace gasses, and lighter isotopes will be present as well.

Re: MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

#210

Post by dodobirdlord »

wsc981 wrote: post #199
isoskeles wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how much Bitcoin we could mine with that kind of energy source...

> Imagine how much Bitcoin we could mine with that kind of energy source... Not much more nor less, since the amount of Bitcoin generated every 10 minutes is controlled by an algorithm independent on how many machines are mining.

Yea, but imagine how secure we could make the blockchain! /s
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