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Will we ever get fusion power?

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Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#241

Post by CuriousCosmic »

BirAdam wrote: post #205
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not. Inertial Confinement Fusion tests have already produced energy positive results quite a few times. The most recent ICF tests that made the rounds were notable because they were consistently repeatable. i.e. we know a well defined lower bound on the conditions required for energy positive fusion. These bounds are more or less what we expected so sustainable energy positive fusion is essentially guaran…

So, there’s cost, sure. But from what I understand, ITER was only energy positive when one discounts everything involved in building and running it. That is, the energy positive result was essentially just containment and reaction, and not everything else needed. It’s a big jump from that to viable.

That was the case for the ICF project at LLNL as the lasers used for confinement are grossly inefficient and it's a research facility but that's not the case for ITER to my understanding.

ITER won't be a power plant of course. It's a research facility first and foremost but it will produce power at a 10 to 1 ratio relative to the input which should be a net 450GW of power before you factor in the secondary equipment.

Containment and chilling will require quite a bit of energy of course but all together the energy usage for the reactor facilities should still be less than the produced power.

But yes ITER isn't designed to produce power out to the grid. It's just designed to work sustainably and any power it does produce will almost certainly just be sunk into a resistive load on site. It's a research project to build a viable nuclear power plant first and foremost.

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Then provided ITER doesn't outright fail, the DEMO reactor will be built and that facility will be optimized for power generation and will be built to the requirements to efficiently produce energy (vs ITER which is significantly overbuilt "to produce power at Q=10 so help me god"). The DEMO project will of course actually hook up to the grid with the intent of being a sustained base load power generator.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#242

Post by dave333 »

lambdaone wrote: post #194
dave333 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a new (since 1990s) classical model of atomic structure that is superior to the electron probability cloud model. It models the electron as a thin fluid shell that spins around the nucleus along all great circle paths. It allows calculations of molecular structure in closed form equations. You misunderstand the suncell - the source of UV light is a hydrogen reaction when it bumps into a catalyst able to acc…

Their lack of progress in producing power from their system suggests otherwise. Meanwhile the standard quantum mechanical model of matter goes on making correct, testable predictions. Including in fusion experiments.

Except for dark matter, dark energy, accelerating expansion of the universe, sun's coronal temperature, mature galaxies in the earliest times after the big bang...

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#243

Post by dave333 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #235
dave333 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a new (since 1990s) classical model of atomic structure that is superior to the electron probability cloud model. It models the electron as a thin fluid shell that spins around the nucleus along all great circle paths. It allows calculations of molecular structure in closed form equations. You misunderstand the suncell - the source of UV light is a hydrogen reaction when it bumps into a catalyst able to acc…

If they had a real UV thingy that acts as proof for a new atomic model they would send samples to major labs and become famous. The "Don't you want a Nobel prize?" argument is a very good way to detect pseudoscience.

See engineering challenges documented above and https://brilliantlightpower.com/plasma-video/ and their video archive also they have hydrinos isolated in a test tube and have performed many analytical experiments to measure properties that definitively prove exactly what it is and matches the theoretical predictions.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#244

Post by pfdietz »

belorn wrote: post #230
Animats wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Primary power sources will be solar, wind, and batteries. What we need now are peaking plants with low capital cost and high output. High operating cost when running is acceptable because they won't be running much. They're backup generators. Currently, gas turbines can do that, but not much else does. Nuclear, fission or fusion, is the opposite. It's all fixed cost. A higher fixed cost than solar or wind.

Gas turbines can not do that if we include the cost of pollution. Currently we do not have anything that has low capital cost, high operating cost, overall cheap, and carbon free. Natural gas just trade pollution, a problem for the future, in return for cheaper energy price today.

Gas turbines burning e-fuels like hydrogen. No net CO2 emission.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#245

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

DrBazza wrote: post #208

Worked with a bunch of plasma physics postdocs in the early 90s, and fusion was 30 years away... checks calendar... 34 years ago. And that was the joke then. However, with advances like REBCO tape and so on, it's far more realistic now. I hope we get it in my lifetime, but I'm not confident.

I left the world of protein folding in 1987 (quit my PhD) because I was certain that workable solutions were at least 25 years away, and I didn't think I was that kind of person to beat my head against a problem for more than two decades.

By 2013 (25 years later), still no real progress on protein folding.

In 2018 (30 years later) AlphaFold was revealed.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#246

Post by Dylan16807 »

dave333 wrote: post #243
Dylan16807 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had a real UV thingy that acts as proof for a new atomic model they would send samples to major labs and become famous. The "Don't you want a Nobel prize?" argument is a very good way to detect pseudoscience.

See engineering challenges documented above and https://brilliantlightpower.com/plasma-video/ and their video archive also they have hydrinos isolated in a test tube and have performed many analytical experiments to measure properties that definitively prove exactly what it is and matches the theoretical predictions.

Videos they make aren't good evidence of anything. Just send samples of one or two pieces that show off these improved physics. It would change the world, make them famous, and let them get them rich off of patents. No need to wait until they have a full working product.

The only reason to hold back so much is that it's not real.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#247

Post by dave333 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #246
dave333 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See engineering challenges documented above and https://brilliantlightpower.com/plasma-video/ and their video archive also they have hydrinos isolated in a test tube and have performed many analytical experiments to measure properties that definitively prove exactly what it is and matches the theoretical predictions.

Videos they make aren't good evidence of anything. Just send samples of one or two pieces that show off these improved physics. It would change the world, make them famous, and let them get them rich off of patents. No need to wait until they have a full working product. The only reason to hold back so much is that it's not real.

Videos are evidence of the many problems they have run into getting it to work reliably. One good reason to hold back would be intellectual property/stealth mode development. They have many patents but have had some patents rescinded after skeptics objections about "breaking known laws of physics" as if there is ever a final unimpeachable unimprovable laws of physics. Even so the theory is openly published and samples of hydrinos are available to qualified parties I understand.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#248

Post by 7thaccount »

Retric wrote: post #240
7thaccount wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of an HVDC macrogrid is possible, but will be hard to believe expensive and would be a huge vulnerability.

Sending a meaningful chunk of US electricity through HVDC lines is probably not that expensive. A hypothetical estimate of 100% NYC’s electricity from Southern Arizona to NYC across HVDC adds up to ~1,300$/per person for infrastructure that lasts ~50 years. East/west is even cheaper because people on both ends would want to move electricity. Florida solar kicks in early in the morning for California and California so…

The cost to build a loop of transmission across the entire US is EXTREMELY expensive. It costs billions just for short segments of transmission.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#249

Post by grecy »

cubefox wrote: post #239
grecy wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're trying to say is - "In the past prices fell extremely fast, now they're falling just regular fast".

I'm saying that prices are falling increasingly more slowly and that using solar+batteries to replace coal, gas and fission power plants will probably not happen.

> using solar+batteries to replace coal, gas and fission power plants will probably not happen

That ship already sailed, many countries are already doing it.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#250

Post by choilive »

Someone wrote: post #152
choilive wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't think space based solar to beam it back to Earth will ever really be practical short of a space-elevator style tether to transmit the electricity down. But some of the pros would be as follows. * Capable of 100% capacity - power generation can be 24/7/365 if in orbits around the sun or stationed at the Earth-Sun Lagrange points. * Greater panel efficiency - less energy lost to the atmosphere that can…

> You get about 40% more power/area in space vs on the ground. You need about ~22 TW to "power" humanity. So you need about 70,000 km^2 of space […]. So lets round it to 100,000 km^2. But thats a significantly smaller area than the terrestrial equivalent of about 500,000 km^2. Those number are inconsistent with each other. Seems you calculated with 400% more power/area in space vs on the ground. That seems incorrect…

Ground based solar has a capacity factor of about ~25% depending on location, while a space based installation would have nearly a 100% capacity factor. So to generate the same amount of energy per year you need about 4x as many panels on the ground. I probably should not have said power but instead something like exajoules/year.
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