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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#791

Post by TaylorAlexander »

pontifier wrote: post #754
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I would let you know that you misspell "inertial" on your website as "innertial". Normally I don't point out spelling mistakes, but I think it may be more noticeable when pitching a nuclear fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion

Thanks, I always try to do my best, but I can only see through my own eyes. I had one of the main videos on the site set to private for a few years until someone told me they couldn't see it. I had only tested on my own devices which were all logged in to my Google account so I never saw the problem. I felt so stupid, but very thankful for the feedback. How many people went to the site and immediately dismissed it be…

Happy to help. Best of luck!

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#792

Post by fnordpiglet »

fidelramos wrote: post #682
limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, this is about 10-th time in the last 10 years we are told "we are around the corner, clean energy will save us". Please tune down the message.

I like how this graph describes why nuclear fusion technology always seems to be "just around the corner": https://imgur.com/a/59NO34a

If they could explain how fusion energy can kill more people than fusion bombs funding would be unlimited.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#793

Post by fnordpiglet »

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #674
deng wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. To be fair, that's not entirely the fault of HN. It's hard to get excited about fusion research when I almost always feel mislead, because it is almost never explicitly stated that we are talking about Q-plasma here. I don't expect much from science journalism, but I feel that the fusion scientists have no problem silently playi…

Plus, this is about 10-th time in the last 10 years we are told "we are around the corner, clean energy will save us". Please tune down the message.

Maybe the corner is just a very long one, but one that’s so important to turn any material progress is important news? I think post scarcity is monumental.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#794

Post by pfdietz »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #790
pfdietz wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARC's volumetric power density is just 40x worse than a PWR's reactor vessel, vs. 400x worse for ITER. Neither appears to be on a route to an economical power plant.

I’m not sure I follow, but you’re saying the power plants are very large relative to their power output, and this size correlates to cost, thus making them so expensive that they are not economical? You’re probably right, but I guess what I’m saying is that we’ve never had a fusion power plant that produces net energy gain at any cost. I believe SPARC is on the path to doing so. It will still take a long time to make…

Yes, that's right. View it this way: a fission power plant and a DT fusion power plant are pretty much the same, except for the reactor. The fusion reactor is many times the size (and mass) of the fission reactor, made of much more sophisticated materials, with a much more complex design, operating at higher stresses (loads on supports of the magnets, thermal power/area at the wall, neutron flux). So how is it that it's expected the fusion reactor will produce power more cheaply than the fission reactor? Note that fuel is today a small fraction of the cost of power from a fission reactor.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#795

Post by panick21_ »

winReInstall wrote: post #781
panick21_ wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its simply about economics of scale. If you built nuclear at scale, then these problems solve themselves. Just as France solved them in 15 years in the 70/80s. Just as these problems were solved for solar/wind by economics of scale. Solar/wind was not economical, it was basically forced into being economical by creating economics of scale.

France currently has a problem at scale maintaining them?

In 2014 the government they elected basically went all in switching to renewables and they actually stopped or delayed a lot of stuff.

That said, well, they stopped building new reactors, most of their reactors were built in 15 years in the 70/80s. Since then they have not done as much as they should have and all those reactors are starting to need more maintenance now.

Because they have not built much new things, they don't have as many people with knowledge as they used to.

But they are managing most of these issues pretty well overall.

I would say France did pretty well having 40 years of green energy.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#796

Post by AtNightWeCode »

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #447

Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. "NIF is just a nuclear stewardship program", "it's not actually generating power", "fusion still 30 years away". I think it's very clear, given the past year that NIF has had, that they are very rapidly approaching a point where we have the tech to "solve" inertial fusion. https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/papers-presentations Getting…

Fusion energy is a holy grail in the field of nuclear power. The claims though out the years have been ridiculous. I think it is just natural that people are skeptical.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#797

Post by htag »

gjm11 wrote: post #707
htag wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I think fission power's failure is a political and marketing one. I think it's because of the occasional catastrophic failures that spatter our short history with the technology. Fukushima made headline news around the world, leaked large amounts of caesium-137 into the ocean, caused a 20km evacuation radius, is projected to take a total of 30-40 years to clean up, and people think of it as not that bad…

People think of Fukushima as (1) one of the very worst nuclear incidents there has ever been, and also as (2) something that cost very few lives. Yes, something like 150k people were evacuated because of worries about radiation. What you don't mention is that the total number of people evacuated was 470k. Most of the people who had to leave their homes had to leave not because of anything nuclear but because the enor…

I think you're missing key elements to the Fukushima story. It wasn't a surprise natural disaster, it was a predictable eventuality.

1. People tried to ring alarm bells about the building codes (and the reactor specifically) not being able to handle earthquakes of a size Fukushima was likely to experience. They were on deaf ears.

2. Japanese government admitted guilt for poor oversight and regulation.

3. Three executives were put on trail for negligence. There were found not guilty, but that's not the same as innocent.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#798

Post by janalsncm »

naasking wrote: post #704
janalsncm wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the law of diminishing returns apply? A lot of things aren’t diminishing returns.

Literally everything has diminishing returns because nothing is infinite. Edit: to clarify, lasers will have some maximum efficiency that is less than 100% and approaching that maximum is subject to diminishing returns.

That is trivially true at the extremes of energy input. If you input an infinite amount of energy you will not get an infinite amount out.

But that’s not what we’re talking about. This is a physical process which is known to be exothermic for the energy ranges we care about.

As another example, raising the temperature of a flammable material 1 degree from room temperature will probably not light. Ditto with 2 degrees. But eventually, if you raise the temperature high enough, you’ll get more energy out than you put in. That’s the type of process we’re talking about now.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#799

Post by simne »

pfdietz wrote: post #731
simne wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big milestone is construction materials, could long enough withstand neutron stream, which is about two magnitudes more, than in fission reactors. This is last unknown in this equation. All others are already known, from achievements of last few years. Materials research is one of primary targets of ITER. If good enough materials will not being found fast enough, will need to use clear reactions like boron-carbon fus…

ITER will only operate for a few weeks total at full power. It's not intended for materials development. For that, a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) would be needed.

You don't understand. ITER will RESEARCH, how existing materials withstand in real fusion reactor, and gather parameters of real fusion reactor, so other science facilities will have benchmarks.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#800

Post by simne »

entropicgravity wrote: post #651
simne wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't imagine, how large part of world, which have at least two months year, with near 90% fall of solar energy. And they have to use traditional energy sources, or buy energy from neighbors.

I only mentioned solar/battery for brevity but clearly wind/battery is already substantial in many parts of the world. In addition, HVDC transmissions line costs are also dropping year by year and these allow solar/wind generated electricity to be inexpensively shifted across long distances. For example, such a transmission line is currently being built to send solar energy from Northern Australia to Singapore across…

Ok, and thank You for remember about Australia to Singapore transmission line.

Unfortunately, most of territories I mention, also have low population density, about 1/10 of western Europe, and have low middle income, so it is not right to directly compare them with western Europe or Singapore, in possibilities to achieve same infrastructure power.

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