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France Will Be Home To Fusion Plant
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 28, 2005 03:56 PM
from the eu-power dept.
from the eu-power dept.
ScentCone writes "After years of politicking, France has won the right to be the location for a $12 billion fusion research facility. The plant will use deuterium-from-seawater and a huge electromagnetic ring to produce the 100-million-C conditions in which researchers hope to produce viable fusion. The debate over whether this is even possible continues to rage. The ITER project started in 1985, and there has been a running fight over money and location since. France indicated that if Japan (one of the holdouts) didn't see it their way, they'd build a coalition of the willing and do it anyway. With financing and contracting agreements in place, the 10-year construction can begin." Coverage also available at MSNBC, the NYTimes, CNN, and the BBC.
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SeaDour writes, "China claims to have carried out a successful test of its experimental thermonuclear fusion reactor. But what exactly made this test 'successful' is not clear. From the article: 'Xinhua cited the scientists as saying that deuterium and tritium atoms had been fused together at a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds. The report did not specify whether the device... had succeeded at producing more energy than it consumed, the main obstacle to making fusion commercially viable.'" China is a participant in the 10-nation ITER project to build a fusion reactor in the south of France by 2015. The article quotes the research head of ITER as saying, "It was important for China to show that it is part of the club. Here are English language versions of the Chinese news release: announcement, background.
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When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Interesting)
Greenpeace, for one, stated that "at a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project."
I swear, I think Greenpeace is more concerned about making sure nobody builds any new powerplants than they are about protecting the environment.
They are against new coal plants with modern scrubber technology, they are against fission plants, now they are against this expiremental fusion plant. Do they realize that humanity needs energy to live and thrive? Do they realize that by not building new more efficient powerplants they are forcing people to rely on older, more polluting powerplants more heavily?
It seems counterintuitive to me, it's like they would rather stick their thumb in the eye of corporations than actually help the environment.
Re:When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Insightful)
I just find it funny that Greenpeace and such groups are probably doing more to promote fossil fuels-- far more harmful by almost every single possible measure than anything nuclear will ever be-- than they are in practice doing anything else at this point. Talk or harrass people out of using nuclear power and all that you're going to result in is people sticking with the existing coal and oil technology, which is both cost effective and for some reason (everyone's too used to it?) mostly leaves you free of protesters.
The most publicity-effective coal lobby in the world is doing so in the name of the environment. Great thinking!
Re:When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is being devil's advocate, of course, but the response to your question about humanity needing to live and thrive is "At what point does humanity say 'enough is enough'?" That is Greenpeace and Co.'s rationalization.
Re:When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Insightful)
What's truly tragic, is that their position is represented by the Limbaughs and O'Reilly's of the world as "the mainstream Liberal position".
Frankly, I would much rather have seen the $300 Billion US we've spent in Iraq (so far) instead, spent on Fusion research in the US. If the Fusion research succeeds, then there's no fucking reason to go to Iraq or any other damn Middle Eastern country ever. I think THAT is closer to the mainstream Liberal position than the Greenpeace drivel.
Re:When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Informative)
Fundamentally, it is because of human desire for progress. Virtually all progress involves decreasing local entropy for some purpose, whether it is to manufacture a product or send an ordered byte stream. All reductions of local entropy - that is, movement away from thermodynamic equilibrium, require an expenditure of energy. Thus progress - indeed, all of human civilization - I guess even all of life - requires energy input. We require more because we desire to decrease our local entropy.
Re:When did Greenpeace become anti-energy (Score:5, Informative)
Nitpick: The longer the half-life, the fewer decays per unit time. Stuff that's dangerous for a couple of days is far, far more dangerous than the basically stable elements you mentioned.
That's nothing - Colorado gets a new coal plant (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Colorado, USA, we're getting a new coal fired electrical plant. Stick with proven technology, we always say.
Read about Fusion (Score:5, Informative)
Fusion Power [wikipedia.org]
Some interesting quotes:
"The natural product of the fusion reaction is a small amount of helium, which is completely harmless to life and does not contribute to global warming. "
"The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tend to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Furthermore, there are fewer different species, and they tend to be non-volatile and biologically less active. As opposed to nuclear fission, where there is hardly any possibility to influence the spectrum of fission products, the problems can be further reduced by careful choice of the materials used."
"Although fusion power uses nuclear technology, the overlap with nuclear weapons technology is small. "
Give it a f*cking rest! (Score:5, Insightful)
And you Yanks are always accusing everyone of being anti-American, can you not see any hypocrisy?
For the record I am not French but I think the EU deserved to have this in their backyard - after all the EU is the major contributor. This is fantastic news, if this works then at a stroke the world will have access to what is essentially unlimited energy. No more greenhouse gasses, smog and you will be able to run a Pentium 7 without causing a blackout across the entire continent.
ITER is a fiasco! (Score:5, Interesting)
Many decades ago the international fusion community put all of its chips on the Tokamak. It has been a disaster.
Even if a Tokamak could produce break-even fusion ( getting more energy out than you put in) the engineering obstacles to creating an economically successful reactor are daunting.
Many years ago, the OFE sponsored a study, Project Aries, of the costs of a Tokamak reactor. Even using the usual optimistic assumptions, the cost came in way above solar and wind power, let alone fossil fuels.
Another symptom of the problem is that three times in a row, projects to build larger Tokamak have collapsed in the design stage. That is, even before anything was build, none could come up with a working design. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the latest attempt, collapsed as the price tag spiraled above $20 billion, but now is resurrected. I assume that they found some technical advances, or just "cooked the books" space-station style to justify it.
The whole OFE degenerated into a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" process where the lab directories divvied up the pie. All non-Tokamak ideas were cut off, including the one I worked on.( more below).Congress cut the OFE budget almost in half a 10 years ago in response to this.
Now for a blatant plug. In the 70s I worked on a small project at the University of Miami, the Trisops project, which was defunded. The amount of money was not an issues ( our request was quite small), but the non-Tokamak nature, and the nerve of the principal investigator, Dan Wells, to point out that the Tokamac was unworkable.
Last decade the Trisops machine was moved from the University of Miami, to Lanham Md, with a small NASA grant, but there is not money to run it. You can see a report on it.
Another interesting project, the Plasmak(TM) project that is being run by Paul Koloc ( out of his garage!!).
The holy grail on fusion research is a stable plasma structure. The Trisops project achieved it one way. Paul has noted that ball lightning, which has been known for millennia, is a stable plasma structure. He has machine that produces ball lightning, and is measuring it. He gets no DOE funding of course.
This is a update of an earlier post Don't sell your Exxon Stock [slashdot.org]
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Informative)
Specifically, Greenpeace (real quote), said: " At a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project"
You know, because it would be horrible to have this as an emmissions-free source of energy. Incredible.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
First, they have a good point. If you've read more than simply the greenpeace soundbite, you'd know that the overall position is that this represents merely another in a chain of expensive energy projects that will not be operational many years. This reactor should be online in 2015, but the project was begun in 1988: that date should be considered with a few grains of salt. Meanwhile, conservative governments, like the Bush Emperium, get to spout about how they're pursuing clean alternatives, like fusion, instead of doing anything about future shortages now by starting a program of active conservation.
Second, though the reaction itself is indeed emissions-free, you must consider the energy budget of the entire process. This includes but is not limited to: the fabrication of the plant itself and all of its component parts, transportation of all of its component parts to the plant's location, etc. All of which are unlikely to be done with clean energy, as most are highly energy intensive industrial processes, or likely to be done using large diesel trucks. Additionally there is the question of the massive amount of energy necessary to start the fusion reaction, which is unlikely (at first anyways) to be a part of the theoretically self-sustaining nature of a fusion reactor.
This is not to say the thing shouldnt be built, it should. We just shouldnt have the illusion that its helping out with any of our energy needs any time during the first half of the century.
While I have no love for eco-nuts, it is pretty silly to ignore everything, just because you're enamored with the technology they've dissed.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing you don't consider Reuters to be trustworthy? Well, anyway: here's a run of the article as seen on Yahoo [yahoo.com] where you can read the quote verbatim.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Informative)
i do. however, i do take umbrage with the parent poster's complete lack of context! for reference, the paragraphs in question are:
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace estimates that if the project yields any results at all, it will not be until the second half of this century.
"At a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project," it said.
what this says to me is that greenpeace is saying the fusion project will probably not make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions for fifty years and we should be using that 10 billion euros to convert our polluting power sources to current solutions, such as they are.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of this endeavor is that it's an experiment to develop a method that will work in the future, and a method that offers greater potential. I'm quite sure that, once fusion power becomes economical and practical on a widespread basis (and no major disasters turn public opinion against it), the cutbacks in emissions that could be made by shutting down all the older power plants will more than make up for the problems. That's a bit of an assumption, I know, but suffice to say that current methods of "alternative" power generation are not truly practical on a widespread basis.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
ITER: Potentially solve the world's energy problems for a long time
Windfarms: Produce enough energy to supply about 0.6% of the world's electricity demand.
10,000MW may seem like a lot, but according to the CIA World Factbook, the world consumed 13.8 quadrillion watt-hours in 2001, so the energy produced by the windfarms they're proposing would be a drop in the ocean.
Patrick Moore (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm what would usually be considered very environmentally minded. I've not only supported environmental work financially, but I attempt to live in an eco-friendly manner.
I've found Greenpeace to be predominantly made up of people who don't think for themselves and have an psychological need to "get even."
I'm not saying useful work is not done by them. They do good work against whaling for example. But as an organization they have a real inability to use logic.
Bring on the fusion, I say. I'm even happy with modern nuclear power if the alternative is fossil fuels.
In the meantime, I'll support people like IFAW, WWF and carry on cycling.
Re:Let the E-Wars begin! (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be nice if anybody could provide some sound evidence that this is a legitimate organisation - and that their claim of achieving a 2 billion Kelvin burn is sensible.
Re:Parent is lying (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you could do a little more homework and see that Greenpeace actually does oppose the very technology in question. Here [eubusiness.com] they are quoted as saying that fusion "has all the problems of nuclear power, including producing nuclear waste and the risks of a nuclear accident." This doesn't come across like a position on the timing of the research. Greenpeace holds all sorts of positions that, acted upon, would be mind numbingly expensive. Even they can't think it's an either-or proposition (researching new methods, like fusion, while also making current technologies more efficient). These things aren't mutually exclusive, but Greenpeace's "anything with the the prefix 'nuc' is inherently evil/foolish" mantra is nonsense.
The larger issue, though, to get back to your point (wherein you called me a liar), is that the quote in question, as I presented it, is going to be digested by most casual (and non-scientific) news consumers in pretty much exactly the context in which is was quoted. They're going to hear "this is nuclear, it's bad" no matter how many phrases come before or after it. Greenpeace's frequently simple-minded fan club doesn't really bother with the details, pretty much ever.
But more to the (and back to my original) point: blocking this sort of research doesn't magically make any of Greenpeace's fantasy solutions instantly more achievable or economically viable. But if they can demonstrate to enough people that those things are worth pursuing, that doesn't make important research like this less so. If the people who speak for (or rave about) Greenpeace wanted to sound less shrill, they'd adopt a more rational tone generally. But after all these years, they keep choosing not to, and live in a emotionally inflated, eco-anthropomorphized echo chamber that doesn't actually help develop the tools that would burn less oil. They rely on fear-soaked press releases that, even to the non-savvy are transparently silly, and seem to think that grade-school level dramatics and tantrum-having will solve problems. And to the extent that not everyone involved is like that, those people should be realizing how the whinier majority of their group robs all of them of any credibility whatsoever.
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:5, Informative)
Ever wonder why there are so many words of French origin in the English language? Familiar with that time period when France de facto dominated England, and all people of culture/nobility in England spoke French? Did you know, in fact, that the origin of swear words (such as "shit") were that they were used by the lower classes (and are more authentic english) while classier ways of saying these things (such as "manure") were used by the upper classes (and are thus French).
France, like every other country in Europe, has won, lost, invaded, and been invaded countless times. So stop with this nonsense already.
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:5, Insightful)
- American Revolution
Sorry, Ameri-centrists, but France saved our ass on this one. Saying the colonists defeated Britain on their own is like saying the Northern Alliance defeated the Taliban. That's a little bit of hyperbole, but France was nevertheless instrumental in our victory. I try to tone down my French-bashing just based on this debt of gratitude.
As for the World Wars, I'm wondering what country you could have put in France's position and expected to do better. Holding off Germany for years in WWI while the U.S. decided whether or not they wanted to do anything isn't something to be scoffed at. U.S. gloating over these wars reminds me of two boxers going at it for ten rounds, and then in the eleventh round another fighter who had been sitting safetly in the locker room jumps into the ring and pops out the fatigued opponent, and then mocks the other fighter for not having the strength to do it themselves.
Re:I don't think it will work. (Score:5, Informative)
IANAP (I am not a physicist), but here's how I understand it. Nature loves middle-weight neuclei. Extremely light neuclei (e.g. Hydrogen) and extremely heavy ones (e.g. Plutonium) are less stable.
In both cases, you release energy by moving towards middle-weight elements. If I recall correctly, Iron has the most stable neucleus of all. The raw materials for fission, such as Uranium and Plutonium, are much heavier than Iron. By breaking up the neuclei into lighter elements, you move closer to the ideal middle-weight stable elements, thus releasing energy. Likewise, the raw materials for fission, such as Hydrogen, are much lighter than Iron. By fusing their nuclei, into heavier elements, you move closer to the ideal middle-weight elements, so you release energy.
There's no perpetual motion involved. You can't get energy back by reversing either type of reaction. For example, you'd have to put energy IN, if you wanted to fission Helium back into Hydrogen, because you'd be moving further away from the ideal middle-weigh neuclei.
So, if someone asks you to invest in their iron-fuelled nuclear power plant, your money is probably best invested elsewhere!
Re:Whew, that was close. (Score:5, Informative)