Fusion Plasma Plant in The Future 640
NightWulf writes "The BBC reports that Europe and Japan are currently looking to host a new JET power plant. This new plant creates plasma, which is akin to creating a star on Earth. Interesting to note that 1kg of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000kg of fossil fuels."
I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:1, Insightful)
But this is the kind of thing that governments should be pouring tons of research into. For every politician that bitches about the Middle East and oil funding some nasty stuff ( from Iran putting a $25 million bounty on Rushdie to the US government feeling that it has to support dictatorships to get oil), fusion could fix a lot of that.
Naturally, it's no Eden idea - everything in science has a good and a bad side - but the sooner we can get this working, the better off the world will be.
Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of conventional electricity-producing power stations, and would pave the way for commercial power production.
This is awsome. Expensive for the amount of power though. Anything that can reduce our dependency on oil, deserves some research in my eyes.
Toxic waste, but not much of it (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, fusion is better than fission in this regard, but the same arguments hold in either case.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Toxic waste, but not much of it (Score:2, Insightful)
It's daft these days to think only of environmental problems in scenarios which presume human responsibility. What you also need are scenarios where (some) human beings are intentionally trying to break the system down.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Same argument with electric cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Toxic waste, but not much of it (Score:5, Insightful)
As one of last season's Penn & Teller's Bullshit pointed out, the environmental movement is being highjacked by anti-corporate groups. Honest environmentalists only want to be sure we think about how what we do will affect the future world; they don't want to prevent all progress indiscriminately.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you think happens to the Neutron bombarded materials? (Hint: They can become radioactive.) Fusion produces a tremendously strong neutron flux. So strong, that very few materials survive being near the process. Obviously, your choice in containment materials can make all the difference in HOW radioactive we're talking.
Personally, I don't think we'll quite get the hang of fusion inside Earth's gravity well. Once in space, we can allow the Fusion to bleed off its neutron flux like the Sun does. Thus it might be very useful for space-based power generation and propulsion. But here on Earth, fission is a much more viable energy source. Our biggest problem is that most of the reactor designs are from the 50's and 60's, when we were just starting to understand nuclear power. With hindsight firmly in place, plus ~500 commercial reactors, a hundred or so military reactors, and a few hundred research reactors currently in service, we have the knowledge and technology to create very safe reactor designs. Hell, just removing the 19th century boiler design out of the equation makes something like Chernobyl impossible.
The real problem right now is government fear over terrorism. The U.S. government forces plants to keep potentially useful materials sitting in pools of water or buried in the ground instead of being used in commercial ventures. Some of that stuff can be reprocessed into nuclear fuel, and some of it has uses in medical, electronic, and aerospace fields. None of it is useful to "terrorists" until it's reprocessed into fissionable fuel. (Don't get me started on the uselessness of a dirty bomb.)
Re:Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
Just over the next hurdle, in terms of developing new power sources, could equal a significant period, possibly longer than your entire life.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you ever consider that the stuff that lasts thousands of years isn't very radioactive? You still have a conservation of mass and energy issue. If it lasts 10 seconds, it's radioactive enough to kill you were you stand. If it lasts 10,000 years, then it's probably not much more radioactive than the potassium in your bones.
Re:500 seconds?? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the problems with previous attempts to build a fusion reactor is that they couldn't keep it running for more than a few seconds. The holy grail of fusion physics is to build a reactor that can maintain a sustained reaction; and, does so without requiring more energy input than the amount of energy produced in the reaction.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say that a coal, oil, or natural gas plant has a hell of a lot more fire potential and if the reactant leaks it isn't really that big a deal. The quantity of reactant used in this type of system is miniscule, deuterium isn't a problem at ALL and tritium isn't really all that bad either. I would say that a leak of ANY of the reactants or products would be better than the overwhelming majority of chemical spill type problems, then when the quantity of reactants and products is considered it becomes almost a non-issue. COOLANT leaks would probably be a lot worse than reactant leaks and that sort of thing happens at almost EVERY type of industrial facility.
Re:I had predicted 2050, actually (Score:2, Insightful)
(probably also lots of other stuff I've forgotten)
Fusion has none of these drawbacks.
The attraction (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, at the moment this electricity or hydrogen would be probably just generated using fossil fuels. But the catch is it doesn't *have* to be. You could substitute a nuclear power plant for that coal-burning one and the electric cars would continue to run just the same... it makes productive change much easier. Whereas if you buy a gasoline-based automobile, it's going to be running on burned fossil fuels forever*.
* Unless you are Doc Brown and you do some retrofitting.
Re:I bought my own Plasma generator (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not very optimistic about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, fusion offers a great deal of possibilities, but there are two very large problems with it even when it is 'worked out'. First, it will be expensive. It is a major task to build such a plants. Building enough to power the world would take many decades and cost far more then I imagine most nations would be willing to spend. I am not saying that it couldn't eventually be done, but don't expect it to happen over night. Further, even if the world was covered in fusion plants, that energy would not be free. You still need to pay for all the parts and labor it takes to keep such a plant going. Sure, you might cut costs on material expenses, but they would rise everywhere else. Electricty wouldn't suddenly become cheap, just abundent. Second, fusion is large. You can't throw a fusion engine in your car and electric motors just don't have the capacity of a gas engine. If electricity was free tomorrow we still wouldn't hav electric cars.
I doubt energy companies are cowering at the prospects of fusion. Even if fusion was to completely upset the need for oil and coal, there is still the fact that people need energy and in a nation like the US that energy is going to be brought by a corportation. An energy company is in a perfect position to fill that need. At worst it means they have to shift their bussiness to focus less on oil and coal and move to fussion. The world won't end for them.
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have to wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Steve
Re:What the article doesn't mention... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another problem is that if the current in the plasma passes through the walls of the vessel it creates a magnetic field around them which kicks against the plasma's own magnetic field with incredible force. This is called a disruption, and it kills the plasma. Back in the project's infancy a particularly bad disruption actually caused the entire torus to jump a clear centimetre off the floor. If that doesn't sound impressive then you need to have another look at a picture of the torus [efda.org]!
I had the privlidge of working at JET during the third year of my degree*, and I can say that JET has some of the coolest gear and cleverest people working there that I have ever seen.
For anyone who's wondering about the computing equipment they use: they have a lot of big Sun servers which host X sessions from Linux PCs or some Xterminal like things called Igels (they also still use some original X Terminals.. I don't know if those are still in production?) on which most development is done. They use Linux in as many places as they can, including a ~80 node analysis cluster (JET produces data at a rate of about a gigabyte a day during operations). Windows PCs are available for desktop use by those who prefer them.
* If anyone thinks my very basic description of the physics is a sign of BS, I should point out that I was there as a Software Engineering student, not a physicist.
Re:It won't matter in the US (Score:4, Insightful)
By then, I wouldn't be surprised if we switch back to coal, given the advances in plant designs over the last 30 years. That's a fuel that the eastern US has an overabundance of, yet is frowned upon by the environmentalist lobby because of the tendancy of existing plants to just vent the waste products into the atmosphere. Good thing the DoE is already working on it [doe.gov]. It's amazing what the free markets can provide, when you let them work...
Re:How much energy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:3, Insightful)
The plant is trying to *uphold* a process, not *restrain* a process.
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe surprising, but most christians are not witch-burners, and the luddites a) are the minority and b) have their own reasons.
If you went to a church to you really think they're all praying that nuclear fusion never happens, or do you think that they're praying for the victims of chernobyl?
Or maybe it was a sick joke, but to be honest, I don't think branding the whole of a religion anti-useful is a good way of life.
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fusion reactions occur at an energetic peak. Basically, for fusion, we're trying to balance a ball on top of a hill. If we lose our balance, the ball rolls down the hill and the energy production ceases.
By contrast, fission reactors operate at an energetic low (this is simplifying, but true for illustrative purposes.) We're trying to stay in the bottom of a valley, while the reaction tries to force us to climb up the walls. If we lose our balance, the reaction can shoot up a wall and then you get meltdown.
notes on this: fission reactors can be designed to be negative coefficient, such that an increase in output leads to a cycle that will decrease output, but the reaction itself is still positive coefficient.
Re:It won't matter in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:3, Insightful)
This has the word nuclear in it. The nuclear boogieman will derail this a lot faster than anything else.
For example, the correct term for and MRI is Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The nuclear here has nothing to do with nuclear power, it just means that the magnets make the nuclei of the atoms move in certain ways and that the images are created by iterpreting those movements. The Nuclear part was dropped because people were worried about radiation.
It really won't matter to the fanatic environmentalist how safe this is, it has the word nuclear in it, and thus is to be fought.
Agreed, (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently, the DOE has so many clean up sites, not because the nuclear energy projects were not successful and profitable, but the fact that the DOE is required, COME WHAT MAY, to take care of any finality issue with a nuclear based energy company. So the companies have a whopping zero cost for failure or liability, and remember, we're talking nuclear.
So, when they think their operating costs get too high, or they just don't want to do it anymore, the nuclear companies can literally drop what they are doing right there, walk out, and it is all a Department of Energy (DOE) problem from then on. Guess what? DAMN NEAR EVERY ONE OF THEM DOES. That is their little perk. This stuff is too dangerous without permanent government supervision. The US doesn't want some weird Iranian group that they don't trust buying up their workplace (because if anyone is going to sell something to Iranians we don't trust, by god, it should be bought direct from the US government), and after all, businessmen don't care what they have to do as long as they get the cash for doing it. So, as a protection, they have no responsibility for their nuclear actions.
"We leaked some sludge? WHOOPS. That's it, it is now too expensive with the lawyers. Close shop. Call the DOE. It is their child now. Thanks for the BILLIONS, and see ya later, suckers!"
The best analogy would be that the government would now be responsible for auto manufacturing recalls. "Sorry we made some bad cars. Call the government, it is their problem now."
Re:someone should tell Creator of the Gaia Hypothe (Score:3, Insightful)
Careful predicting, you never know with technology. 50-60 years is a LONG time. Before then we may have a computer that could design such a plant in its spare time, leaving us monkeys just the job of implementing it.
But does that matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
ALso, I don't know about you, but if my choice was between a waste product that was lower volume but took thousands of years to decay, and a waste product that was higher volume and took 50 years to decay, I'd favor the latter. I mean, right now, if you bury the waste from a fission reactor, that land is totally useless, in essence, forever. But if it only takes 50-100 years, that means the land is safe again within one person's lifetime.
Seinfeld begs to differ... (Score:2, Insightful)
"What about that Bavarian cream pie joke I told you? There's no truth to that. Nobody with a terminal illness goes from the United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when they get there and they don't have it he says, 'Ah, I'll just have some coffee.' There's no truth to that."
- Sheila and Jerry, in "The Soup Nazi"
Borderline Luddite (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:5, Insightful)
1: Fossil fuels aren't necessarily fossil. It's possible that oil is produced in a way that doesn't involve life. Abiogenic theory might turn out to be correct after all. Remember how in the 1960s everyone believed "the oil is going to run out in forty years"?
2: We're not choking as much as you think.
3: There were despots in the middle east before the Oil Age began.
4: If TMI was (if you will excuse the pun) blown out of all proportion, what about Chernobyl?
I agree that the anti-nuclear lobby can be mischevious, but that's one of the aspects of lobbies. At the other extreme, arguing that if we embraced nuclear power then we would be living in paradise is also well, I mean, hello?, look at France. They have totally bought into nuclear power and they still can't come up with a good pop song or a decent car.
Re:Toxic waste, but not much of it (Score:5, Insightful)
And we hold our breath in anticipation as....
absolutely nothing happens.
People, it may be "radioactive waste", but it's only radioactive waste! 1 kg is not a significant amount delivered that way.
You are just perpetuating those downright evil myths about radioactivity and radioactive waste that is preventing all rational progress in this area. To hear people talk, radioactive waste is billions or trillions of times more toxic then the nasties routinely produced by, hell, farting!, and will magically seek you out and jump you in the night, probably targetting Your Children for extra special treatment.
It's just a moderately nasty form of waste; there's other forms which are much worse, pound for pound. It's not even close to "the most toxic substance on Earth". Radioactivity is just radioactivity, not a malicious force intelligently hellbent on seeking out and destroying all humans.
We will have to wait for our robotic overlords for that day.
Re:someone should tell Creator of the Gaia Hypothe (Score:3, Insightful)
Endless energy will not solve our problems. It will merely exchange them for new ones.
Re:Not very optimistic about it... (Score:3, Insightful)
There certainly are electric cars, but none of them could do what I need them to do. I can't recharge my car unless the street is fitted with charging stations or I feel like waiting at a charging station for my car to recharge. The electric motor does not have the range nor the ability to handle the range of speeds that I need. Simply put, an electric car can't do the job that a car run off of gas can. Certainly they exist, but for someone who uses their car to do more then drive around town and return to a garage, an electric car simply doesn't cut it. Further, my needs are pretty slim compared to the needs of a truck used for hauling goods.
I am all for R&D into electric cars, but the simple fact of the matter is that they need a hell of a lot more work before they are going to a staple. Electric cars are not going to overtake gas powered cars any time soon. As I said, for many uses nothing tops a gas powered motor.
Now, hybrids do offer some promise, though they still have a long way to go. They still are too costly and it remains to be seen how well they maintain once the warranty is out. Further, if you want people to buy them it is going to take more then just a warm feeling one gets when they use less. They are going to need to justify their added cost in the long run.
Of course, OPEC could make all of these arguments moot. If oil prices climb high enough then hybrids will justify their costs without further engineering. I think we are a ways away from that point. Oil prices are at an all time high... if you ignore inflation. Include inflation and the black stuff is still relatively cheap. The only reason to buy a hybrid is to be trendy and help the environment. There isn't an economic force behind it yet.
Re:DO NOT INHALE HELIUM! (Score:3, Insightful)
Every one of those except the last one indicates that cause of death was from inhaling Helium directly from a commercial canister, not from the Helium per se. The last one was an injury caused by passing out from oxygen deprivation - again the Helium itself is NOT to blame.
Moral of the story? Don't stick your lips on a machine designed to fill a balloon to capacity within a couple of seconds!
Re:And a plant explosion... (Score:1, Insightful)
Simple solution: don't call yourself an environmentalist. Just consider yourself a responsible person. Problem solved. If you are behaving as you feel is right, why do you have the need to associate yourself with a bunch of loud mouthed cranks? Is labelling yourself or belonging to some clique really that important to you, and if it is, are you part of this movement because you believe in the principles or simply because its fashionable?
"...bring on the nuclear power plants (provided we can properly secure them from whoever may want to crash a small plane into them...)"
A Cessna is essentially a flying soft-drink can, and crushes like one on impact with anything solid; they are not, repeat NOT, designed to penetrate reinforced concrete. Considering that the kinetic energy and explosive potential of a light plane are orders of magnitude less than what is already present INSIDE the average nuclear reactor, and that most currently operational reactors were designed with the knowledge that they would be targets in the event of a nuclear war, the idea that a light plane could cause anything more than trivial damage is at best a joke, at worst complete FUD. It would take something more like an airliner, and that assumes that the containment building is only as strong as the Pentagon (which is an office block not designed to contain nuclear accidents).
"Nuclear power is much cleaner than coal power, and the waste, while icky, isn't produced in huge quantities."
Coal is actually quite clean in countries that mandate the use of CO2 scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators, which means "almost anywhere but the US and China". While imperfect, in terms of usable Watts/kg of CO2 coal fired power plants are FAR cleaner and more efficient than internal combustion engines, and the fly ash is even useful as a component of concrete. Most of what leaves the stacks of a modern coal plant is water vapour. So there aren't "huge quantities" of waste, IF best practices are observed (not that the US govt ever enforced best practices on private enterprise).
Nuclear fission has by-products that simply cannot be re-used or rendered inert; this is "icky", much like the Titanic had a leak: correct technically, but doesn't really describe the magnitude of the problem. However, having said that, I think nuclear reactors are vital; where else do you get electronics grade monocrystalline silicon, short half-life marker dyes for medical radiography (no, linear accelerators can't produce the right isotopes), and dozens of other exotic substances only possible with high energy particle bombardment? The environmentalist lobby says that fission isn't worth the byproducts, while at the same time blocking every attempt to reprocess spent fuel and put other waste products back where they came from (back in the ground in geologically stable strata). So by making it impossible to dispose of waste, waste disposal becomes the biggest issue and their strongest arguement. At the same time, these people are benefitting from computers, mobile phones, CT scanners and the like, all of which are only possible because of the much-hated fission reactor.
Hypocrisy? Who would expect that from people who demand reduced greenhouse gas emissions, then drive around in archaic gas-guzzling Volkswagen Kombis (a car designed at the request of a genocidal maniac)?
You can't seriously expect to share a label with these kind of mentalities and not be tarred with the same brush.