New Advances Bring Fusion Closer to Reality 785
An anonymous reader writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on new advances in nuclear fusion research. For years we've been waiting for the technical breakthroughs that would make cost-effective fusion energy a reality. Are we getting close, or are the problems insurmountable?"
Years away (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely agree with you , but try telling that to the kneejerk reaction anti nuclear fanatics who can't see the wood for their own foolishly planted trees. Mind you, I've met some of these people and half of them couldn't even spell "radioactivity" never mind tell you what it was. They work purely on a fevered emotional level and no amount of rational discussion will convince them otherwise. They are the same sorts of people who dunked old women in ponds back in the 17th century because they talked to their cat and someone got ill in the village shortly afterwards.
Re:Cheap? Clean? when will we learn (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming you don't use aneutronic fusion, it will get mildly radioactive. So bury it in the middle of nowhere... who cares? We're not talking about 'hot' fission fuel here.
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?"
The confinement vessel warms up by about two degrees C, you fix the problem and restart it. You've been watching too many SF movies if you think that a confinement failure will cause a nuclear explosion.
"Fusuion power will NEVER be safe"
Fusion is extremely safe compared to fission: you appear to be just a typical ill-informed knee-jerk anti-nukleah.
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, fine. But you can say that by refining the uranium, and bringing sub-critical amounts of together in a pile, or supercritical amount together in a bomb, we are utilising the nucleus's innate tendency to split, and to thereby trigger a chain reaction in nearby uranium nuclei, in order to generate a self-sustaining level of radioactivity that would not have otherwise occured.
You could also say when making tea that we are not the ones boiling water, we are merely allowing electricity to flow through a restisting metal rod, which generates heat which when transfered to the water causes a rise in temperatre to boiling point that would not have otherwise occured. But that would be very, very pedantic.
The problems aren't insurmountable (Score:4, Insightful)
100 years ago we would never have dreamed space exploration would be possible. Why's this so different?
Ask Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
If so then my answer is yes! I mean no! err..What was the question again?
IANANE (I am not a nuclear engineer) but if I read that article correctly then it seems some of the many problems have theoretical solutions. In other words, it worked in the simulation. We need to get this thing built and do real tests before we can even think about being "close" to having fusion plants.
They can't even decide where to build it! Why can't I vote to spend my (US) tax money on putting one of these over here. Even as a test bed it will give the contry it's in some home field advantage.
You can use my back yard if you want! Don't listen to my whiney neighbors, they don't know what's good for them!
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean all those extra neutrons flying about dont have anything to do with it? Those neutrons traveling at carefully determined energies intended to impact the nucleus of the U238 atoms and cause it to become unstable and break apart into two smaller ones that are usually highly radioactive?
As opposed to the normal decay which merely sheds a single alpha, beta or gamma ray, leaving the original nucleus largely intact. This results in less radioactivity, not more.
Re:Years away (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at some of the research and data on how much naturally radioactive particles are released into the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels, you'll probably be surprised. I believe it's a few orders of magnitude more than the amount generated in current fission plants.
-Jesse
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:2, Insightful)
To have any sort of industrial area near your house lowers the property value significantly. Even if there were no pollution, you'd have to make the concession of having a big, honking nuclear power plant right next door with its hundreds of employees showing up every morning in their cars or on the bus and generally crowding the roadways in your area.
No, keep the power plants somewhere else far away from the livable areas. The reason for NIMBY is not always irrational fear of nukular power. Sometimes it's a result of just not wanting to have an eyesore as a neighbor. You talked to your neighbors lately?
Re:Years away (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh...Solar power anyone?
The sun powers solar power, Fusion powers the sun.
Step one - increase the cost of alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll Never Happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Practical nuclear fusion would be the best thing that ever happened to our planet: we'd lose our dependence on the Middle East for energy, and dramatically cut pollution. If it were up to me, I'd launch a nuclear fusion program on the scale of the Manhattan Project.
However, the Bush family and that crowd will never allow nuclear fusion to become a reality - they make too darned much money on oil, and cash is all they understand.
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Years away (Score:5, Insightful)
Our goal should be to have commercially useful fusion energy in operation by the end of the 21st century. It's vital, but not easy, for the public to support such long-term goals. That's particularly true when we can't visualize the links in the chain that will connect now with then.
The actual breakthroughs that make energy power cheap and safe are likely to come closer to the end of the century, and we can't imagine what they might be. Still, we must support constant inquiry and scientific research to create the fertile conditions for breakthrough discoveries.
The only reservation I have about supporting big science is a serious one. Money should go for science, not to feed the egos of the pricipals. The bigger the project, the harder it is to assure that.
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes , all that CO2 is being recycled and isn't really building up in the atmosphere. As from the radioactivity not being different, well outside of a partical accelerator ALL radioactivity is natural - uranium ore is extracted from the ground just like coal, oil gas. I'm not sure what you're point is. And you're forgetting about the huge slag heaps that a lot of fossil fuel stations (mainly coal) produce which just get dumped or used in building material.
"But is cheap and messy nuclear really the right choice to make if we care about the future, and not merely ourselves?"
Frankly , who cares about what happens in 100,000 years time? Either our technology will be so advanced that nuclear waste be a non issue or we'll have gone back to the stone age in which case a bit of radioactivity will make little odds as there won't be many people about anyway. Besides which , right now short term solutions are better than maintaining the status que vis-a-vis fossil fuels given the state of the climate!
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, tritium's too rare. (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, they do have fusion -- but not practical fusion.
But to prove his statement, he pointed out how expensive it is to generate tritium for the DT reaction, and how little there is.
If we're ever going to have practical fusion, it's going to be cold fusion. Use a molecule with an explosive bond that shoves two other molecules on a predefined pathway into a range where you get a 1% chance of reaction between two hydrogen nuclei, by tunnelling, and you could do it.
But that would take a pretty complicated and well-designed molecule.
There may be some ways of doing it once we have better molecular manufacturing, but as for right now, cold fusion is also dead.
For that matter, unless we're using it in space, I hope they don't get cold fusion.
To quote Don Lancaster (www.tinaja.com), if anyone finds a free energy source and manufactures it without also providing a free energy sink, they'll be the worst criminal in human history. Oh, and our planet will glow like a star too.
I think the proper solution to our energy problems needs to be wind and wave. Those take care of the energy source/sink problem. Sorry, just my two cents.
Re:Reason for Low Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are missing the point the writer was making. The 30 is a constant, ie we are always 30 years from fussion. This is not a return in 30 years, but a return an infinite amount of time in the future.
Now, I think the fusion experiments are worth funding because they are fun. I think it's a shame that the political environment is such that the scientists need to pretend there is gold at the end of the rainbow, when the rainbow is so beautiful itself.
We aren't talking big money here in government terms. Eg IIRC the proposed ITER budget is 10 billion Euro over 30 years. The EU pours approximately 100 billion into the common agrecultural policy every year and I presume the USA is operating on basicly the same level, just to prop up buisinesses who produce food no one wants to eat.
Re:Hydrogen or Helium (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Years away (Score:5, Insightful)
I will never understand where this hyper cynicism comes from. On one hand our "evil rulers" will do anything to make a buck. On the other hand they will not do something that will save trillions of bucks because they don't want to lose influnence and power.
It's a stupid way to go through life and precludes rational analysis of real political actions and motives.
Re:Hydrogen or Helium (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The problems aren't insurmountable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hydrogen or Helium (Score:1, Insightful)
science is as science does (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:4, Insightful)
It is true that Uranium does decay naturally and emit radiation. This decay, however, is the emission of one or very few particles, rather than splitting the nucleus into two large pieces:
U-235 -> U*236 -> Th-231 + alpha
U-238 -> U*236 -> Th-234 + alpha
In nuclear reactors used for power production on Earth, we use the neutrons emitted in radioactive decay to split nuclei of Uranium-235. These two new nuclei are indeed new atoms. A couple common fission processes are:
n + U-235 -> Xe-140 + Sr-94 + 2n
n + U-235 -> La-139 + Mo-95 + 2n
The masses of the two nuclei that come off tend to be between 72 and 160 AMU. Gold is not typically produced, as it's atomic mass is 197 AMU--too heavy to be made in the usual U-235 fission. I think that spontaneus fission might occur, but if it does it is at a much lower rate than is useful.
Energy derived solely from radioactive decay without any fission is sometimes used, but to my knowledge only on deep-space probes such as Voyager and Cassini. IIRC they use the natural heat decay of Plutonium, which is produced from U-238 in reactors.
Re:Years away (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a rather silly statement everyone makes. Do you realize that fusion as a concept is not even 100 years old??
People were making serious attempts to build airplanes for hundreds of years before someone suddenly figured ou tht etrick to make it happen.
Don't just write the thing off
It's really dumb to cut off fusion research based on the lack of new ideas for a mere 50 years.
Granted it's taking longer than expected to perfect.. but please
And then it suddenly happened.
Re:"Splitting atoms" (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one, wouldn't make any guarantees that the nuclear waste is safe down there for an practically unlimited amount of time.
These sediments haven't moved in hundreds of millions of years, and nothing is going to disturb them for similar periods of time into the future. This is a disposal method which promises to hold the materials safely out of the way for millions of times longer than the materials will be at all dangerous to anyone.
I think its just plain irresponsible behaviour to produce something that imposes such a long-lived danger.
That is a statement of opinion, built on a set of invalid assumptions. Open your mind and educate yourself on the issues, and you'll see things differently. Particularly when you compare fission to the available alternatives.
Conclusion: Say no to fission energy, however safe reactors may be.
That's not your conclusion, that's your starting point.
Build it here in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not develop and build the prototype here in the US?
We need a Home Grown "Killer Application" / National Project to jumpstart the US economy and help eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. The loss of jobs resulting from manufacturing and High Tech operations moving off-shore, and the outsourcing of both technical and non-technical services in recent years is killing the US economy. We need to get back on track and reverse this loss.
The whole project would probably cost less than 1 year of war with Iraq.
Re:It'll Never Happen (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, a really inspiteful liberal: Bush is the cause of all problems. China is given advanced US missle technology with Clintons approval, blame Bush. Al'queda blows up a van in the World Trade Center, and comes back a couple of years later to finish the job, blaim Bush. ENRON plays fast and loose with power, and gets shut down when a new President is elected, blaim Bush.
It's now obvious to me that the evil Bush is the reason that Christ was killed, Atlantis sank, the South lost the Cival war, the Inquisition was stopped, the Salem witch trials were ended, red M&M's were pulled, and the Holy Roman Empire fell.
Those evil Republications! All they want is money, unlike Bill (Whitewater), or Hillary (Cattle futures).
Just look how the Clintons had ended terrorism (by ignoring it), solved all the Israel/Palestine problems (by making Arafat the most frequent guest at the White House), and was always 100% honest.
Well, at least he 'felt your pain' 'for the children'.
Re:Why the guvvies haven't gotten fusion to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear Physics is no longer the glamour major it was in the 1950's and 1960's, and while there are a few new minds going into the profession, there are many other more cool things to do now and are taking up the energies of young minds. Nuclear Engineering is in even worse shape, and in many ways resembles some of the worst examples of government research gone amuck. Big budgets and not much to show for it. In some ways even worse than NASA over the past five years with manned spaceflight.
There is private research that is occuring, but it tends to be cranks and folks doing stuff on cold fusion or Farnsworth fusors... mostly treated as cranks even if they have a PhD from a respectable university.
I will agree with you about the centralization of power issues as well. If it turns out that something like a powercell can generate a lifetime supply of power for a home without the need of overhead powerlines, it would destroy a balance of political power that has huge amounts of money and no real reason to allow it to occur...even if it meant a substantially better life for ordinary citizens.
Re:Step one - increase the cost of alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, if you want to end dependancy on the Middle East oil reserves, drive your gas-guzzeling SUV and buy as much gasoline as possible so the oil stocks in the Middle East are used up. Kinda stupid, but it is reality.
Some countries who produce oil already realize that the end is in sight when oil will no longer be used as a primary energy source, and are selling oil at rate cheap enough to simply grab as much money as they can while the party lasts. If not fusion then solar or perhaps even effective fission reactors, which IMHO can be made safe but the $$$ are not there to make it happen.
In the case of fission research, we know we can get fission reactors to produce energy inexpensively. The problem is that to build a nuclear fission reactor that is also destroying the nuclear waste (in amounts of end products quite comparable to fusion reactors) they are also capable of producing large quantities of enriched nuclear-bomb grade fission materials. This is one aspect of the nuclear genie that has been "kept in the bottle" because of the potential to unleash cheap fission reactors that governments can't keep track of. Imagine if Bin Laden was able to afford a small breeder reactor for less than $100,000 and fill Northern Pakistan with them.
Let's hope that you can't make an effective weapon with fusion reactors. That will kill research into it (or perhaps that is the problem).
Re:Years away (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly right. As another poster said, fusion scales up not down. To be cost-effective, a fusion plant using currently known science needs to be huge. That implies huge levels of investment, labor and organizational structure. Think Hoover Dam, not rooftop solar. Not something a small country with no technological infrastructure can throw together. There are other low-tech energy sources that could democratize energy (I'm thinking algae ponds for biodiesel), but they can't match the energy density of fusion or even fossils.
Read the Post, Pinhead (Score:4, Insightful)
It simply suggests that the Bush family and their buddies are in the oil business, are extraordinarily greedy, and play hardball. All of these things are perfectly consistent with history.
What we see in SnarfQuest's response is the typical fringe-right tactic of attempting to refute reality by somehow changing the topic to something that they can attack. How utterly unhelpful.
Re:Years away (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason we don't have personal electric rail is largely due to the infrastructure problem. We have a staggering amoung of infrastructure geared towards our problem-laden traction-propelled human-guided noncooperative road system. The real needed factor is not cheaper power (although that would help!), because cheaper power will also transfer to fuel costs (cheaper to make ethanol, cheaper to charge electric cars or produce hydrogen, etc).
What is needed is for people to see the scale of the benefits - almost no weather/visibility related problems, full freedom of destinations apart from "offroading", travel times that beat airlines for all but the longest trips, almost eliminated traffic, almost nonexistant vehicle accidents (the leading cause of death for a sizable age range in the US), no traffic violations, no needing to drive, the ability to deliver things and have them delivered to you fior incredibly cheaply (Want groceries? Just send your vehicle to the grocery store with a list for their stockers to load up), a cheap, individualized public transit "taxi" system that goes right to your door, the possible ability to turn a profit with your vehicle by having it be a "taxi" when you're not there, reduced need for parking at busy areas by having vehicles automatically drive to more remote parking areas (or even back to your home) and return when you need them, the freeing up of the large space needed for roads because of the much smaller profile of elevated tracks, simpler (and thus cheaper and lower maintainance) vehicles... etc. The benefits go on and on. The problem is that it has huge upfront costs involving the replacment of our entire road system with a track system.
Of course, cheap power wouldn't hurt
Re:fusion was there forever (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Years away (Score:1, Insightful)
There are often discussions (seeming to approach angry arguments) concerning the boundaries of belief and knowledge. He may have appreciated humor in the fact that the newspaper's name "fuses" science and one of earth's most popular religions.
Sometimes it's difficult to read a stranger's plain text, in a partially shared context [slashdot's comment section], and "know" what they intended, i.e., be certain of meaning. On questioning, he may not even be certain what he meant,... in which case, it's up to our interpretation(s).
That said, I appreciate the newspaper's "product" enough that, about three months ago, I sent them a donation.
If there's a problem,... it might be my fault.
I think I got more to say,... but I'll stop here.
Re:France vs. Japan (Score:1, Insightful)
As for your rediculous racist attitude towards France, that is disgusting. There isn't any neutrality from anything to come into play here. This is an INTERNATIONAL effort.
Re:Why the guvvies haven't gotten fusion to work (Score:3, Insightful)