Fusion Research Coverage 136
ABCNews is featuring some interesting coverage about the different fusion research going on around the country. The article itself talks about the shutdown of the Tokamak, and the differences between it and some of the new developments. One of the best points is talking about the pittance of money that is being put into the research, versus the known benefits of making advances in this.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Cold fusion (Score:1)
If fusion were cold, why would we want it? In all or vast technologies we only can harness heat. Even fission is used for the purpose of boiling water. So if by "cold" fusion we mean giving off less heat, then it's useless. I've always been confused by the term cold fusion, could someone please fill me in as to what it is?
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Note that you can also power said plants by mirrors heating water-filled pipes or focussing onto a much smaller set of solar panels; I believe there's a test plant somewhere that already does the former. (This really just reduces your manufacturing and wiring costs, raw silicon is cheap and plentiful (sand)) With the right mirror, you might even reflect only the wavelengths of light that plants don't use (they are green, which means they reflect green light), and thus still have vegetation growing in your solar collection field. You could also mix in wind power-based systems using the same land with only a marginal impact on efficiency.
Combine this with fuel cells and geothermal heat pumps, and we could really reduce our use of fossil fuels. But with oil costs so low now, the incentive is small.
Returns on investment could be huge! (Score:1)
Is there any corporation or research unit that wants funding? Perhaps a Slashdot collective, and if each user of all 200,000 of us sends 10 dollars, we could get some sort of share or ownership of the technologies involved =)
Hmm.. and if each of us sends 200 dollars we could build our own reactor and maintain it for a little while.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
the environmental impact of manufacturing those solar cells.
Strong acids and detergents are used in the process, and pollute the fsck out of the environment, as bad as semiconductor manufacturing.
Not to mention the overall economization that goes on in the electrical process (because they produce so little current for such a high cost), you end up with lots of batteries, basically, so there's another huge, huge environmental hazard, disposing of all those lead-acid batteries.
Solar ain't the way to go either.
The best part about working at PPL..... (Score:1)
No more airport! Oh no! (Score:1)
So I guess the gun club for skeet shooting is probably history too, eh?
Solving the wrong problem? (Score:1)
Solar fusion is the only source of power. (Score:1)
Sorry, Big Blue, but you'll find that fission has nothing to do with the sun...fissile materials come from whatever star that blew up and formed the heavier elements from which the earth (and the rest of the solar system) condensed.
Also, if zero-point field energy proves genuine, the sun has nothing to do with that, either. In fact, we can probably rule out fusion from your set of things powered by the sun.
Nerd Bash! (Score:1)
You plug that expensive, plastic and aluminum deathtrap into your outlet, and you'll be paying not only to put gas in the fuel tank, but electric bills that are several times higher.
And if the idea catches on, then whole neighborhoods will start drawing more power, putting greater demand on the utility company to provide more electricity...in a time when many communities already experience summertime brownouts thanks to excessive peak loads!
The only time automobiles like this truly become practical is when the utility has a source of power like nuclear (fission presently, or fusion someday). THEN electric and hybrid cars start to make more sense. Otherwise you're shifting the pollution away from the individual car and onto the power company...which has to burn more fuel to get the same amount of power to you.
RE: fission has nothing to do with the sun (Score:1)
Re-Nerdification (Score:1)
The problem isn't really one of conservation, we're doing that almost to practical limits. It's one of an expanding economy, and an expanding economy with all its new office buildings and industrial plants requires more power. That power has to come from somewhere.
A further point you've missed is that power plants that have been built to date aren't going to last forever. I know it's a damn shame, but those coal-fired plants are going to have to be replaced eventually. No new nuclear plants are even planned at the moment (and they're gonna get old and shut down too), so what's the option? A bigger coal plant? Natural gas? But...don't most geologists acknowledge that these so-called fossil fuels are in limited, non-renewable supply? They're gonna get pretty pricey before they run out, you know.
Nope, your rant against "Star Trek" mentalities aside, we need something better. Fusion looks good, zero-point field energy might have a future, and even improvements in fission reactors might see use if people could over-come their hysterical anti-nuke knee-jerks.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Heating Systems (Score:1)
Oh, but so much more too. I did an internship at PPPL last summer (where the NSTX is located) and took some classes. One of the classes was on the heating systems, and the professor noted that the microwave power was equivalent to some 10k household microwaves, or enough to "nuke a Holstein cow in about 10 seconds." I think this was referring to the TFTR; I am pretty sure they've increased the heating capacity for the NSTX.
Nuclear Fusion: advances in energy and reducing cooking time!
-----
Cold fusion (Score:1)
Still, it's a good thing to get away with waste from the running production.
A reason for the lack of funding in fusion (Score:1)
I was a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 70's. One day I had my Physics class taken on a tour of the tokamak facility, the same tour given to civic leaders, congressmen, etc. We were told that a commercial fusion reactor would be functioning by the year 2000. Absolutely. No doubt.
I was also surprised to learn (as another person noted above) just how much nuclear waste a fusion reactor can generate. It made me and, I hope, my students a bit skeptical of the fission => bad, fusion => good mythology. Note how the ABC article suggests that fission causes air pollution and global warming:
"...the fusion process can't cause a "meltdown" reaction and doesn't contribute to air pollution, acid rain or the greenhouse effect."
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
--
RE: fission has nothing to do with the sun (Score:1)
I realize that the connection between fission and fusion is distant; but the origin of all elements beyond hydrogen resides in the last part of a stars life cycle. That connection is no more or less trivial than the connection between oil and photosynthesis.
Solar fusion is the only source of power. (Score:1)
RE: fission has nothing to do with the sun (Score:1)
My position is that all forms of energy can be traced back to the natural process of solar fusion. Whether that process occurs in our sun or some other star isn't important to understanding that process, or to how we have learned to use the byproducts of that process.
Reeducation? (Score:1)
RE: ZPE - I agree with you 100%
RE: Fusion is unnecessary. This is also true, but unfortunately it will remain true only so long as we can harvest a cheap supply of energy from the reserves of the earth.
A strict discipline of conservation will help us now - to stretch out what we have - and later - to better utilize a new source of baseline power. It's just a matter of time before we are forced to adopt that new energy source.
IMHO, the only thing preventing us from realizing hot fusion now is our nature as a species. We currently have a source of energy for all our needs that has been with us for as long as any living person can remember - oil. We use if for producing everything that makes modern life possible. Until that source of power shows tangible signs of vanishing the incentive to conserve and ultimately replace it just isn't there. For the educated, we know very well that the oil, coal, and gas are running out. We can say that it will be gone within a generation. But until the broad masses of people, who don't bother to consider the realities of that wake up to the peril, we'll keep sailing along on our free energy ride. This is exacerbated by the greed and FUD that permeates business and government, who's only desire is for short-term profit. History is replete with examples of civilizations that have gone down this road to self-destruction; used up an easy to exploit natural resource, breeding like rabbits until the basis was exhausted and the system collapsed. Even current history can illustrate this lack of awareness.
As for "all that crap", I am inclined to agree with you there too. The existing alternatives to fossil fuel leave much to be desired. But burning anything isn't the answer. Nature has provided the best (and only) source of long term power - fusion. In order to survive and persist, we absolutely must master this natural process.
Please, consider for a moment what would happen today if we lost our remaining fossil fuels. We need them to produce food (those high-yield crops require chemically fertilized soil to be productive). The machinery for food production requires energy. All of our electrical, heating, transportation, manufacturing, and medical science require the petroleum energy subsidy to work. Denied this and many millions would die slow painful deaths of starvation and exposure, as every major city collapsed socially.
The bottom line is we need to make fusion work, because conservation isn't enough. When the fossil fuel is gone, no amount of frugality can make 0 amps do anything.
RE: Zero-Point energy. (Score:1)
[Regarding the ocean as a source of power, I remember reading about a proposed heat exchange based system that would move heat from the warm surface down into the colder depths - generating electricity along the way. The analysis concluded that while such an approach could technically produces usable power, the economies of building/maintaining the installation would far exceed the value of energy produced. There was also the unknown environmental impact of the heat introduced to the depths.]
Do any of you fellow nerds. . . (Score:1)
No, but I've got a reverse field pinch torus about 50 feet away. (Another type of fusion research device -- like a tokamak)
Cold fusion (Score:1)
High-temperature fusion has basically turned into a game of controlling turbulence. Nobody can contain the plasmas. As a physicist, I think the cutting of funding in the field is a good idea until the turbulence is better understood. There was a plan to build ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). The thing was huge -- like 4 stories, and would have cost several billion. Needless to say it was cancelled. It might have contained the plasmas by brute force, but at ~billions per reactor, this is hardly an improvement over fission.
Here are some links for the curious:
Madison Symmetric Torus [wisc.edu]
A dynamo experiment [wisc.edu]
National Energy Science web site [fusionscience.org]
MEDUSA experiment (a low aspect ratio tokamak) [wisc.edu]
Pegasus Tokamak [wisc.edu]
The Stellarator [wisc.edu]
Energy research (Score:1)
Sorry guys, you don't see the point. Nobody is funding it because they already have a weapon from the technology. The only projects that get funded are weapon systems or weapons support systems with very few exceptions. That's a major reason my my major was physics but my career is CS.
My favorite quote is:
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets
fission vs fusion bombs (Score:1)
A fission trigger will still pollute enough but the yield will be enhanced by fusion. They're both nukes as designed by the current arsenals.
As for my funding comment, the comment was in response to a US based observation. Since you called me on it, you obviously realized it was US based as well. I can only speak of the job market I'm in. I guess I didn't realize readers needed such specific context.
fusion would be great, but... (Score:1)
Hot fusion is a hard problem, and will probably stay that way for many years to come. It will change the world when it's economically feasible, but it will always be a big, expensive thing to build and maintain (keeping the sun in a jar is not cheap). Forget about the developing world sharing in the hot fusion boom (unless someone there gets a hold of a fusion bomb and threatens the energy rich nations of the world with a different kind of boom).
Cold fusion would be fantastic, because you could do that in your basement, filtering the heavy hydrogen out of your tap water. This would be an even bigger win, because the whole world could afford it. Of course, cold fusion seems even less likely than hot right now.
Short run we should focus on moving to cleaner burning fossil fuels like natural gas, and slightly longer run we should think about converting to a fuel-cell based hydrogen economy. There are big efficiency and environmental wins to be had, without trying to contain a solar furnace in a magnetic bottle.
Here Here! (Score:1)
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a place for the reduction of demand in our modern economics. The growth of our economy seems hinged on getting more soccer moms to buy more chevy suburbans (4wd model, natch) and more raymond weil watches.
Nerds are part of the problem. They have voracious appetites for toys.
fusion byproducts (Score:1)
A lot of the research done is with D->T reactions, which make Helium-4 (which makes you talk funny) and a neutron, (which makes you glow) However, this is not the only fusion fuel source under consideration.
A T->He3 reaction produces Helium 4 and a regular hydrogen atom. No stray neutrons means basically no residual radiation.
cya
Which country? (Score:1)
Please try to be better world citizens. If you means America, say "in America".
I don't know what population of the world actually lives in the USA but I'm willing to bet its a relatively small one.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Fusion and radiation (Score:1)
Fusion produces quite a bit of radiation too. Certainly gamma radiation, but quite a bit of neutron radiation also, and this is what presents the most danger (as it is this that makes surrounding materials radioactive).
Conventional fusion weapons fuse lithium and deuterium, IIRC. Li7 + H2 -> He4 + He4 + n, or He3 + He4 + 2n, or He3 + He3 + 3n, or any of a number of other decay chains. If I understand correctly, He3 is actually more likely to form, because energetic He4 nuclei can shed their excess energy easily by emitting neutrons and turning into He3. So in summary, the neutron flux from fusion is nothing to sneeze at, and is actually greater per unit mass than that from fission.
Neutron bombs are a special case. They can be built by modifying either fission or fusion bombs, though.
Simpler implementation (Score:1)
Why not use methanol? It's easy to transport, can be stored at high density, burns cleanly, and can be produced reasonably efficiently using solar energy (i.e. grow plants and ferment them). If you're trying to produce mechanical energy, then you can do that directly instead of converting from electrical energy produced by fuel cells. If you're trying to produce electricity, IIRC there were fuel cells that could process methanol. Or you could run a generator off of a methanol engine.
Fusion weapons (Score:1)
Um, pretty much all of the larger nuclear weapons built during the last few decades have been fusion bombs.
And they produce just as much fallout and other radiation effects as fission bombs.
Please learn about a subject before posting about it.
Info on other magnetic confinement schemes? (Score:1)
Alternate fusion research (Score:1)
-spc
Cold fusion (Score:1)
-spc
Cold fusion (Score:1)
- no more nasty smelly gas cars
- no more heating problems
- nuclear waste is gone (well, no more new stuff
I can't wait for my Mr. Fusion device to arrive in the mail (see Back To The Future). Heh...
Cold fusion isn't (Score:1)
"Cold fusion" research is mainly conducted in physics labs off the beaten path -- the mainstream boys won't touch it. Until somebody can fully explain it and create consistently duplicatable experiments, it'll remain an oddity.
Cold fusion (Score:1)
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Burning coal: ~0.0003%
Fission: 2%
Fusion: ~10%
Antimatter/matter: 100%
Too bad there isn't a whole lot of antimatter laying around. Well, actually, good thing.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Cold fusion (Score:1)
Nuclei are composed of protons and (except in normal hydrogen) neutrons. That makes them positively charged. Positive charges repel each other. As the original poster said, you have to give the nuclei extremely large amounts of energy to get the nuclei close enough for the strong nuclear force to dominate.
A quick estimate
I don't care how much damn funding you give them, you can't push two protons together at room temperature (300K or so).
And your analogy about the Earth being the center of the Universe isn't even relevant. That came from the idea that God made man in His image, and thus, we must be the favored of all His creations. Then, there were incomplete observations to "support" this theory.
Cold fusion is doomed by the fundamental laws of physics, which we have a much better grasp of that we did hundreds of years ago.
Neither Anonymous, nor a Coward... just a spam hater.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Of course, there is the problem with overcast days... what do you do when you have a cold front stalled in your area, and are without any direct sunlight for a week? Your reserves are sorely taxed, if not completely depleted.
There are efficiency, storage, and distribution issues to consider, also. What about "power plants"? Would they install solar panels on your roof, then charge you for the energy they store? Or would it be a privately owned panel? In that case, what are you to do when yours goes offline? Expect some good natured neighbor to let you tap into his reserves?
I just don't see how solar power is feasible as a major source of energy.
Solar cells far from cost-effective (Score:1)
Furthermore, 6000 square miles is an immense space. It's actually about 2/3 of Maryland.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Some day...
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Generating Antimatter is easy. (Score:1)
If you can generate plasma (helium nuclei, and that's not that hard), you can generate antimatter. There's a nuclear reaction with a common element that, when exposed to alpha particles (the plasma) generates positrons. But then things get sticky...
First, the process also generates free neutrons, which are a pain in the butt to control.
Second, if a fuel pellet of the element were to be used, it is most likely that the positrons would react with the rest of the fuel pellet instead of becoming free to be electromagnetically regulated. That would result in chaos, an uncontrolled reaction.
Third, even if the other shortcomings were worked around, and this is the part that has perplexed me: What do you do with the free energy from the matter/antimatter fusion? A positron/electron pair fusion will basically generate a large gamma photon burst, as well as some free neutrinos and (I think) harmless other bits. But, gamma photons have such a high frequency and short wavelength that there's no good way to harness them.
If anybody's willing to solve those other bits, I'll go dig out one of my notebooks that has the formula for the reaction and things.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
I would say that it would be extremely rare. Just one electron/positron collision would liberate enough energy to be noticed any detector around it.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Next suggestion, put it in space. Sure, but they you have the problem with maintenace up there, microasteroids, and transmission problems.
Fusion has one big advantage over solar power. Its small and portable. Try using solar power under the sea. Impossible. Put a fusion reactor on the deck of the titanic with some tritium collectors and you have a self sustaining energy supply.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
First, I don't doubt your facts, actually I think that they are very conservative estimates but I'm argueing from a logistics point of view.
There are only two ways that I can see inwhich that large an area of solar panels can be setup, either on top of existing infrastructure (roofs, etc), or on open area.
On top of existing infrastructure would prove impossible to maintain. Think about how long it takes roofers to get onto a roof or cable remair men to get to cables. So that is out of the question.
The second is open areas. 1/1000 the size of the united states. From an ecological standpoint it would be a disaster. If you wanted to sacrifice that much area then you could do it for a lot less with hydroelectic dams (falling water is also free).
Even if you didn't worry about surface area, then you would have to look at material costs. Solar panels are made up of silicon. I personally can't even imagine producing 1000 mi^2 of solar panels. Roads are made in a bulk process and don't even come close to covering 1000 mi^2 in the us. Add into that quality control and you would have a process that makes fusion power look like peanuts. Its just not a feasible alternative.
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Why no fusion funding? Not marketable. (Score:1)
For those of you who havn't heard of ITER, its really a massive reactor. In present day reactors it isn't common for to have to crouch when doing maintenance inside, however the ITER reactor is 3 stories tall inside! Its really an amazing feat when you consider the stresses that the walls of the tokamak are subjected to.
The answer is wind power (Score:1)
Nor is matter/antimatter (Score:1)
a) How do we get the stuff, and;
b) How do we harness the energy.
With Zero state energy, there is enough (theoretically) in one cubic centimetre (thats about a 1/16 of a cubic inch for you Americans living in the non-decimal world) to boil the worlds oceans.
Now that's powerful stuff!
Nor is matter/antimatter (Score:1)
Antimatter is NOT a fuel source (Score:1)
Refer (A) and (B) above
It's only a theory it you checked the site the link is pointing to.
BTW, what primary source would you calss alcohol coming from? You have to grow corn (solar) then distill it with heat (oil or solar?) before you can blow the stuff up (in a combustion chamber).
Cold fusion (Score:1)
Energy research (Score:1)
Um, fusion bombs have been around for a long time. There are two types of nukes: atomic (uses fission) and thermonuclear (fusion). The reason fusion nukes release as much radiation as fission nukes is because they rely on fission to release the heat necessary to jump-start the fussion process. And then there are neutron bombs...
But Sol is not the solution (Score:1)
Besides, sapping power from the Sun is terribly short sighted - what do you do when the sun goes out? That's just the kind of thinking that led to the Y2K problem!
No, the only real solution is for us to gather a portion of the population together to live in pods where we harvest thier bio-electric energy. I suggest we start with a certain campus in Redmond - we'd all be much safer if they were all in pods, living out thier lives developing and releasing W2K in an imaginary universe.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
True, though I doubt houses use 100 amps 24 hours a day!
Most current and new houses, and appliances (yes, PCs are guzzlers, but Netwinders and Laptops aren't) are based on the assumption of cheap power. Off-grid solar houses of today use MUCH less power, which is obvious when you consider the solar panel cost of driving the typical energy-inefficient house of today.
Some solar installations are designed to supply high peak power through more batteries -- it's not unusual for a solar home to be able to power all typical shop tools, but maybe not all at once. Ideally one can use "the (solar) grid" to supply the high peak power demands.
I'm no expert so check it out: Home Power Magazine [homepower.com], www.crest.org [crest.org], Nation Renewable Energy Laboratory [nrel.gov].
tokamak contamination (Score:1)
Non-radioactive materials are generally just a neutron or two from being radioactive. When their nucleus gets hit with neutrons, they often absorb them and change into a radioactive isotope.
Eventually the thing glows in the dark.
Still, it's not even remotely comparable in general nastiness to the waste-products of fission. I'm not too worried about disposing of a few old reactors.
Same thing... (Score:1)
Regards,
Re-Nerdification (Score:1)
Even if scarcity of fossil fuels doesn't happen until Y3K, the pollution caused by fossil fuels and political uncertainties (remember the OPEC embargo) imply that we should search for cleaner and more reliable alternatives. Fusion research (the hot kind) is exactly the kind of thing the government should sponsor. The end goal is too long-term and risky for corporations, but it has great potential if it can be made to work. The supply of deuterium and tritium [how come this word is not in my /usr/dict/words] is finite, but much, much larger than fossil fuels.
I think other alternatives should be investigated, too. It would be foolish not to.
Fusion, eh? Sounds Good. (Score:1)
Anyway, clean energy you get from water, that doesn't go boom? Sounds worthwhile. Let's get Big Bill Gates to drop a billion or so on it. It fits with his ultimate plan (i.e. become GOD).
Microsoft Sun v1.6.6.5 (oh wait, copyright infringement, or a crazy merger{The Network is the computer, no, no, Windows is the computer,grrr,grrr})
ENOUGH!
(Did ya ever see the one where Burns blocks out the sun?)
useful/harmful (Score:1)
I'm a nerd @ PPPL (Score:1)
I work on a much smaller experiment -- I came in to Princeton wanting to work on fusion, but I got really turned off by the politics involved...
Wrong! (Score:1)
> Tritium doesn't exist in nature. So how do we get it?
> From Fission reactors of course. So the fact of the
>
> MYTH I: Fusion Fuel is cheap and abundant, not so.
Fission reactors are not the only source of tritium! Yes, they
provide neutrons, yes they are used now by the gubment to produce
tritium for nuclear weapons. But you don't have to use neutrons from
a fission reactor!!! Where, you ask do you get these neutrons -- from
the FUSION reactor itself. Yep, like a fast breeder fission reactor,
fusion plants will make tritium by employing a blanket containing
lithium. This will produce plenty of tritium for the reactor to
operate. I give you that to start the process up, you will have to
have an alternative source of tritium, and a fission reactor may be
the choice for that (BTW -- the half life of tritium is about 12 years).
> Now the problem of radiation. Fusion produces huge quantities of
> Neutrons, even more than Fission produces. This means
> that the materials in and around the reactor will be
> constantly bombarded and they will be converted into
> radioactive isotopes by the neutrons. This is ignoring
> the problem of secondary radiation created by the
> countless fission reactors required to produce the
> tritium needed to run the fusion reactors. So fusion
> isn't so clean.
>...
>MYTH II: Fusion power is clean. Busted!!!
Again, you don't quite have your facts straight... Fusion does
produce neutrons, but nowhere near the amount present inside a fission
reactor!! A fusion reactor will have a neutron power load on its walls
that is about the same as the neutron power flux in a fission reactor,
but the spectrum of neutrons is much different. The fusion neutrons
(from D-T) are 14 MeV -- whereas the fission neutron spectrum is a
thermal one, with the average energy about 0.0025 eV (well, a little
bigger than room temperature, but many many orders of magnitude less
than the fusion neutrons). Power flux is essentially energy times
density. So the density of fusion neutrons is much much lower than
that in a fission reactor (for the same power load on the walls).
The radiation problem in fusion reactors is fundamentally different
than in fission plants. Yes, these fusion neutrons are absorbed by
materials and thereby make them radioactive. But we have a CHOICE in
what materials we put next to a fusion reactor (we have no choice but
to use uranium or plutonium in a fission plant). So we can minimize
the activation caused by these neutrons. Even using stainless steel,
the half-life a majority of the activation products is very short --
on the order of years, not millenia. If we use specially engineered
materials (like vanadium alloys and SiC ceramics) we can get the
activation to a minimum. The neutrons are NOT the radiation problem
in a fission reactor -- it is the horribly radioactive fission
products. These are unavoidable in fission and live forever. We
could even ELIMINATE activation entirely in a fusion plant if we use
advanced fuels like p-B11 or D-He3 (which are harder to get to fuse
than D-T, but have NO neutron emission).
> The third myth is that fusion power would be cheap, not
> so. Compared to a Fusion reactor a Fision reactor is just a pile of
> metal, and we all know how cheap they are. Sorry guys, Fusion will
> be the most expensive energy on the planet.
> MYTH III: Fusion Power is Cheap, nope.
You are right here, the fusion plant is going to cost a lot, based on
present designs. But it is not so far off as you think-- fission
plants are quite expensive due to licensing problems. Fusion will
only become economical when the price of other fuels rises (or if we
start to internalize the costs associated with pollution -- and hence
raise the cost of fossil power).
> So what does this tell us? We could get an even better
> deal using fast and slow breeder reactors using fission
> technology. It would provide all the energy we could
> conceivably need, and using breeders with reprocessing
> it would not only produce almost no new waste, but it
> could burn as fuel about 99% of the waste we have
> now. If done right it could be fairly cheap as well, and
> extremely safe. So get an almost limitless supply of
> cheap and safe energy and at the same time get rid of
> 99% of our current nuclear waste, yup, fast breeders
> sound good to me too.
I agree that fission reactors, with fuel recycling, are part of the
energy answer (+ breeding -- without breeding the uranium supply would
run out on a 200 yr timescale I think). My undergraduate education
was in nuclear engineering (and physics), and although my Ph.D. work
is in plasmas/fusion, I am still a proponent of using fission.
BUT, only "MYTH III" has a leg left to stand on, I think.
No more airport! (Score:1)
Alternate fusion research (Score:1)
Using electrostatic forces to try to trap ions in fusion is problematic because you need huge potentials to trap a reasonable number of ions (you have to overcome the potential the ions themselves create). You need something like 10^13
There is an experiment similar to the one you mention at U. Wisconsin (at least it was there when I was visiting grad schools a few years back). They are more interested in using it as a thruster for spacecraft, though (no fusion involved here). I couldn't find a link for it on www.wisc.edu [wisc.edu], though.
In fusion science circles "alternative" fusion research usually means studying thermonuclear devices that aren't tokamaks (for instance, NSTX, the spherical tokamak (they call it a torus now) here at PPPL). Other alternative research devices are Reverse Field Pinches (MST at Wisconsin), Stellerators (LHD in japan, there's also a big one in Germany and one under development here at Princeton), Field Reverse Configurations (U. Wash, my experiment here at PPPL can be run as an FRC)....
Problem solved: sleep tanks (Score:1)
If you believe what you saw in The Matrix, we humans are a great source of energy. We can't exactly go sticking everyone in energy-extraction pods permanently, though. (Well, maybe we already are in pods and
Antimatter is NOT a fuel source (Score:1)
As for zero state energy, I don't understand how you propose to perform useful work without an energy sink.
fission vs fusion bombs (Score:1)
From what I've read US Nukes try to kill everyone in the blast. Russians go more for the radiation related death, not sure the do this on purpose though. They might just have bad cores.
Energy research (Score:1)
Suspicious (Score:1)
Philo Taylor Farnsworth and Fusion. (Score:1)
Even if this is true, the devices would still be quite useful as a neutron source (e.g. for detecting plastic explosives in airports or detecting the presence of fissionable materials). They have the advantage of being easy to turn off, unlike a chunk of radioactive material, and I think this is one of the short-term goals of the Los Alamos work.
Elisabeth Shue (Score:1)
Do any of you fellow nerds. . . (Score:1)
Z-Pinch - Alternative to Tokamak (Score:1)
http://www.sciam.com/1998/0898is sue/0898yonas.html [sciam.com]
rescdsk
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Holders of world record in solar cell efficiency (~24%)
They are working with Germany and Japan to provide rooftop systems to multi-thousand homes. Each rooftop installation provides up to 4KW peak power into the local electricity grid. Peak electricity needs are the most expensive to cater for when considering normal power stations. Example - California experiences peak power needs on hot sunny days when people most use aircon. Solar power generates most power on hot sunny days.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
by a collection of solar cells (12% efficient) 55km on a side.
That's 34 mi on a side, or about 1000 mi^2
That's for the entire US ! which weighs in at about 6 million mi^2 (probably more)
That's
And yes I can back these numbers up with facts. It does assume they are lit 24 hrs/day. So multiply by 3 to put them on an 8 hour day. Are then goes up to
Then you've got oeverhead because you can't put them right next to each other and there are line losses. x2 = 6000mi^2 and we're still at
Just think about how much cleaner the environment would be.
Oil companies BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:1)
4Kw isn't enough (Score:1)
I agree with that, however, I'd bet that most houses average more than 4Kw, so even with perfect storage, we'll have problems. We also only get those 4Kw when the sun is shining, which is well less than 12 hrs per day, and only on sunny days. Lets say your in the Northeast US, where it's cloudy one day out of 4, and you average 12 hrs (for easy math) of sun a day. That would mean that you get: 365days*0.75*12hrs*4Kw
or 13140Kwh per year of power from the cells (we'll assume 100% perfect storage) which leads to you having an AVERAGE of 1.5Kw available at all time. Anyone own a blow drier? That's it!
Off-grid solar houses of today use MUCH less power
Yep, they do, but most people aren't willing to live that lifestyle. They want their dishwashers, microwaves, large screen TVs, computers etc.
it's not unusual for a solar home to be able to power all typical shop tools, but maybe not all at once
I guess I have a Geek shop, my arc welder just won't cut it. Heck, I have enough problem ON grid (I also have a 12"lathe and 2 milling machines, plus woodworking stuff)
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Fusion may not be the answer, but it is a good lie (Score:1)
BUT, i don't know about you but i don't have a surplus of anti-matter in my backyard. neither dilitium crystals, i like star trek as much as the next guy, but come back to reality
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
to comment that, as Fnkmster says, it is possible
to produce anitmatter at particle accelerators.
This is regularly done at accelerator sites around the world. Research is done with colliding beams
of electrons/ant electrons or protons/antiprotons.
As I remember, CERN has even produced some atome
of anit-hydrogen ( http://www.cern.ch)
It takes a LOT of input electricity (read dedicated high voltage lines, the output of a pwer station, and no running during the winter when France needs the power!) to do this. So I agree that anti-matter won't be an economical fuel in the forseeable future. Then again as a weapon...
However, there is a great deal of interest in muon-catalysed fusion. This was first seen in bubble chamber experiments. Use a particle accelerator to create a muon beam. Target this on a tank of liquid hydrogen. The muons bind much more closely to the hydrogen nucleii and can catalyse fusion reactions between them, by allowing them to get much closer.
If it pans out, a new way to get cheap fusion power for the world.
fusion would be great, but... (Score:1)
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Glashow is senile, I took a class from him (for a week) last semester before dropping it. He was brilliant, but he's past his prime.
Nevertheless, his conclusion is pretty commonsensical, and I'm sure it can be proved (as much as anything in astronomy/cosmology can be proved).
The point is, that antimatter can't really be found for free by any method I know of. It is moderately conceivable as a fuel for space travel, but would have to be produced, by using energy generated from other processes, i.e. fusion. Antimatter is just a more space efficient way to store this energy. We can't get the energy for free unless we have stuff sitting around with unusually high energy relative to what we convert it to.
Fusion is not the answer (Score:1)
Matter/Anti-matter reaction (Score:1)
Kill two birds... (Score:2)
Cool...maybe we can use up some of the
runoff from the melting polar ice caps.
A reason for the lack of funding in fusion (Score:2)
Returns on investment could be huge! (Score:2)
Is there any corporation or research unit that wants funding? Perhaps a Slashdot collective, and if each user of all 200,000 of us sends 10 dollars, we could get some sort of share or ownership of the technologies involved =)
They really do need support in the US, however, for the critical nature of their research. More crucial and important the nuclear weapons or even social security...
Still waiting for the problems with the moderation system to fix themselves =)
AS