Nuclear Fusion

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Pretty exciting to see a real advancement in fusion. Cool video at top of page.

Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

[svandamme]

Suspect it will still be a long road towards running production.
the technology is a lot harder to scale up then say a nuclear fission reaction

That's easy in comparison, hell it's just a question of getting teh materials in place with a moderator.. and then getting the heat to a turbine
the main issue there is doing it safely and the waste products, but the reaction itself is easy to achieve.

Fusion, containment of the fusion is incredibly complicated , the bit that makes the power won't run on it's own and it requires very complicated containment to even work.
They too 40 years to just get 5 secs worth of power (it's not even usable power at this point) equivalent of 60 kettles of tea
Scaling that up?
actually getting the power converted to electricity?

I'll be a lot greyer then just my sideburns before it delivers current to my house

[IROC]

I work with those guys on occasion!!! I think they told me once that when those giant flywheels release their energy for a fusion shot, they produce more energy in those few seconds than what is consumed in all of the UK. I think their "60 kettles of tea" analogy was off.

We are also supporting ITER here at work. I have been involved (from the sidelines or in design reviews) for years on these projects and even though I think they are noble and the kinds of giant things that humans need to do, I fear the technology is still just outside our reach.

Then again, my facility operates reliably on a daily basis and 15 years ago, people would have said it was impossible.

[svandamme]

Not sure the energy in the flywheels is part of the fusion production ?
they power the magnetic field, but they need to be energized up front

the fusion energy, is generated inside the magnetic containment field, and that's the bit they rated 59 megajoules.


59 Mj is "only" 16,3889 kwh

[Superman]

Have them call me. I have several homemade fusion generators I could lend them.

[mjohnson]

I believe we'll get there someday - but the masses' belief that it's "clean" is a bit of a stretch. Those 14MeV neutrons from the DT fusion are pretty zesty and tend to interact with everything around them (that's kind of the entire reason that I even know/care about 'em). I wondered but hadn't deeply pondered on where they were going to get the 3H - based on my understanding of similar things I guess what I saw in the news makes sense because otherwise that's some of the most expensive stuff on the planet.

Somewhere I saw that LLNL's National Ignition Facility has decided that they were going to be just a neutron source as that proper/break-even ignition wasn't going to happen in that machine. A darn impressive place that I got to visit before they commissioned it though. Even got to walk into the chamber... They must have used up the world's supply of vacuum equipment for a few years, and they were so proud of their "lean" processes for changing out the many-hundred-kilobuck crystals in the beamline in seconds. Cool science - it also surely paid for a lot of condos in Lake Tahoe and engineers' sports cars but...

IDK how they build up the energy for their shots over there (flywheels?) but we recently replaced the rotor for our Magnetic Field Lab at LANL and it took special trucks and the removal of traffic lights and reinforcement of bridges to get it off of the mesa. Big science takes big toys. Allegedly we make the (very short) highest fields on earth, not sure why besides that we can? I am simple country metallurgist, not physicist.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Superman

Have them call me. I have several homemade fusion generators I could lend them.

The gererator will fix everything, if only people would believe in it.

Does anyone want a free gererator?

[IROC]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

I believe we'll get there someday - but the masses' belief that it's "clean" is a bit of a stretch. Those 14MeV neutrons from the DT fusion are pretty zesty and tend to interact with everything around them (that's kind of the entire reason that I even know/care about 'em). I wondered but hadn't deeply pondered on where they were going to get the 3H - based on my understanding of similar things I guess what I saw in the news makes sense because otherwise that's some of the most expensive stuff on the planet.

Somewhere I saw that LLNL's National Ignition Facility has decided that they were going to be just a neutron source as that proper/break-even ignition wasn't going to happen in that machine. A darn impressive place that I got to visit before they commissioned it though. Even got to walk into the chamber... They must have used up the world's supply of vacuum equipment for a few years, and they were so proud of their "lean" processes for changing out the many-hundred-kilobuck crystals in the beamline in seconds. Cool science - it also surely paid for a lot of condos in Lake Tahoe and engineers' sports cars but...

IDK how they build up the energy for their shots over there (flywheels?) but we recently replaced the rotor for our Magnetic Field Lab at LANL and it took special trucks and the removal of traffic lights and reinforcement of bridges to get it off of the mesa. Big science takes big toys. Allegedly we make the (very short) highest fields on earth, not sure why besides that we can? I am simple country metallurgist, not physicist.

As usual, you are exactly on point with these comments. Production of tritium is an issue, IIRC. I think ITER is planning on lithium blankets embedded in the walls? This is really outside of my base of knowledge but I do know that tritium production is problematic.

And...you're right on the "cleanliness". My area of expertise is remote handling. ITER components are going to be highly activated.

[Arizona_928]

The breakthrough is the tritium fuel. United States does not have enough long term uranium, and should be switching to thorium type reactors. However, using hydrogen isotopes would be very beneficial towards the environmental aspect.


Either way it's very cool, and hope that it's not a repeat of the Hindenburg when they start industrial applications.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by IROC

And...you're right on the "cleanliness". My area of expertise is remote handling. ITER components are going to be highly activated.

I am not a nuclear engineer but I understand that some more clever thought is now going into even "boring" fission systems with the wastestream in mind. Evidently some of the choices we made way-back-when regarding cladding and other associated-but-not-uranium things brew up into some difficult radionuclides (or however you spell it) after a long bath in neutrons. Now if only we could get reprocessing!

Heck, my little NDT group runs a few 15 MeV x-ray systems and even after an hour or two computed tomography run (3600 or so pictures) sometimes you have to make sure that the customer understands that what they're getting out isn't always the same as what went in. They might just have to cool their jets while their trinket "cools" off.

Anyway, I hope they get the thing going and that they get a good source of tritium. Some interesting related stories can be found from the "kaboom" side of things...

[hbueno]

Like flying cars and jetpacks, fusion power has been a few years away for the last 50 years. I do hope someone figures it out - without blowing uo the Earth or solar system in the process.

[OK-944]

C'mon...everyone knows that this was available years ago - that power source option package for the DeLorean..."Mr. Fusion?" Am I Right?

[GH85Carrera]

If nothing else it is a great learning gizmo to keep the physicist employed, and not going off the China to get jobs.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

If nothing else it is a great learning gizmo to keep the physicist employed, and not going off the China to get jobs.

No joke, we helped support some of the ex-soviet weapons scientists thirty years ago just to keep them on the "good" side. With the USSR in ashes many of them were near poverty. We had some visiting in Los Alamos for a Pu conference in 2001-ish and just laid on the hospitality. Most had never left their country before that and they told many tales of the brainwashing that "americans are mean and evil". And yes, we did take them to Macys on the way to the ABQ airport and they did fill up on Levis...

[Geronimo '74]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

If nothing else it is a great learning gizmo to keep the physicist employed, and not going off the China to get jobs.

It only takes one scientist with a usb drive and a ticket to Beijing and China will copy it and build it cheaper...

[Tervuren]

We've had flying cars my entire lifetime.

What is more difficult has been a meets all the regulations and customer safety demands for a road legal driveable airplane.

Originally Posted by hbueno

Like flying cars and jetpacks, fusion power has been a few years away for the last 50 years. I do hope someone figures it out - without blowing uo the Earth or solar system in the process.

[svandamme]

they exist, but not in any practical way shape or form that the 50ies scifi cartoons would led us to believe we'de have in 2000+

they are cars that can convert to flight
or planes that can convert to some driving

but they do neither particulary well and they are not common

[Tervuren]

Nah, we have flying cars, and they work quite well.
Last I checked it was less expensive for me to travel cross country by flying than by surface travel.
Although for reasons other than cost I stick with surface travel.

Just people get off the flying cars and buses and disperse to final ground destinations by other means.

[zakthor]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Not sure the energy in the flywheels is part of the fusion production ?
they power the magnetic field, but they need to be energized up front

the fusion energy, is generated inside the magnetic containment field, and that's the bit they rated 59 megajoules.


59 Mj is "only" 16,3889 kwh

Is it? 1MJ is 277 watt hours so 60 kettles of tea is in the ballpark.

I understand they need a press release and cool photo but this is same fusion progress I’ve been reading for 30 years. Bigger, more expensive, etc, etc. I’m in the camp that thinks people don’t have the attention span to manage a giant fusion plant, and very expensive when something goes wrong.

Humanity will get there someday but I’m thinking still more than 20 years away.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

No joke, we helped support some of the ex-soviet weapons scientists thirty years ago just to keep them on the "good" side. With the USSR in ashes many of them were near poverty. We had some visiting in Los Alamos for a Pu conference in 2001-ish and just laid on the hospitality. Most had never left their country before that and they told many tales of the brainwashing that "americans are mean and evil". And yes, we did take them to Macys on the way to the ABQ airport and they did fill up on Levis...

During the Apollo program Canada was almost stripped of high tech engineers as was much of the free world. They all came to NASA looking for jobs, and they all worked there. The program invented tons of things we all use everyday and thing nothing about.

Digital photography, integrated chips, LIDAR, and entire processes of making things in use all over the world now. NASA wanted a way to beam back images from space, so digital photography was invented and perfected. There is a tine gismo in your smartphone called a IMU. The Inertial measurement unit tells the phone you just raised it up to use and the screen comes on. When NASA wanted a ship to go to the moon a compass is pretty useless off planet. The IMU let them know where they were, and that is how they were able to get out of sight of the lunar lander with the lunar rover, and get back safely. The IMU was the size of a washing machine and NASA figured out how to make it light enough and fit in the lunar modules. Now an IMU would fit on your fingernail.