What is Digg?164 Comments
- BlueBarad, on 01/09/2008, -2/+48Meanwhile we borrow 2.5 Billion a day to keep a war going. ***sigh***
- frsrblch, on 01/09/2008, -1/+36Way to fear what you *clearly* do not understand.
- swordedge, on 01/09/2008, -1/+29Chernobyl is Fission, uses Uranium and such.
This is Fusion, uses forms of Hydrogen. Half Life is 25 minutes.
We have been trying to do Fusion for about 40 years. Don't expect them to do anything soon. Fusion turns out to be really really tough to do, so tough that no one has ever sustained a fusion reaction. - SaxxonPike, on 01/09/2008, -0/+28This is China's investment into an international project. This means good news for everyone, not just China. If it succeeds, that opens up new opportunities for the US to tax the ***** out of it. I mean... er, generate energy inexpensively.
- wonderchemist, on 01/09/2008, -0/+27The worst thing that can happen to a nuclear fusion plant is that it stops fusing. If the core somehow 'breaches' the pressure and temperature will drop and kill the reaction.
- csulok, on 01/09/2008, -5/+24billions of stars do ;)
- protogenxl, on 01/09/2008, -2/+21That is A Good Plan General
- cheese06, on 01/09/2008, -0/+16I think you are mistaken there buddy, Chernobyl and the Long Island incident were very isolated compared to the hundreds of nuclear reactors spread throughout the world. And trust me, the Chinese have had double digit growth per annum and are heavily investing in R&D. Do not assume that the Chinese have third-rate construction and safety skills.
- gidd, on 01/09/2008, -0/+14Yep. The reason a nuclear fission plant costs so much is that it takes a lot of care to stop it going bang. The reason a nuclear fusion plant costs so much is that it takes a lot of care to get it to do anything at all. If anything's not absolutely perfect, it'll just fizzle out.
- EenMadcat, on 01/09/2008, -1/+14That''s not true, the ITER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER) is building the a nuclear fusion plant which is the first reactor which actually produces energy instead of costing energy. The problem with fusion is that it needs a massive magnetic shield to make sure nothing hits the wall, the bigger the reactor the less energy is will cost (because the wall will grow in a factor n^2 and the volume in a factor n^3)
Ther has been smaler nuclear fusion reactors in many countries, but they all were "just an experiment" to test if the theory works
Nuclear fusion is the only solution to the energy crisis, nuclear fission is also nice, but has some downsides.
bio energy (solar/wind/water) is nice, but can never realy compete to the "energy of mother nature" - EuphopiaB, on 01/09/2008, -0/+13*billions of billions
- ordig, on 01/09/2008, -6/+19Sweet. Lets just hope they don't ignite the atmosphere.
- shinon, on 01/09/2008, -0/+11Half Life is more than 25 minutes..That game is hard at first.
- oblivinated, on 01/09/2008, -2/+13China.
- the6thReplicant, on 01/09/2008, -1/+12And it'll be even further away if we don't do the research now. I guess you think cars and computers just grow on trees.
- SIRBERUS, on 01/09/2008, -1/+11*rawr* go go Gadget Youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gyg0ky_VMzo
Found a clip from the discovery channel special on it... looks like it's coming along pretty promising. - LLamaStar, on 01/09/2008, -6/+16we could do the same...instead we choose to build bombs :
- drugged, on 01/09/2008, -0/+9From the ITER website (http://www.iter.org/sharing.htm) the US will contribute:
wind CS coils, some TF conductor, some blankets, port limiters, part of the cooling system, part of the vacuum pumping and fuelling system, tokamak exhaust processing, part of the steady power supplies, RF transmission lines, some plasma diagnostics. - DiggityDugged, on 01/09/2008, -5/+13That means we have to go to war with them, right Mr. Bush?
- GeorgeStone2, on 01/09/2008, -0/+8Hey everyone. You hear that. It's a long way off.
Don't fund R&D until it's invented.
Stupid chinese. - Woknblues, on 01/09/2008, -1/+9our yearly budget for military spending is somewhere above 500 billion a year... and arguably a lot more with other factors.... if we put in 1/10 of our budget into this, or 50 billion a year, how fast do you think we could make this happen? how about 1/5, a hundred billion a year. Just create some crazy giant university right on site of the proposed reactor, and start sending our best and brightest to work on it.... how many stupid ***** wars could we NOT get into once the world price for oil and petroleum products is down to $10 a barrel? Hell, how much money will Bush personally lose if it goes down like that. or our "friends" the Royal Saudi family or the Emirates, or Brunei or Iraq? wouldn't it just be awesome to give a big fat raspberry to the freaks of the world in charge of oil, and tell them to keep it?
- pangelovski, on 01/09/2008, -0/+8It think its nice to see a country like China, who recognises the potential problems with global warming and tries to do someting about it. Although I believe that more than 1,4 billion is needed, its a good start.
- kevma, on 01/09/2008, -3/+10I think Bush started that trend ;)
- inactive, on 01/09/2008, -2/+9We will need to address any such "fusion gap" in the near future.
- nyx210, on 01/09/2008, -1/+8When he said "no one has ever sustained a fusion reaction," I think he meant, us humans.
- the6thReplicant, on 01/09/2008, -0/+7Yes, but everything you've said will not happen in a fusion reactor. In fact, a fusion reactor is more like a coal plant exploding. Some of the housing material becomes radioactive due to bombardment but these things have half-life of a few hours.
- EenMadcat, on 01/09/2008, -0/+7like i said, solar end wind energy is "nice to have" but fusion is the ultimate energy source.
When you have solar panels on all your roof, you might be able to produce 50% of your energy needs on a sunny day. but what happens when it's cloudy or what happens when it's night. maybe there is some juice left in some batteries but i wouldn't count on it. and in the future more people will have to live in an appartment, so there is not enough "roof per person"
i'm not saying we should abort solar/wind energy but's it's a temporal fase which we can use now or the next 10-20 years. but not in 50 years. Fusion IS the energy source we can use ifor the next 50-200 years and maybe forever, like nature has been doing for the last 6 billion years. - inactive, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6The United Staes (sic) is also a partner, as are the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia.
- roodammy44, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6Let's Build
- Zlorp, on 01/09/2008, -6/+12guess how much America is throwing at ITER this year? ZERO dollars.
- SIRBERUS, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6Are you sure? Because I swear I remember watching something on Discovery channel about a successful fusion reaction.
- innocentsinner, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6China Will Grow Larger
- blackmesa, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6Mister President... we cannot allow a mine-shaft gap!
- Popsgg, on 01/09/2008, -0/+6The USA is also in the ITER, we would discover it along side China, not before or after. Regardless, this is something that would benefit every human on the planet. Once its figured out, everything could change. Pollution would drop only to waste products, like packaging and broken parts. Everything could run on clean electric for kinetic energy.
- LinuxGalore, on 01/09/2008, -1/+6This is Fusion not Fission dumb ass, no nuclear materials needed just plain old water.
- Borgcube, on 01/09/2008, -0/+5Did you even RTFA? Or comments, for that matter?
First, it's not China's project, but INTERNATIONAL so if anything happens, it will not happen in China.
Second, this is FUSION, not FISSION which means, as others pointed out in comments before, that nothing of Chernobyl scale can happen. - savweb, on 01/09/2008, -0/+5Can't wait for that to be real, amazing
- cubed2d, on 01/09/2008, -0/+5mayby, but fusion has the benifit of not useing any radioactive ingreedients,the dangerous bit is the massive temperatures needed to get the bugger to work
- CrazyDave303, on 01/09/2008, -1/+6Fusion my friend NOT fission.
You will never have high level waist with fusion, and you get very little low level.(not counting the fuel it's self) You might have a few neutrons the escape plasma cloud and then are absorbed by the structure. But only then are a few Isotopes stable for more then a few minutes, and I'm too lazy to look up if many of those half life in to any thing that last more then few days. It's multiple neutrons bombardment that happens around fission that makes all the fun low level waist out of the containment buildings. (don't forget all the other type/level/classes of waists) - Farik, on 01/09/2008, -0/+4Dugg for C&C Generals reference.
- matx, on 01/09/2008, -0/+4China should make their own ripped of version of fusion reactor just like they do with everything else.
Who needs a tokamak when you can get a pokamak cheaper on ebay ;) - roodammy44, on 01/09/2008, -1/+5I would say renewables are the "energy of mother nature" and fusion is the "energy of the stars".
And they can compete with other forms of energy - imagine if every roof in the world was coated in solar cells, that's a lot of energy.
This will happen when the price of the solar cells come down cheap enough. Lots of people are making the price of wind farms come down too.
All you need are some magnets, copper coil, a small amount of electronics and a battery - wind power. Surely that can't stay expensive? - the6thReplicant, on 01/09/2008, -2/+6Obviously you've never been to China. They know about environmental issues and take them very seriously. They also take the economic prosperity very seriously too. They are also the largest producer and user of solar cells.
Don't just jump on the "China will kill us all" bandwagon. Most of their politicians are, or have been, engineers. They love solving problems like this. It's just the messy human rights stuff they shy away from. - SteelChicken, on 01/09/2008, -1/+5why are you proud? you will never get that money back. suckers.
now go make some rubber dog ***** in a $1/day wage factory. - wolferz, on 01/09/2008, -0/+3I can name a successful fusion reaction... in fact i have a picture: http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/oconnell/astr1 ...
Not sustainable though... thank god. - slayerab, on 01/09/2008, -5/+8Although annoying, he makes a great figurative statement, considering if China does find the secret of fusion before America, we'll have some 'splainin to do for sitting on our laurels for so long. Well, at least all the oil and coal will be for our taking. 2045 Tahoe ftw!
- innocentsinner, on 01/09/2008, -0/+3We Fight From High Place!
- Randrayla, on 01/09/2008, -0/+3Luckily this will not happen in an American reactor. If the reaction somehow gets out of whack, control rods automatically fall into the reactor thus stopping the reaction from taking place.
- inactive, on 01/09/2008, -1/+4How old are you 14?
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