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92 Comments
- pyrocube, on 06/09/2009, -3/+17When will people learn that fusion is THE only viable future clean energy source? Solar cells are expensive and suck, wind turbines....well they are just useless wastes of space, tidal power and others just aren't enough. The maths doesn't lie and more investment is needed for fusion to work commercially. The plans have been held back by funding for decades as no government wants to invest in a plan that will only produce fruit long after they are out of power. It is great news that fusion is on its way and we need to do everything to support it.
- PrometheusZero, on 06/09/2009, -1/+14I'm excited - this really could lead the way for renewable generation of electricity through tritium and deuterium. Only problem is, ITER, much like JET (Joint European Torus) are just "research facilities" all testing the viability of this technique to generate electricity. All the research conducted here, granted that it's successful will then actually be utilised to create something called DEMO which will -actually- generate electricity through fusion, but estimates have DEMO being built around 2060... nuclear physics, fun fun!
- esteskid, on 06/09/2009, -1/+13Fusion is already available, what we need most is better reactors.
- FortyCaliber, on 06/09/2009, -0/+12Lawsuit? Not in France. France's power is mostly nuclear the populace would likely embrace fusion power.
source: http://air-climate.eionet.europa.eu/docs/meetings/ ... - Unreal030, on 06/09/2009, -0/+10This wipes the floor of any kind of energy output we would get from solar cells in the next 30 years....
Also, not every place is suitable for solar panel energy, unless you want to contend the "everyone's roof is made of solar cells" approach, in which case it's not so much they need to be better, but much cheaper. - tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+7Planning for these facilities began many years ago. Government and red-tape are to 'blame' for the slow deployment. The bigger challenge is actually materials development. Fusion reactors produce 5-100X the radiation of fission reactors, which means higher radiation-induced damage to the physical reactor. To deal with fusion requires materials that are capable of dealing with extreme heat and possess excellent swelling & creep resistance.
Trust me, if people could get these off the ground faster, they would. They'd rather not half-ass it and cause a failure, which would forever taint public image. (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island) - UmarSajid, on 06/09/2009, -0/+5If this works people you just dont know how great this could be, I know there are fears but at the end of the day if this works it will be worth it. Limit Less Power.
Here is a BBC Programme/Documentary on the Subject: http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/enterta ...
BTW: The story is from 2006 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4629239.stm - tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+5I hope you have a solar water heater then. SWHs are much more energy efficient than photovoltaics. Covering a practically-sized car with the highest-efficiency PVs will only net you a handful of horsepower (1-5), which is not enough for what consumers demand of their vehicles.
Don't believe me? On a nice bright day, you get about 1370 W/m2 from the sun. A car doesn't have more than 10 m2 exposed to the sun. At 20% efficiency, you get only 3.6 horsepower. - seedsofwar, on 06/09/2009, -2/+7when will people learn that we shouldn't put all of our eggs in one basket, especially considering the fact that the likelihood of that basket being viable and big enough to meet our demands is unknown at this point?
we should draw power from a wide spectrum of renewable sources. and while I agree that we should do nearly everything we can to get fusion working, i would hardly consider other sources of energy useless. we should explore all avenues of energy production.
i understand, though. you're just really pumped about fusion. - tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+4There are several ways to induce fusion reactions, and yes, one way is to create a plasma by vaporizing a fuel pellet with a laser. Designs like this involve a discrete stream of pellets being shot into the reactor and then getting hit by a pulsing laser. Examples being the National Ignition Facility (NIF, http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/952 ... and the proposed HiPER and FIREX-I reactors.
The NIF is a more advanced version of the test work done in Osaka you mention, and is nearing the breakeven point. - nullcodes, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3Fusion is getting very very very little funding .. we're just asking for one egg to be given to fusion .. instead barely any money is going to towards it. The research budgets for fusion were greatly reduced since the 1970's .. yet the amount of progress has been amazing when you consider the severe budget cuts .. it's like running a marathon with one lung and one leg.
We need ITER funding to be guaranteed.
Also, we need Sandia Labs' Z-machine upgraded to utilize LTDs and we need the follow-up machine to be more ambitious and fully funded. The Z machine is showing a pathway to aneutronic fusion using Z-pinch (a technology written off as non-viable in the 70's but recent research has produced breakthroughs showing feasibility). Aneutronic fusion is totally clean and has no excess neutrons, it's cleaner and more environmentally friendly than even solar power (it won't even need vast amounts of hazardous chemicals to manufacture like solar panels do). - Wesside, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3This is a big move because I'm super extremely interested in science and programming and magic and honestly nuclear fusion probably exists (duh look at the ***** sun?) at least in the things I've studied (nothing at all) and researched (nothing at all) it seems that way so yeah.
- Ibox, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3what the hell are you talking about????
- tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3Indeed. Linked at the bottom is the Japanese group
http://www.ile.osaka-u.ac.jp/index_e.html - GilThielander, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3Is that a Sim City reference? If so, thank you.
- Ibox, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_fusion this what you were thinkin????
- tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+3I think we are just arguing with each other about the need for fusion research, which we both want.
- nullcodes, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2I agree that EMC2 should be funded, but it would be stupid to fund it at the expense of ITER, NIF, IFMIF, or Z machine.
There is wide consensus within the physics community that ITER will work.
With EMC2, this consensus just isn't there. Now you can blame it on rampant corruption of physicists or there inability to understand the concepts etc. which may well be true. But, the fact is .. it'll be a risk .. is Obama to believe their claims and ignore what other physicists are saying?
Although EMC2 may seem to be promising, a non physicist can't just evaluate their claims and use that as a basis to deny funding to ITER ...the reality is there has to be established consensus first. It's like choosing a penny stock, yes a penny stock can have enormous payoff .. but there is considerably more risk involved when you ignore advice of experts. - PrometheusZero, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Haha, yeah. Well, it is in a super-preplanning phase, so it might undergo a name change. If you think that's bad, ITER is called the International Thermonuclear EXPERIMENTAL Reactor, not the best name when you're working with nuclear power. The organisational comitee decided to keep the name simply as ITER, which conviently means 'journey' in Latin, so as not to scare people away, hehe.
- Ragzouken, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2I guess they'll learn that when they get a more qualified education than 'expensive and suck' and 'useless wastes of space'.
- bills534, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Isnt there a group (in japan??) already trying to do this with lasers?
- nullcodes, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Besides 3He, other fuels (such as 11Boron) can be used which are abundant on Earth. After ITER is built, then other fusion research will have better chances of funding such as successors to Z machine (which is now showing a promising pathway to aneutronic fusion).
- duewydo, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Unfortunate how long a time table we are talking about here. We need this technology now and we are only starting research facilities. Bummer.
- wazzledoozle2, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2What do you think powers the machines that gather the raw resources and build those plants? Oil.
Oil has to be used to build a renewable energy infrastructure, and you have a net loss of energy due the the laws of thermodynamics. We are better off investing our finite supply of oil into fusion because it has a net positive supply of continuous energy.
Current renewable sources could never be built out enough to power our current infrastructure, it would take too much oil to be economical. - tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -3/+5Fusion power is not 'clean' like solar or geothermal. It is cleaner than fission, however.
The article mentions there is little to be concerned about in the fusion waste products, because they aren't HLW.
That doesn't mean there isn't any radioactivity.
The proposed fusion reaction (Deuterium-Tritium) involves the release of free high-energy neutrons and requires fission of Li to replace the T. This adds up to many times (5-100X) the radiation of fission reactors. Granted, the neutron flux is mostly captured by the facility, but once the facility is decommissioned, you have extremely radioactive materials to deal with. - tamman2000, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2there are 2 possibilities. It will or it wont...
that is 50-50...
/s - pcpimpster, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2"Kazakhstan is poised to become the eighth member"
Because you know we couldn't make nuclear fusion happen without Kazakhstan... - TypeEE, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2If you didn't spend the money, how do you know it is a waste of money, and why are you so sure any group can do it?
- sndream, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2The problem is that the more countries automatically means more politics which will mean long long negotiation. It took 4 years just to chose the site another 3 years before construction started.
This is also the reason why UN is so f&$ked up.
- tehhowch, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2You see what I am saying, though. Power drain to power storage is at least 30 to 1 (100hp engine). Even with innovations like regenerative braking, cars powered just by solar are not feasible. Plug & charge cars are a different story, because the energy input rate is much higher than that given by solar panels on the car, so you don't have to sit for a day in the sun to drive for an hour.
- MiDri, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Least they didn't call it beta.
- Brassbud, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2The half-life of these materials is very short, however, it would really only be a problem for a hundred years or so. Solar and Geothermal have finite amounts of energy that can be captured (and at great expense), where as the supply of fusable elements should not not be a problem. Because our energy consumption will continue to increase rapidly, fusion is really the only practical option for the foreseeable future.
- TypeEE, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Don't be happy so fast, I was told by my physics teacher 20 years ago that nuclear fusion can be harness within 15 years. 20 years later, they are still trying.
- joeanon, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1The real problem is it costs billions just to test the ideas out when that money could have built functional wind, geothermal and solar plants which are cheaper and safer to run than any nuclear energy could ever be.
It's all simply about cost per kilowatt. If you include the cost of pollution wind is already well ahead of coal and nuclear has just never proven to be cheap, especially in the US. - joeanon, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1What, how could nuclear power possible be dangerous.
- joeanon, on 06/09/2009, -1/+2Fission, the splitting of atoms is available, fusion reactions so far cannot be controlled or contained well enough to produce working reactors.
However, we have all the fusion we need about 92 million miles away. Why generate dangerous nuclear reactions on earth when all the energy we need is already beamed to us via the sun ? Wind, geothermal and thermal solar are all superior solutions to nuclear. Keep in mind nuclear waste storage costs can only rise over time unless we miraculously find a way to remove their radioactivity, which is unlikely.
If you think Katrina or coal slurry spills are bad just imagine changing weather conditions spreading nuclear waste into our ground water. No site is safe enough considering safe and far more green methods such as wind power are just waiting for mass investments. - GoHabsGo, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1First experiments with tritium and deuterium not until 2026???? Man, come on. Why is this taking so long? It doesn't take 17 years to build ANYTHING these days. Hell, they built a freaking Space Station in only 10 years. Why are the first REAL experiments 17 away? This technology could solve real-world problems NOW. I can't think of a single other piece of technology that took 17 years to build and test. Not the Space Station, Shuttle program, or LHC supercollider took that long. We have an energy crisis today, not in 60 years.
- elektronjunge, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1As fusion researcher, it saddens me that there if more money lost in the field. As a realist most of the money has gone to waste *cough* NIF *cough* adn fusion will not be viable for another 50 years or so anyway, so as a whole not that big of a deal.
- Brassbud, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1^^ By "forseeable future" I mean in the next 100-500 years. I don't claim to know what will be used a million years from now, but I'd imagine at some point we would try to capture anti-matter particles in space.
- Colecoman1982, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1First off, I find it a little hard to believe that most cars have anywhere near 10 square meters of surface area when you discount the part pointing down. Even assuming you mean a Hummer or Escalade, that 1370 W/m^2 value probably assumed that the panel is perpendicular to the sun. It's unlikely that very much of the car would be and much of it would be pointing away. So, even 3.6 hp is, probably, a pipe dream.
- joeanon, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1You are right but Americans like big high tech sounding solutions. Solar Thermal has been operated since 1913 yet we have little interest in it.
- MazeBot, on 06/10/2009, -0/+1a program to determine if fusion viable, so what of the other 4-5 programs, at least, trying to do with fusion, just some fun experiment they thought would be nice to play with? of these im talking about 2 in America, one doing with lasers, another with controlled explosions + lasers, needed to replace all equipment after each trails. then you got south Korea with some nice experiment going on. and im sure there was a fourth.
- akatsuki, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1I think fusion might be the only practical option for the unforseeable future, since it is not like they are getting positive returns yet and don't know when they will.
As for solar and geothermal, they might have theoretical limits, but it is not like we have gotten near them. - SpoonMSU, on 06/10/2009, -0/+1You're welcome.
- TrevorPace, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1This was a reference to how people sued to close down the LHC.
- MazeBot, on 06/10/2009, -0/+1governments don't like to sponsor stuff which will annoy other companies.
hemp fields bullied by Tree (wanting to do paper and other stuff) companies in 20s/30s in america
anything which competes against oil companies - electric, wind, solar
catermerange company in english channel which bullied out by euro tunnel and ferry companies- they where 1 hour trips, very good prices, but needed simi decent weather. there ferries worked a deal with euro tunnel to transfer customers over if bad weather. - norman619, on 06/10/2009, -0/+1*****. You have no idea how likely it is vs. how likely it will not.
But thank you for keeping it real stupid and spreading the ignorance.
Much love - MacParrot, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1WRONG WRONG WRONG!
It's the iFusion 3GS - tehhowch, on 06/10/2009, -0/+1@ Colecoman. You are absolutely right. 10m2 is giant, and 1370 is only for nice bright days perpendicular to the sun. Plug & charge is the only way we'll actually make sensible electric cars.
- Osirus1156, on 06/09/2009, -0/+1ZPM? Dur...
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