I actually worked on a fusion program for a while. I wish more people understood nuclear power, in general, rather than the outrageous drivel, hopium, and flat-earth cynicism associated with all aspects of it.
My opinion: We need to be building fission plants, as fast as we possibly can, if we want to keep the lights of civilization on.
Fusion is very important to research (as are all sources of energy for mankind, immediately economic and practical or not)!. Thermal fusion is *not* pseudoscience, like cold fusion. While physics certainly allows it, the needle's eye that has to be threaded to make a D-T fusion reaction produce net power is very tight, and the engineering challenges are severe. Given the leak-rate of magnetic traps, and the reaction cross sections, anything based on magnetic confinement that works will likely have a certain minimum scale at which it can work.
NIF is inertial confinement: as someone above pointed out, their "breakeven" announcement is just for the light-on-target in versus total energy out, without considering the efficiency of the lasers.
In my opinion, it is *irresponsible* to treat fusion power reactors like they are a done deal or just around the corner to power civilization: I realize the political incentives exert force in this direction, but it simply isn't true. There is no schedule or timetable. It's not "20 years away", it's some number of test devices and engineering conceptual breakthroughs away. That cannot be predicted. They won't happen if we don't try, but they won't happen on some gannt chart schedule either.
If we could build a fusion power reactor, my best idea of what that looks like right now is a massive closed-field plant built along the lines of a tokomak or stellerator. It would burn D-T. It would need to breed tritium in a blanket around the chamber to close the fuel cycle. There would be a massive gas recycling plant attached to that, and a conventional steam heat exchanger. Deuterium would come from sea-water and be more or less arbitrarily available. Other concepts exist, but everything has many problems to overcome.
Sounds about right. Laser implosion is good for research, but I've no idea how to put any sort of coupling medium in there to get the released energy out without interfering with the lasers.
My opinion: We need to be building fission plants, as fast as we possibly can, if we want to keep the lights of civilization on.
That "we" are NOT doing so, but are doing wind and solar and "conservation initiatives" instead, tells me that "we" (whoever that is) do NOT want to "keep the lights on." "We" seem to prefer rolling blackouts and high prices and interactive meters that ration use of home heaters and appliances. "We" PREACH new technology, someday, when magic batteries can store a week's worth of wind and magic hydrogen wells can be tapped without fracking and magic renewable forests grow trees the size of redwoods in a season, like corn, to make renewable wood pellets and replace coal. "We" love tomorrow's technology but "we" hate the workable and economic options that we actually have.
And "We follow the science" while "They are Deniers."
3 comments:
I actually worked on a fusion program for a while. I wish more people understood nuclear power, in general, rather than the outrageous drivel, hopium, and flat-earth cynicism associated with all aspects of it.
My opinion: We need to be building fission plants, as fast as we possibly can, if we want to keep the lights of civilization on.
Fusion is very important to research (as are all sources of energy for mankind, immediately economic and practical or not)!. Thermal fusion is *not* pseudoscience, like cold fusion. While physics certainly allows it, the needle's eye that has to be threaded to make a D-T fusion reaction produce net power is very tight, and the engineering challenges are severe. Given the leak-rate of magnetic traps, and the reaction cross sections, anything based on magnetic confinement that works will likely have a certain minimum scale at which it can work.
NIF is inertial confinement: as someone above pointed out, their "breakeven" announcement is just for the light-on-target in versus total energy out, without considering the efficiency of the lasers.
In my opinion, it is *irresponsible* to treat fusion power reactors like they are a done deal or just around the corner to power civilization: I realize the political incentives exert force in this direction, but it simply isn't true. There is no schedule or timetable. It's not "20 years away", it's some number of test devices and engineering conceptual breakthroughs away. That cannot be predicted. They won't happen if we don't try, but they won't happen on some gannt chart schedule either.
If we could build a fusion power reactor, my best idea of what that looks like right now is a massive closed-field plant built along the lines of a tokomak or stellerator. It would burn D-T. It would need to breed tritium in a blanket around the chamber to close the fuel cycle. There would be a massive gas recycling plant attached to that, and a conventional steam heat exchanger. Deuterium would come from sea-water and be more or less arbitrarily available. Other concepts exist, but everything has many problems to overcome.
(slightlyanonymous)
Sounds about right. Laser implosion is good for research, but I've no idea how to put any sort of coupling medium in there to get the released energy out without interfering with the lasers.
My opinion: We need to be building fission plants, as fast as we possibly can, if we want to keep the lights of civilization on.
That "we" are NOT doing so, but are doing wind and solar and "conservation initiatives" instead, tells me that "we" (whoever that is) do NOT want to "keep the lights on." "We" seem to prefer rolling blackouts and high prices and interactive meters that ration use of home heaters and appliances. "We" PREACH new technology, someday, when magic batteries can store a week's worth of wind and magic hydrogen wells can be tapped without fracking and magic renewable forests grow trees the size of redwoods in a season, like corn, to make renewable wood pellets and replace coal. "We" love tomorrow's technology but "we" hate the workable and economic options that we actually have.
And "We follow the science" while "They are Deniers."
I'm not so fond of "we", on this topic.
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