FUSION POWER: Next ITERation?

The Economist ^ | Sep 3rd 2011 | print edition

[wolf78]

Generating electricity by nuclear fusion has long looked like a chimera. A reactor being built in Germany may change that.

AS THE old joke has it, fusion is the power of the future—and always will be. The sales pitch is irresistible: the principal fuel, a heavy isotope of hydrogen called deuterium, can be extracted from water. In effect, therefore, it is in limitless supply. Nor, unlike fusion’s cousin, nuclear fission, does the process produce much in the way of radioactive waste. It does not release carbon dioxide, either. Which all sounds too good to be true. And it is. For there is the little matter of building a reactor that can run for long enough to turn out a meaningful amount of electricity. Since the first attempt to do so, a machine called Zeta that was constructed in Britain in the 1950s, no one has even come close.

At the moment, the main bet being placed by fusion enthusiasts is on ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a research machine that can hold 840 cubic metres of hot, gaseous fuel. It is being bolted together at a projected cost of €15 billion ($22 billion) in the south of France. ITER is what is known as a tokamak, a doughnut-shaped device invented in Russia at about the same time Zeta was active.

[...]

A stellarator is a tokamak with twists in it. The consequence of its Daliesque geometry is that every particle inside the machine experiences the same forces as it travels around. A stellarator therefore needs only one magnetic field to manage the plasma, and can be run indefinitely rather than just for a few minutes.

[Wonder Warthog]

Not sure I "get it" with the cartoon.

"Farnsworth's Fusor" is very probably the most successful SMALL approach to a fusion reactor. THE big problem with a Farnsworth fusor is that the central electrode is made of metal, and at high reaction rates (lower than breakeven) is rapidly deteriorated by various sorts of heat/particle impact damage (even if made of tungsten). Bussard's innovation replaces that central charge source with a "non-material".

The "proof of concept" experiments have been successful and "peer-reviewed" and funding is now aimed at building larger reactors to determine scaling laws. A "Bussard polywell" should be far smaller than a magnetic confinement approach, small enough to be useful on ships and subs...hence the Navy's interest.

Trivia tidbit.....Philo T. Farnsworth was the guy who invented television.

[marktwain]

FYI, thorium is not a permanent solution - according to the above article, thorium from coal (and the liquified coal that we can use for our vehicles) will “only” last for about 200 years...more than enough time to develop fusion and some better battery technology to store all of that energy.

There area plenty of energy sources available if we are allowed to develop them. If 200 years of a high tech civilization is not enough to develop cheap fusion, then there is likely lots of thorium in the asteroids. Lots of power available once we get out of the gravity well in a meaningful way.

[marktwain]

I looked at the polywell, and I am impressed with the potential. Half of what we squandered on Soyndra would have completly funded a 100 megawatt prototype.

[Conan the Librarian]

It’s actually a dog poop joke.

Did you ever listen to the audio commentaries of the DVDs?

They are just as funny as the shows themselves!

[Wonder Warthog]

"....and I am impressed with the potential."

Deliberate or unintentional pun??

"Half of what we squandered on Soyndra would have completly funded a 100 megawatt prototype."

Even less than that, as I recall.

[Kevmo]

The future of nuclear is cold fusion.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/09/why-the-announced-e-cat-test-at-uppsala-should-tell-the-complete-story/

Tunneling Beneath the 4He Fragmentation Energy
J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 4 (2011) pages 241–255 ^ | February 2011 | K P Sinha
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2743039/posts
Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:45:05 PM by Kevmo
J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 4 (2011) pages 241–255

A model for enhanced fusion reaction in a solid matrix of metal deuterides
Wednesday, June 08, 2011 10:14:09 PM · by Kevmo · 35 replies
International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2008 ^ | July 2008 | K P Sinha
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2732072/posts

Cold Fusion #1 Claims NASA Chief (Focardi & Rossi - not cold fusion but close enough)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2730240/posts
Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:56:09 AM · by Titus-Maximus · 52 replies

How to Prove that the Rossi/Focardi eCAT LENR is Real
LENR.QUMBO.com ^ | April 6, 2011 | Alan Fletcher
Posted on Sunday, June 05, 2011 7:52:15 PM by Kevmo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2730401/posts

How I Made Money from Cold Fusion
Saturday, January 23, 2010 12:28:49 PM · by Kevmo · 28 replies · 1,013+ views
Exclusive Article for Free Republic | 1/23/10 | Kevmo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2435697/posts

HOW TO SAVE OUR ECONOMY
Friday, December 31, 2010 1:57:41 AM · by Kevmo · 40 replies The American Reporter ^ | December 29, 2010 | Joe Shea
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2649712/posts

Re-Analysis of the Marinov Light-Speed Anisotropy Experiment
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2270920/posts
Friday, June 12, 2009 11:25:41 PM · by Kevmo · 27 replies · 1,027+ views
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0612/0612201v2.pdf ^ | Reginald T. Cahill

The Suppression of Inconvenient Facts in Physics
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2266921/posts
Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:50:26 PM · by Kevmo · 78 replies · 1,626+ views Suppressed Science.Net ^ | 12/06/08 | http://www.suppressedscience.net/

The End of Snide Remarks Against Cold Fusion
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2265914/posts
Friday, June 05, 2009 5:56:08 PM · by Kevmo · 95 replies · 1,770+ views
Free Republic, Gravitronics.net and Intrade ^ | 6/5/09 | kevmo, et al

‘Cold Fusion’ Rebirth? New Evidence For Existence Of Controversial Energy Source
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2212864/posts
Monday, March 23, 2009 12:42:14 PM · by FlameThrower · 35 replies · 1,586+ views
Science Daily ^ | Mar. 23, 2009 | American Chemical Society

[marktwain]

The future of nuclear is cold fusion.

As far as the E-Cat is concerned, we should know by the end of the year.

Would you agree with that assessment?

[Kevmo]

Would you agree with that assessment?

***Mostly.

There are always schedule slips in engineering, which I see every freeping day here in silicon valley. My own personal cutoff date for whether or not Rossi is real is November 2012, but that is based upon political wishful thinking that zer0bama does not get a chance to take credit for it.

I do feel strongly enough about Rossi’s Ecat that I would put money down to bet on it. So if anyone wants to take my money, just chime in at Intrade.

https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/492644.page

[marktwain]

I tried getting into Intrade, but found that participation had been banned by the U.S. government.

[marktwain]

You seem an intelligent and well intentioned person. Perhaps we can work something out that would be educational and not too painful.

I have a bet going with Matthew Bracken (AKA freeper Travis McGee) about whether a full capacity magazine ban will be signed into law by December of this year.

If you are interested, I will extend the offer to you:

I will send you a signed case of Matt’s new book, Castigo Cay, if there are E-cats commercially available and in independent hands, producing more power than is input into them by January, 2012.

If it does not happen, you can send me a case of the signed books.

A case of signed books costs $200. Here is the web site.

http://www.enemiesforeignanddomestic.com/order.htm

We pick a neutral, well respected freeper to judge whether the the E-cat is in fact producing power in independent hands.

I am open to negotiations on the terms.

[Kevmo]

Your terms are good enough but I’m not that interested in his book.

How about $200 worth of gas for my motorhome? Or beer?
Maybe $200 worth of Bevmo for Kevmo?

I suppose if the middleman freeper is trustworthy enough, he/she can be trusted with cash, plus maybe $20 for his/her efforts?

[RayChuang88]

The biggest advantage of France's nuclear power program is this: they standardized the design of the complete nuclear power plant--reactor building, control center and even the cooling towers--and essentially built "cookie cutter" nuclear powerplants all over that country. As such, a nuclear engineer trained to operate one reactor plant could operate almost any reactor plant in that country.

This is why I want the American liquid fluoride thorium reactor program to standardize on a single 750 to 1,000 MW reactor design with standardized reactor building and control center designs, and build several hundred "cookie cutter" reactor plants all over the USA.

As for the engineering challenges, when Oak Ridge National Laboratories built their test reactor back in the 1960's, the test unit--which is not much different than the modern LFTR proposed designs--successfully ran for five years straight with no undue engineering problems. As such, we know the engineering needed to scale up a LFTR to a 750 to 1,000 MW design.

[Kevmo]

Oops, I neglected to mention odds.

When I started trading my contract at Intrade I had 20:1 odds, and ended up most of my trades at about 2:1.

That’s the beauty of market based pricing. How do we cover that?

[marktwain]

Are you willing to give me odds? You seem very confident.

[Kevmo]

It’s not confidence. It’s about kicking the snipers back under the rocks they came from, because their mouth is so big but when the time comes to put up, they don’t. You don’t appear to be such a sniper, so I appreciate that.

Based on the level of invective towards LENR, you’d think they would give me 20:1 odds or 10:1. But last time around I only averaged ~3.3 to 1.

How I Made Money from Cold Fusion
Saturday, January 23, 2010 12:28:49 PM · by Kevmo · 28 replies · 1,013+ views
Exclusive Article for Free Republic | 1/23/10 | Kevmo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2435697/posts

So I would expect between 3:1 & 2:1 odds. Let me know if that works for you and how long such an offer would last.