If you actually want an informative watch for tonight, i just stumbled upon this tech talk from MIT
Currently, ITER, which is a multinational fusion power research project, is under construction and it is thought out as a proof of concept for a massive reactor, it is however very expensive and on a long term timeframe
MIT, however, is trying to make a smaller, less powerful, more efficient type of reactor encasing (using a tokamak core) The design by their team implements several really significant breakthroughs for the whole field Optimizing volume, heat transfer and overall operational expenses is like priority number 1, since fusion tech is pretty much well studied already, and this design checks lots of goal - boxes
As a good murican institution, MIT is actually striving for privately-funded reactors ... thoughts?
I just saw this video a few days ago, and it sent me on a several hour internet search rampage. Looks very promising. I guess the idea is to stop trying to build big billion dollar fusion reactors to do experiments, and keep them small. Once they get small ones working, then spend the money to make big ones. The teams around the world working on this are very close to sustaining the reactions, at least in the tokamak style reactors.
http://www.iter.org/mach Sorry to crash your party, but ITER is planned to house a tokamak reactor. 23Kt (kilo tons = 1000t) is not that heavy for a system of that size. Your average turbine+generator combo for nuclear and coal powerplants comes in at 5Kt allready.
The problem of the tokamak design is that it uses force to contain the plasma instead of using design. Wendelstein 7-X on the other hand uses design. Read on it here: http://www.ipp.mpg.de/16900/w7x
I am yet to watch the video, so I leave this blurred out for the moment. I once heared a talk on powerplants, especially powerplant sub systems. The ITER project and Wendelstein 7-X were stated as being "to big of a project" by some random reporter. The outcry in the room was huge. Most people see a number with some fancy addition at the end (K, M, G, T but also m, u, or n) and get excited, start spreading false and inaccurate information.
Yeah I knew about that report, I honestly found it crass but quite a true statement I personally dont really agree with ITER's criteria of "not too big" When such a project is assembled, it requires so many resources in such a large quantity that it results impossible for a single nation to achieve success on its own. This exposes it to international tensions, lack of funding on the long run, and of course critical, expensive failures. Surely a lot of useful things will come out of ITER runtime, but at what cost? Decades more of wait?
Instead, striving for efficiency, lower power (relatively speaking, we are talking fusion here) and lower size is a rather progressive approach. Having a power huge reactor restricts progress and adoption rate of the new technology. When everything is said and done, and reliable reactor designs are open to the global community, then they'll have to adapt them to work in smaller scales. MIT is simply accelerating the process by developing optimizations on known models, creating new reactor designs, today.
I think thats the right way to go. Colossal energy levels at an unreachable price are pointless if you cant make it small and efficient, and community affordable (at a national level). If we are ever to power space exploration and carbon-free energy on earth, then reactor sizes must come down, A LOT down.
EDIT: I wrote about the tokamak MIT is using, and referred to it as a new core. I was wrong about it, it is indeed a very known and studied core type, same as stellarators (like the Wendelstein) but the actual interesting bit i actually intended to present was the encasing size and modular design to house the tokamak. You correctly commented then, that most designs used brute force to contain neutrons, and IMO going away from that concept is a far better approach to reactor design. I concur there
Things we got from expensive experiments: -Rockets -Semiconducters -Internet -Fertilizers -portable electronics
"International tensions" are BS in the first place. Why is it important how the piece of dirt you were born on was called? Like, AT ALL?! Lack of funding never stopped anyone. ITER Tokamak is planned to start in 2052 if I am not mistaking.
Again, technicalls I do not want to talk about.
500MW is not that big. I was once visited a coal powerplant in Germany that has peak power of 1,400MW. Tokamak will be about one third of that.
The rest before your edit: The first step is allways slow, expensive and time consuming. For cars, ships, cpus, gpus, chemical plants and power plants. The LHC at CERN is a huge experiment aswell. It is expensive, consumes tons of electrical power and labor. Have we seen anything from that yet in public or coorporate use? I don´t think so. 1 Mrd (that is a biliion in the US) Euro per year budget for CERN. Latest greatest hit is the Internet and some advances in nano fabrication yet to be used in public.
Houseing Neutrons is surprisingly easy, you just need something very dense, like lead. Lead is heavy and so is the reactor.
Generall point about full-scale tests: Designing and testing on full scale has the advantage that you have your core components directly in place. If something works, you can keep that component or sub-system in place and tweak other systems. Sometimes models and simulations fail to represent real behaviour. Going small scale or full scale is your only option then (example: crash tests. Simulations have been done, still you are going to wreck some cars). They are expensive. Because it is a test, it is the first time and it is full-scale. Every of those three points eats money for every meal.
Having the Stellarator and Tokamak compete is a good thing. That will boost efficency during the whole process. If I ever have word or vote in this technology, I will vote for "let the games begin". Competition, as you stated, is the best way to bring down cost and size while boosting the whole complex (=system).
My view on things: Fusion will eventually replace Fission. The question is when. For now wind is a good alternative. The technolgy works on- and offshore, we got HVDC (=High Voltage Direct Current) to transfer power over long distances under water and underground (which will make people happy who apperently like nuclear waste better than power lines) and we got a technology to buffer the grid (speaking millisecond long demand spikes) using flywheels and we can use excess electrical power to generate hydrogen which can be piped into existing gass grids.
Well my whole point WAS technical ._. That and how huge projects are indeed vulnerable. Nation pride is not the point, the point is compromise between people ("leaders") that, unlike you or I, dont really give a shit about science. And when it comes to energy and money production, said people lose their shit.
Also, im not saying huge projects dont give anything useful. On the contrary, thats an amazing, comendable venture. Just as LHC/ATLAS, it will help develop newer technologies. ITER is an experiment, it will probably yield results about plasma stability, which is a field that still needs work But it is most definetely not a solution for the global energy needs, the solutions come from smaller, affordable reactors that actual nations can implement in their energy policies ...
Neutron capture DOES NOT NEED to be as heavy, using lead and high density concrete. Research on fission already told us: a liquid sheet, that acts as a heat sink, as the transfer fuild for turbines and is an inherently more reliable and serviceable device. Just adapt that fluid to work with new enerty levels.
Also, traditional superconductors. The video mentioned a new kind of material, and an assembly process to get strands/sheets. That material increases the efficiency by simply increasing a factor on the Fusion Gain equation. The more Teslas (mag field intensity) you can get, the fusion you sustain becomes more estable and loses less energy in collisions. By continuing to use traditional superconductors, ITER is forced to work under lots of strain on their contention, and generating the same 450MW of net power (and around 200MW of actual electricity on the grid) which is, as you said, little when compared with other traditional plants, but the costs are perhaps hundreds of times higher. Since economics rules this world, that's not gonna work, and ITER's work will have to be polished later on. All im saying, is that MIT is doing that work now.
EDIT: im getting the sense that you think im from the US. Im not. Im from a third-world ass country: Chile.
Then I will come back to this later. Need to think about it a bit more.
Everything below this is WIP
I still don´t care where you live. As I don´t know anything about Chile apart from it being in on the west of South Amarica, I keep this discussion in "universal mode".
Scientists and Engineers are working at ITER. Economy and politics stand behind them because someone saw potential of some kind. I can only guess because I don´t know. I once had the pleasure to talk to Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Heuer (he is/was director at CERN). He said he does not know if any experiment at CERN, including the creation of Anti-Water (2 anti-Hydorgen and 1 anty-Oxygen) or the LHC experiments (Atlas is only one of them), will ever get something usefull. He stated that ITER will get results either way, the only question is, if the results will answer the initial question.
Going full technical now: Material stress will be enormous! Red hot steel touching water will get brittle. Now imagine taking a 800°C (melting point of most common steels) hot piece of steel (probably some high titanium-molybdaenum steel) and cooling it to 200°C on an instant. I say it shatters or at least looses all structural integrity. That is what we are talking here. Water is in vapor form after 100°C, there is no liquid to block neutrons from escaping anymore. I would need actuall numbers to say anything about thermal stress on the frame to hold the ceramic panels, but kudos to which ever highly specialiced mill can manufacuter that! Lead would be somewhat solid, but you would have to cool it (water?). Concrete is not the solution to situations where it is exposed to high temperature differences.
I have seen the superconductor "cords" used to hook up the LHC magnets at CERN. I might have a picture of it... Turns out I don´t. Shame on me!
That is a cut through a piece of accelerator magent. On the right, imbedded in the yellow stuff in the grey-ish color. That is copperfabric coated with a superconducting ceramic. If you want to know more about this thing, ask ;)
The expected net power is 500MW. Let´s be a bit sceptic and say 450MW. That is it! 450MW electrical! You said net yourself. Total energy the reactor needs to dumb somewhere: No clue, not a single one!
ITER is a project, one reactor will be tokamak. Maybe they add a Stellerator later. The EU stands behind that thing and the CERN is ready to storm the castle in case the project gets abandoned.
From my infantile understanding of physics - fusion only takes place in environments on the scale of the sun. It is going to be very difficult to sustain an environment like that on earth - let alone getting past the monumental task of even being able to create that environment.
It seems to me our pursuit of fusion is a huge waste of resources.
I think the point that the MIT guy in the video was making, was that there were some roadblocks to getting fusion up and working quickly. The first was creating a strong enough magnetic field that could contain a sustained reaction for months or years at a time. He then points out this issue has been resolved thanks to new superconductive electromagnets that can double the field strengths. The second major point was that projects like ITER were huge, and billions are being invested in them, and they will take ages to get them running. Unless my ears are stuffed full of $hit, I heard him say that the way to get this technology going fast is to make smaller scale models of designs that don't cost billions, and when the kinks are worked out, then we can make bigger models. He imagined it being more on the scale of a kick-starter funding campaign. I know the legal ramifications of a kick-starter with this stuff would be iffy, but he did make sense. Start small to verify, then think about going big. If they do get a room-sized reactor going and keep the candle lit for a week or 2, they will instantly have no more funding problems. I can't believe our government or private corporate giants aren't working on this already. In fact, I can't believe it so much that I'd be willing to bet they are. The only real hitch I see isn't if they will fire one up for real within a couple years, but companies are going to have to fight it out to see who gets to sell it to us at a profit. http://www.tokamakenergy.co.uk/
Dont worry cotton Its not actually that difficult to understand, its rather simple, using some physics principles
So fusion right, "temperature as high as sun's" Thats the easy part. The lasers used in this generation of physics can actually heat up your fusion fuel far hotter than that. Using the sun as a reference is not realistic, since its massive it gives the impression of not being achievable. Here on earth we can make smaller quantities of material, far hotter than the sun's core.
The trick is containing that plasma. The sun has its own gravity and massive magnetic fields from the plasma's ions flowing everywhere, in order to keep that plasma under control. We cant recreate the gravity, but we can use magnetism. Since the reaction is far far smaller than the one inside the sun, giant electromagnets can create a capsule from which ions cannot escape. And that is already achieved, with several different reactor designs.
The greater issue however, are the fusion products. Besides ludicrous -speed- energy, fusion creates lots and lots of neutrons that ionize matter, and break down everything. Since no one actually like to be exposed to that, containing a neutron shower is the difficult part. Concrete and lead do work, but they are heavy and need to be replaced every once in a while, causing downtimes and cost/efficiency issues, and also increasing the reactor's weight and size, making it harder to build and service.
Thats about the long and short of it. Fusion is actually really really advanced nowadays
Yeah, material stress is quite the challenge for ITER, and no wonder why Neutrons are known to destabilize (ionize) matter and give you literal cancer. So that's the actual breakthrough the video was about, it blew my goddamn mind Lead encasings too heavy right? and the ceramic plating they use doesnt respond well to neutron bombardment. What MIT suggests is using a liquid, not water, in order to achieve vacuum seal and also reduce weight. This particular liquid: catches neutrons (molten salt, similar to the one they use for Fission) and has very low thermal resistance (excellent heatsink) but can also remain liquid at 1700 kelvin, and that stored energy is then soaked into regular water for your turbine in an interchanger, thanks to having also a high thermal conductivity Again, this blew my goddamn mind.
About the superconductive material ... no shame on you, those resources are hard to come by. But by that picture, the superconductor is easy to mistake for a massively thick cable like an old-school one, but the actual conductive material in use today is based on layers and layers of alloys, arranged in tubes coated by ceramics and lead. Im not sure about LHC, but for a fusion reactor they need to change the coating constantly (due to neutron damage). What I gathered from the MIT talk, is that the new sheet superconductor they propose is based purely on metals (no ceramics) but, overall, has the same basic principles. One difference is the implementation, using several sheets squashed together (like in a car clutch) they can create joints more easily than with a single tube like shape, allowing you to "play" the geometry of the system without adding much resistance to the circuit. Enables you to rethink reactor design Another difference is the core material. They found out that using your already known alloys, like the ones you listed, works well, but by adding a center layer of a Rare Earth Barium-Copper Oxide, you reduce the required mass to drive the same intensity with no losses.
About the last bit, yeah indeed the most difficult part is not the reactor itself, but its contention and how to create one that also allows you to attach a turbine to create electricity. That's where the actual challenge is, and what MIT's SPARC project intends to improve.
However it seems pretty clear we can go all renewable if we stop making war and start building infrastructure for the future. All these leaders say renewable is too expensive but going to war that's cheap ?
Clearly our leaders dont give a flying fuck at all. Just give it lip service and token commitments.
Sure enough, you're right about the war part. However there are still challenges, specially about the continuity of zero-carbon power Wind farms and solar power sites are very very good at providing lots of power, you simply need to scale the system. The difficult part is to create a continuous stream of power, constant voltage is NOT easy to achieve Power delivered by these systems is VERY variable and not at all reliable all the time Unless we could create battery cells to contain ALL TEH POWAH (not gonna happen) and release it later under modulation, then solar/wind are NOT viable to sustain the whole grid by themselves.
That's why they havent taken over yet. Scaling the system is easy, making solar power at night or when there's no wind, that's impossible Unless you want to fry every component in the grid due to voltage differences
They are currently relegated to an assisting role, since they cant just provide variable voltage all the time, power converters on cities cant handle that variance and neither can the ever so critical grid. They help when they can, so we can shut down a coal plant or two for a few hours, which is of course a positive thing, but as of today, we cant go 100% solar
Well difficult is not a problem for man when he puts his mind to it. Solar molten salt power is 24/7 and instead of one huge plant there is no problem distributing it with several plants.
Well as our world leaders just dont want to. People when asked about climate change and future for their children and humanity care. Our leaders just dont care. There lobbied by big energy and cave.
And I dont mind nuclear power. Its way cleaner than coal.
Yeah im definitely with you there. Governments are quite nearly sociopathic about mantaining their power and greed, lobby is their god
And nuclear power, both fission and fusion are way cleaner if managed correctly Hell, some of the latest research coming from Germany resulted in a fission reactor with nuclear debris of only around 100 years half life, thats like nothing compared with the fission reactors people usually asociate with nuclear power.
The cost of science is always far less than not doing science. Always. If you don't believe that here is a simple example. Email is cheap. Mailing a letter isn't. As for fusion the problem has never been getting it started. That's easy. The problem has been how the hell do we prevent it from blowing up. As in how do we control the reactions. That's not easy to do. Besides it all boils down to boiling water. How crazy is that to think about. All this crazy science shit and it's all to boil water.
i read somthing abot this a year ago, somthing about using liquid helium to cool the electro magnets (like an MRI) to get the magnetic field strong anuff to work. but it will be anuther 20 years be for this approch is adopted, red tape and funding are the road blocks.
Why not extend the grids, make one mega grid (in Europe, that is an easy thing to do)? Surely there will be wind somewhere in Europe. Just need to get the power from A to B. Chemical Batterys are not going to solve any problem. They are just to slow, need ages to react to changes in demand. 100% solar does not even make sense. 100% Wind with international links between grids makes much more sense (Wind blows at night).
Not really. The mines contaminate their surroundings no matter what you mine. One solution just works with toxic stuff from start to finish and the other one dumbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Look at the picture I posted. The upper most copper pipe normaly contains liquid He. The problem is temperature stress on the materials as you got really cold next to insanely hot.
