Nuclear fusion power plants - why is it taking so long to make them?

[SpaceBear]

Hello everyone and happy new year!

I would like to ask why it takes so long to create nuclear fusion power plants.

The world's first nuclear fission power plant to generate electricity was started in 1954, some nine years after the nuclear fission bomb was detonated.
Now we are more than 50 years after the first nuclear fusion bomb was detonated and still, not even the test nuclear fusion plant was completed (ITER). The first nuclear fusion plant to supply energy to the grid will be after 2050 (PROTO), some almost 100 years since the first detonation of a thermonuclear bomb.
This is ridiculously slow. What takes them so long to make such power plants?

Thanks

 

[Vanadium 50]

This is ridiculously slow.

That's awfully judgmental, don't you think? Gunpowder was invented 1200 years ago and we don't have gunpowder-based power plants, do we? (Indeed, in the 1600's Huygens tried exactly that)

 

[SteamKing]

Hello everyone and happy new year!

I would like to ask why it takes so long to create nuclear fusion power plants.

The world's first nuclear fission power plant to generate electricity was started in 1954, some nine years after the nuclear fission bomb was detonated.
Now we are more than 50 years after the first nuclear fusion bomb was detonated and still, not even the test nuclear fusion plant was completed (ITER). The first nuclear fusion plant to supply energy to the grid will be after 2050 (PROTO), some almost 100 years since the first detonation of a thermonuclear bomb.
This is ridiculously slow. What takes them so long to make such power plants?

Thanks

The mechanics of fission and fusion are radically different, for one thing.

In order to produce a successful atomic bomb, a functional fission reactor was required to provide design information to construct the bomb and to produce the nuclear fuel used in more advanced weapons designs.

In order to produce a successful fusion bomb, it was not necessary to demonstrate fusion reactions in the lab, only to provide the requisite conditions, i.e. high temperatures, primarily, which made fusion reactions more likely to occur when a bomb was detonated.

In order to harness fusion reactions to produce electricity, the energy release must be gradual over time, something which is directly opposite of what makes for a successful fusion bomb. The development of methods and materials to contain the high temperature plasma used in most fusion designs has been the chief obstacle to constructing an efficient fusion reactor, i.e., a reactor which produces more energy than it consumes.

To emphasize, nuclear fission can occur at room temperature and otherwise normal conditions. Nuclear fusion requires either fantastically high temperatures, high pressure, or a combination of the two, like one would find at the center of a star, which conditions are much more difficult to produce and sustain on earth.

This also illustrates that even though some things seem like they should be capable of being invented or developed directly from another idea or ideas, invention doesn't always proceed on a fixed schedule.

 

[Vanadium 50]

And, in fact, we could have a fusion reactor today. Blow up a tiny bomb to melt a bunch of salt, and then extract the heat from the salt to drive a turbine. This technology exists. But you probably want to build it far away from people, and make sure that the bomb builder is someone you really, really trust.

 

[SpaceBear]

That's awfully judgmental, don't you think? Gunpowder was invented 1200 years ago and we don't have gunpowder-based power plants, do we? (Indeed, in the 1600's Huygens tried exactly that)

How much money anyone invested in the first century after the invention of gunpowder, in order to create a gunpowder-based power plant, in order to understand if it's possible or not to create such things?
And you can't compare nuclear fusion with gunpowder explosion. It is very well known that nuclear fusion can be used in a power plant to produce energy and heat - since a long time ago.

 

[SteamKing]

How much money anyone invested in the first century after the invention of gunpowder, in order to create a gunpowder-based power plant, in order to understand if it's possible or not to create such things?

The harnessing of electricity and the use of power plants for its generation came loooong after gunpowder was discovered.

The central electricity generation concept was only first developed and demonstrated a little over 130 years ago, in 1882 at the Pearl Street Station in New York City by Thomas Edison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Street_Station

Don't you know any general history of technology?

And you can't compare nuclear fusion with gunpowder explosion. It is very well known that nuclear fusion can be used in a power plant to produce energy and heat - since a long time ago.

It is widely thought that fusion can be used in a power plant to produce energy and heat, but for all the time and effort and money put into various fusion projects, it has not been demonstrated that a practical plant can be designed and built, let alone operated economically.

Like I mentioned previously, it is difficult, if not impossible, to invent on a schedule.

 

[SpaceBear]

This also illustrates that even though some things seem like they should be capable of being invented or developed directly from another idea or ideas, invention doesn't always proceed on a fixed schedule.

Thanks for your answer but I already had an idea how nuclear fusion works.

The development of methods and materials to contain the high temperature plasma used in most fusion designs has been the chief obstacle to constructing an efficient fusion reactor, i.e., a reactor which produces more energy than it consumes.

And it is not an obstacle anymore. ITER and Wendelstein 7-X already have those materials.

ITER has a cost of US$14 billion, which is some 70 times less than the cost of the war in Iraq.
Several rounds of quantitative easing (= printing money) in America have increased the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet—the value of the assets it holds—from less than $1 trillion in 2007 to more than $4 trillion now.
Bank of England has created £375bn in quantitative easing (QE); the Federal Reserve bought $1.25tn worth of mortgage-backed securities in its first round of QE;

So the materials are not the problem. Also money are not a problem - it's worth investing in it since it will help us save a lot of money by not buying oil and gas.
And then, what is the problem? What makes them move so slow like a snail?

 

[SpaceBear]

The harnessing of electricity and the use of power plants for its generation came loooong after gunpowder was discovered.

The central electricity generation concept was only first developed and demonstrated a little over 130 years ago, in 1882 at the Pearl Street Station in New York City by Thomas Edison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Street_Station

Don't you know any general history of technology?

Sorry you did not understood what I meant.
Once the nuclear fusion bomb was created, there idea of making a nuclear fusion power plant was quickly explored and invested into.
Once the gunpowder was invented, nobody invested or even explored the idea of creating energy and electricity for domestic use. Simply because electricity was not even invented yet.
So there are very good reasons why it took 400 years from the moment the gunpowder was invented to the moment when someone (Huygens) tried create a gunpowder powered plant.
Which is not the case with the nuclear fusion - electricity and power plants already existed at the time the nuclear fusion bomb was created and tested.

 

[SpaceBear]

Only the Catalan president Pujol has some 2 or 3 billion euros hidden in offshore accounts.
http://www.laprensasa.com/309_america-in-english/2762420_spanish-police-arrest-son-of-former-catalonian-president-in-corruption-probe.html

The 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds, according to a study released on Tuesday.

There are plenty of money out there to finance 100 projects like ITER in the same time. Investing more would not accelerate the process of creating nuclear fusion power plants?

 

[SteamKing]

Thanks for your answer but I already had an idea how nuclear fusion works.

And it is not anymore. ITER and Wendelstein 7-X already have those materials.

The people in charge of these projects think they have the materials, but as yet, neither of these projects has undergone any long-term testing to prove this assertion.

ITER has a cost of US$14 billion, which is some 70 times less than the cost of the war in Iraq.

Not relevant to this discussion. The US spent some $2 billion on the first atomic bomb project (equivalent to about $26 billion in current dollars) and it wasn't even looking to start generating electricity using a new method. BTW, the price of oil during the war was less than about $2.00 a barrel, even though demand went through the roof to support military operations.

Several rounds of quantitative easing (= printing money) in America have increased the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet—the value of the assets it holds—from less than $1 trillion in 2007 to more than $4 trillion now.
Bank of England has created £375bn in quantitative easing (QE); the Federal Reserve bought $1.25tn worth of mortgage-backed securities in its first round of QE;

[PLAIN]http://www.theguardian.com/c...-jeremy-corbyn-quantitative-easing-peoples-qe[/PLAIN]
Not sure what this has to do with making fusion power plants more widely available.

I could print a piece of paper which said "Worth US$1 trillion" on it and put it in my drawer at home. It doesn't mean I actually have $1 trillion to spend.

All that paper being held by the Federal Reserve is just that: paper. That money has been borrowed and spent already on other things. It can't be spent again until it is borrowed from someone or extracted in the form of higher taxes from the public.

So the materials are not the problem. Also money are not a problem - it's worth investing in it since it will help us save a lot of money by not buying oil and gas.
And then, what is the problem? What makes them move so slow like a snail?

I think you are minimizing the obstacles to the practical construction and operation of the ITER facility for one thing. Spending the money and having the materials on hand are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for a successful project to occur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

You may think ITER is something like a done-deal, but it's not. No one has ever constructed a closed containment device to handle fusing plasma before on this scale. The torus for the reaction chamber alone is more than 5000 tons of precisely manufactured sections, which is something that's not easy to guarantee perfect assembly in the field. There's a separate cryostat of almost 4000 tons which must be constructed for fuel storage.

Like I mentioned previously, it's thought that this device will work once it gets built, but no one AFAIK has ever tested anything even a fraction of its size.

Unlike fission power, which basically involves shooting neutrons at a hunk of fissile material, there are a number of competing theories and processes which promise fusion power, and the governments and agencies backing the research and development are understandably concerned that once chosen, a particular process might prove to be obsolete and be supplanted relatively quickly by another process.

As far as the Wendelstein device is concerned, it is still undergoing development and testing, just not on the scale of the tokamak being constructed for ITER.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X

 

[mathman]

Thanks for your answer but I already had an idea how nuclear fusion works.

And it is not an obstacle anymore. ITER and Wendelstein 7-X already have those materials.

ITER has a cost of US$14 billion, which is some 70 times less than the cost of the war in Iraq.
Several rounds of quantitative easing (= printing money) in America have increased the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet—the value of the assets it holds—from less than $1 trillion in 2007 to more than $4 trillion now.
Bank of England has created £375bn in quantitative easing (QE); the Federal Reserve bought $1.25tn worth of mortgage-backed securities in its first round of QE;

So the materials are not the problem. Also money are not a problem - it's worth investing in it since it will help us save a lot of money by not buying oil and gas.
And then, what is the problem? What makes them move so slow like a snail?

The main problem is the engineering, not money.

 

[SpaceBear]

All that paper being held by the Federal Reserve is just that: paper. That money has been borrowed and spent already on other things. It can't be spent again until it is borrowed from someone or extracted in the form of higher taxes from the public.

If they (governments, central banks) would have spent on research projects like this, it would have created jobs and increased the speed of research. And the money would have returned into economy in the form of taxes and wages. Instead, they give credits to all kind of companies who, instead of creating jobs and paying taxes, transfer the money into fiscal paradises, and like you point it out, the money has to be extracted again in the form of taxes, and that can't be done with the money hidden in fiscal paradises.

The main problem is the engineering, not money.

I understand.
So investing twenty times more the money (money that they can clearly afford) and involving twenty times more people into research and development would have no significant impact on the speed of developing and implementing nuclear fusion power plants. Twenty research teams working together surely can't discover things faster than a single one.
Because I never heard about research and development going faster and better when investing more money in it.
Thanks for making it clear to me.
So I suggest they should invest only 1-2 million $US in the future DEMO project, since the problem is only the engineering, not money. That would also save money for buying more oil. Or natural gas. Or coal.

Question: how fast the US would have developed the first atomic bomb if, instead of investing $2 billion, they would have invested only $200 million and if they would have hired only 10% of the specialists they did? Same speed they got with $2 billion?

 

[SteamKing]

If they (governments, central banks) would have spent on research projects like this, it would have created jobs and increased the speed of research. And the money would have returned into economy in the form of taxes and wages. Instead, they give credits to all kind of companies who, instead of creating jobs and paying taxes, transfer the money into fiscal paradises, and like you point it out, the money has to be extracted again in the form of taxes, and that can't be done with the money hidden in fiscal paradises.

I understand.
So investing twenty times more the money (money that they can clearly afford) and involving twenty times more people into research and development would have no significant impact on the speed of developing and implementing nuclear fusion power plants. Twenty research teams working together surely can't discover things faster than a single one.
Because I never heard about research and development going faster and better when investing more money in it.
Thanks for making it clear to me.
So I suggest they should invest only 1-2 million $US in the future DEMO project, since the problem is only the engineering, not money. That would also save money for buying more oil. Or natural gas. Or coal.

Question: how fast the US would have developed the first atomic bomb if, instead of investing $2 billion, they would have invested only $200 million and if they would have hired only 10% of the specialists they did? Same speed they did?

Your cynicism is clouding your judgement.

The Manhattan project succeeded because it was a national effort. The program received a priority allocation of men and material in order to be completed on time. But one of the surprising things about the project, which you have accidentally hit on, is that only about 10% of the total expenditure, coincidentally about $200 million, was actually devoted to uncovering the science behind the bomb. The vast majority of funds expended, or about 90% of that $2 billion, was spent on mundane things, like constructing the production reactors in Washington state to make plutonium and building the separation plants in Tennessee to produce U-235 isotope; in other words, the Manhattan Project was a gigantic civil engineering works project spread across the U.S. which just happened to make an atomic bomb. Put another way, it was also unnecessary, since both Japan and Germany abandoned their atomic projects before making significant progress toward developing a working bomb, or even a nuclear reactor. This is not to say that dropping the bombs on Japan didn't hasten the end of the war, but the conclusion to the conflict was foregone by the time the bombs were used.

People have always claimed that fusion reactors will be much cleaner than fission reactors because the former does not generate nuclear waste like the latter. That claim does not withstand scrutiny, since there are parts of a fusion reactor which undergo intense neutron bombardment when the reactor is operating. That can make a lot of regular material radioactive, which material must be disposed of carefully. At this point, no one is certain of the total cost of building and operating a fusion plant for an extended period of time, while the costs of building and operating conventional power plants are well-known.

 

[jim hardy]

Spacebear

did you as a kid never play the riddle
"If i make an acid that's strong enough to dissolve anything
whatever will i keep it in ?"

Fusion requires heating "stuff" to temperature hot enough to melt anything
so whatever are you going to keep it in ?
That's why they're trying magnetic fields, magnetism doesn't melt
but magnetic fields are squishy and the "stuff" leaks out.
And they've been trying to make a leakproof magnetic container since i was in high school
And that's why there's not yet a continuous duty fusion machine.
Well, except maybe the Farnsworth Fusor - but it doesn't make enough power to run itself.

Question: how fast the US would have developed the first atomic bomb if, instead of investing $2 billion, they would have invested only $200 million and if they would have hired only 10% of the specialists they did? Same speed they got with $2 billion?

You sound like a manager. Management types think if they put nine women on the job they can make a baby in one month.

Science types are still working on how to keep those big electromagnets from blowing up.
https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sti/4192221.pdf

Learn more about fusion.

 

[SteamKing]

You sound like a manger. Management types think if they put nine women on the job they can make a baby in one month.

Throwing manpower at a project which has fallen behind schedule often makes the project fall further behind schedule.

 

[gmax137]

If they (governments, central banks) would have spent on research projects like this, it would have created jobs and increased the speed of research.

Start voting for people who think this way. Convince your friends to vote for them too.

... Instead, they give credits to all kind of companies who, instead of creating jobs and paying taxes, transfer the money into fiscal paradises ...

Stop voting for these people.

 

[dlgoff]

Science types are still working on how to keep those big electromagnets from blowing up.
https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sti/4192221.pdf

Thanks for posting this report. Very interesting.

 

[jim hardy]

Question: how fast the US would have developed the first atomic bomb if, instead of investing $2 billion, they would have invested only $200 million and if they would have hired only 10% of the specialists they did? Same speed they got with $2 billion?

There are reports the Japanese developed one
but i don't know if on the budget you suggest

https://sites.google.com/site/naziabomb/home/japan-s-a-bomb-project][/PLAIN]
F-Go Navy Project

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) decided to create it's own Atomic bomb project in 1943. Known informally as the Kyoto Group, IJN funded a team around the maverick scientist Prof Arakatsu with 600,000 yen in March 1943.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) project to enrich Uranium 235 was led by rear Admiral Nitta Shigeru. Nitta worked closely during early stages of the project from 1942 to 1944 on isotope separation with Sakae Shimizu . Dr. Shimuzu developed F-Go’s gaseous Uranium centrifuges.

IJN’s centrifuges were developed by a company specialised in precision ship gyros, Hokushine Electric Company with assistance from Tokyo Keiki Electric Co. These were built under contract by heavy engineering firm Sumitomo. Centrifuges were constructed from Rare Earth metal alloys and spun at between 100,000 to 150,000 RPM. [9] ...
F-NZ Project

In June 1944, 308,488 Yen in funding were released via the Army Aviation Bureau for development of a nuclear weapon for the purpose of aerial attack against USA. It was given the cover name for funding purposes Kokudoryoku Keikaku (Project Aeropower). This project appears to have been the founding of F-NZ. Later on 6 December 1944 a further one Million Yen were released for this project. It is this project which seems to have amalgamated with efforts by the Japanese Navy. .....

Successful testing of Japan's A-bomb?

An article appeared in World War II Magazine (July 1995) by Al Hemingway that indicates indeed, that Japan may have exploded an atomic bomb on a tiny islet in the Sea of Japan on August 12, 1945. Hemmingway refers to a test also involving a cave.

David Snell reported that Kempetai Captain Tsetusuo Wakabayashi told him the test occurred just after Hiroshima was bombed. Wilcox gives an account from Snell that on 10 August 1945 an Atomic bomb was removed from a cave above Konan, transported to a robot launch. It is reported that at dawn 12 August 1945 the launch carrying the A-bomb device called Genzai Bakudan beached itself on a tiny island in the sea of Japan. The location of these islets is north of Wonsan in the Gulf of Yonghung-Man. Unfortunately the name of the individual island where the test occurred is not recorded.

It is known that a Japanese plan for an Atomic Bomb was drawn up in July 1943 and came into possession of the OSS. These plans were rediscovered in 2002 and were returned to Japan where the Japanese government now controls them. [19]

Here's that David Snell article from 1946

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AAAIBAJ&sjid=-2YFAAAAIBAJ&pg=942,188126&hl=en

for the general area
paste into google maps 39°07'57.9"N 127°44'36.7E

 

[gmax137]

I never heard that story (Japan A-bomb) before. The Wiki article is interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program

 

[jim hardy]

I can't vouch for it of course .
It sounds plausible.
If true there should be a crater someplace in that bay

where i lived in Florida Keys old WW2 bomb craters were good "lobster holes" .
Local kids should know.

 

[anorlunda]

So I suggest they should invest only 1-2 million $US in the future DEMO project, since the problem is only the engineering, not money. That would also save money for buying more oil. Or natural gas. Or coal.

Invest your own money. If you don't have it, then your suggestions about how others should invest are not welcome.

Any investment has to compete with all other possible investments. Money that could be invested in fusion for example, could also be invested in an Angry Birds app, or anything else. Even a corporation in the energy business can choose how to divide their investments between fossil fuels, solar, wind, nuclear, batteries, conservation, and many others. Think of General Electric for example. When I worked for GE, light bulbs was their cash cow. GE expanded into aircraft engines, GE credit financial stuff, and even NBC TV, and medical electronics. They survive by constantly reinventing themselves.

If investors have failed (in your opinion) to invest enough money and engineering in fusion, it is because they like their ideas better than yours.

 

[mathman]

If there was a Japanese test, the test side would be contaminated with lots of radioactive debris. If the site exists it would have been found. That makes the whole story suspicious. I have never heard of any such site.

 

[Bernie G]

Maybe Tokamaks and inertial containment are impractical. Tokamaks may be inherently unstable and as of yet stellarators haven't produced much power.

 

[jim hardy]

That makes the whole story suspicious. I have never heard of any such site.

so far as i can tell that one interview with the escaped Japanese scientist is the only firsthand account of such a test
more legible transcription here
http://www.reformation.org/atlanta-constitution.html

so it's tenuous.

I do believe they were working on a bomb project in Konan, now Hamnung.
It's well documented that German submarine U234 was transporting canisters marked U235 (to the crew's amusement) and two Japanese Naval officers to Japan when the war ended. Not wanting to risk being turned over to Russians by the British they sailed to the US to surrender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-234

This video includes two old men who claim to have worked on Japan's enrichment and bomb projects.

The older American with the beard was my freshman chemistry prof in whom i have quite a bit of confidence.

So as i said - it's plausible.
No known living witnesses, .
You'd think some local villagers would remember hearing of it from parents who saw it.

So it's only plausible.

 

[Drakkith]

I would like to ask why it takes so long to create nuclear fusion power plants.

The basic reason, at least in my opinion, is that the nuclei don't want to fuse in the first place. There is a HUGE repulsive force between nuclei and designing a device that can contain a multi-million degree plasma populated by ions undergoing fusion is really, really hard. This is very different from a fission reactor. In fission, the nuclei already want to fission. They would eventually split even without our help. Indeed it's harder to keep this reaction from happening too fast in some circumstances than it is to create it in the first place. I mean, I can create a rudimentary fission reactor in my back yard by literally throwing a bunch of U-235 into a 55 gallon drum (okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration).

Fusion requires heating "stuff" to temperature hot enough to melt anything
so whatever are you going to keep it in ?
That's why they're trying magnetic fields, magnetism doesn't melt
but magnetic fields are squishy and the "stuff" leaks out.

Yep. Like using rubber bands to hold jelly.

 

[SpaceBear]

Invest your own money. If you don't have it, then your suggestions about how others should invest are not welcome.

In fact, it is my own money. The money the governments are collecting from the tax I (and many others) am paying.

Start voting for people who think this way. Convince your friends to vote for them too.
Stop voting for these people.

In fact I am going to create a political party as soon as I find enough people interested to join. A democratic party (i.e. participatory democracy), unlike 99.99% of the existing political parties at this moment.

I knew very well that fusion is very hard to obtain. But the amount of money invested (by the governments) is ridiculously low, considering how important this project is. And also, by a strange coincidence, the first commercial nuclear fusion plant is going to be functional somewhat after the oil reserves of the planet are going to be depleted. What a world full of surprising coincidence!