Are fusion power plants feasible for widespread use?

In summary: The fusion process has yet to be perfected. There are various efforts ongoing, particular the international program, ITER, near Cadarache.
  • #1
Ansuman
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Nuclear power plant which use of fission process have been made but why not fusion power plants, what affect its feasibility ??
 
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  • #2
This is an active area of research.
So far, nobody has been able to produce a controlled fusion reaction that outputs the same (or more) energy than it uses. A quick google will show you lots of things that have been and are being tried.
 
  • #3
Simon Bridge said:
This is an active area of research.
So far, nobody has been able to produce a controlled fusion reaction that outputs the same (or more) energy than it uses. A quick google will show you lots of things that have been and are being tried.

It is thought to require millions of degrees for several seconds.
 
  • #4
Ansuman said:
Nuclear power plant which use of fission process have been made but why not fusion power plants, what affect its feasibility ??
The fusion process has yet to be perfected.

There are various efforts ongoing, particular the international program, ITER, near Cadarache.
www.iter.org - ITER is under construction in southern France adjacent to the CEA Cadarache Research Centre, located in the commune of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance.

http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/ - Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK

http://www.pppl.gov/ - Princeton, NJ, US

https://fusion.gat.com/global/Home - General Atomic, CA, US

and others

Most experimental systems have been exploring ways to heat and stabilize the plasma. Along the way, they have also discovered the challenges of confining plasmas long enough to sustain a fusion reaction.

Other attempts have been made with inertial confinement, which currently looks pretty dismal. https://lasers.llnl.gov/
 
  • #5
It is thought to require millions of degrees for several seconds.
Muon catalyzed fusion does not require such high temperatures - it's use for power generation keeps coming up but afaik nobody has made much headway. The trouble there is that muons don't last and they cost a lot to make.
 
  • #6
Astronuc said:
The fusion process has yet to be perfected.

There are various efforts ongoing, particular the international program, ITER, near Cadarache.
www.iter.org - ITER is under construction in southern France adjacent to the CEA Cadarache Research Centre, located in the commune of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance.

http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/ - Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK

http://www.pppl.gov/ - Princeton, NJ, US

https://fusion.gat.com/global/Home - General Atomic, CA, US

and others

Most experimental systems have been exploring ways to heat and stabilize the plasma. Along the way, they have also discovered the challenges of confining plasmas long enough to sustain a fusion reaction.

Other attempts have been made with inertial confinement, which currently looks pretty dismal. https://lasers.llnl.gov/
but these r only 4 experimental purpose and can't be used for energy production ( googled some stuff )...anyway thanks for the help.
 
  • #7
Ansuman said:
but these r only 4 experimental purpose and can't be used for energy production ( googled some stuff )...anyway thanks for the help.
Yes - they are ongoing research programs. The objective has been, and still is, to develop fusion to the point where it is commercially viable. That objective has proved elusive over the last 6 decades. If it was so simple, we'd have commercial fusion plants.

Sustained confinement of fusion plasmas has not yet been achieved such that fusion is ready for commercial application. The research has however been moving in that direction, albeit rather slowly. The objective of ITER is to approach the minimum conditions for sustainable fusion, however, it could very well fall short of commercial viability.
 
  • #8
Simon Bridge said:
This is an active area of research.
So far, nobody has been able to produce a controlled fusion reaction that outputs the same (or more) energy than it uses. A quick google will show you lots of things that have been and are being tried.

i understood that it requires about 10 million K to initiate a fusion reaction but since the energy output is not high as the input it would not initiate further reactions...so what is meant uncontrollable reaction

To explain my doubt-
Suppose energy input for fusion= x
and energy output = y
and as I have found on google x>y, as technology developed till now allows
hence the output from one reaction would not b sufficient to initiate another reaction since required energy will be x but energy available will be y only

so there is no need of controlling it unlike fission reactors where moderators are used to slow down neutrons...isn't it
 
  • #9
Astronuc said:
Yes - they are ongoing research programs. The objective has been, and still is, to develop fusion to the point where it is commercially viable. That objective has proved elusive over the last 6 decades. If it was so simple, we'd have commercial fusion plants.

Sustained confinement of fusion plasmas has not yet been achieved such that fusion is ready for commercial application. The research has however been moving in that direction, albeit rather slowly. The objective of ITER is to approach the minimum conditions for sustainable fusion, however, it could very well fall short of commercial viability.

so after these all experiments have been done, is there any chance to use the same technology to make commercially viable plants in near future
 
  • #10
Ansuman said:
so after these all experiments have been done, is there any chance to use the same technology to make commercially viable plants in near future
If ITER is successful, then perhaps there is a chance - depending on how successful the experiment is.
 
  • #11
Ansuman said:
but these r only 4 experimental purpose and can't be used for energy production ( googled some stuff )...anyway thanks for the help.
The question asked was "why not fusion plants" and these examples show you why not.
Ansuman said:
i understood that it requires about 10 million K to initiate a fusion reaction but since the energy output is not high as the input it would not initiate further reactions...so what is meant uncontrollable reaction
I'm making a (somewhat glib) reference to thermonuclear weapons. This approach to getting a fusion reaction works but is not feasible for power generation for, hopefully, obvious reasons.

Anyway - you don't have to have a chain reaction for the a thing to be uncontrollable.
Women and cats spring to mind...
 
  • #12
Simon Bridge said:
Muon catalyzed fusion does not require such high temperatures - it's use for power generation keeps coming up but afaik nobody has made much headway. The trouble there is that muons don't last and they cost a lot to make.
... muons cost a lot of energy to make, relative to the energy resulting from the fusion process.
 
  • #13
Astronuc said:
Along the way, they have also discovered the challenges of confining plasmas long enough to sustain a fusion reaction.
Joint European Torus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus
"Lifetime of the plasma: 5–30 s"
This is more than enough. For ITER this parameter should be even longer.
The problem more in the achievable temperature. As density is also enough but reactivity of plasma is still low due to low temperature achieved.

ITER has projected Plasma Internal Energy about 520 MJ and total Heating Power about 70 MW. Neglecting energy losses they need 520 / 70 = 7.4 sec for increasing internal energy till required value.
More power will turn TOKAMAK out from stability area. That is a real problem.

Also neutral beam injection NBI is technically inconvenient for practical reactors way as assumes the direct connection of gas filled "neutralizer" with vacuum camera (reactor vessel).
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~bd512//teaching/media/mcf_lecture_08.pdf See Figure on page 19
 
  • #14
Joseph Chikva said:
Joint European Torus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus
"Lifetime of the plasma: 5–30 s"
This is more than enough. For ITER this parameter should be even longer.
The problem more in the achievable temperature. As density is also enough but reactivity of plasma is still low due to low temperature achieved.

ITER has projected Plasma Internal Energy about 520 MJ and total Heating Power about 70 MW. Neglecting energy losses they need 520 / 70 = 7.4 sec for increasing internal energy till required value.
More power will turn TOKAMAK out from stability area. That is a real problem.

Also neutral beam injection NBI is technically inconvenient for practical reactors way as assumes the direct connection of gas filled "neutralizer" with vacuum camera (reactor vessel).
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~bd512//teaching/media/mcf_lecture_08.pdf See Figure on page 19
30 s does not a commercially viable reactor make. Try 30 days, then 30 months, and even 30 years with a capacity of greater than 0.90, and preferably greater than 0.95.
 
  • #15
Astronuc said:
30 s does not a commercially viable reactor make. Try 30 days, then 30 months, and even 30 years with a capacity of greater than 0.90, and preferably greater than 0.95.
TOKAMAKs always (from the beginning till now) was thought as pulse machines. Recall that current required there for creation of poloidal field is an induced current and therefore is a pulse current.
But now modern TOKAMAKs start driving current by conventional for them induction mode and then current is driven by neutral particles beam (the so called "beam driven current").
This allows prolongation of pulse (desired goal in 70s of last century was about 1 s, Lawson criterion (double product) was counted as IIRC 1.5E20 sec/m3 and this parameter has been achieved) and also allows running in so called “H-mode” (high confinement mode discovered in IIRC 1986 in German TOKAMAK.
ITER is indented for longer pulse then 30 sec - approximately 1000 sec. But in either way machine is indented to run "pulse by pulse" or "shot by shot".
As result pulse neutrons flux bombard lithium blanket with releasing more energy from "n+Li6" reaction from where coolant takes that energy for running e.g. then steam turbines in nonstop mode.
 
  • #16
mheslep said:
Simon Bridge said:
Muon catalyzed fusion does not require such high temperatures - it's use for power generation keeps coming up but afaik nobody has made much headway. The trouble there is that muons don't last and they cost a lot to make.
... muons cost a lot of energy to make, relative to the energy resulting from the fusion process.
Just in case someone thought I meant the dollar cost? Fair enough.

I didn't want to write too much in case nobody was interested. Considering the rest of the thread - it seems nobody is :) I suppose readers should also be aware that the experimental break-even point is just where energy in matches energy out ... a power reactor needs to do better if it is to provide it's own operating power, and a commercially viable reactor even better since it has to make a profit.

I was more interested in pointing to an example of low-temp fusion that wasn't junk science.

Fusion does not have to involve very high temperatures but:
1. the high temperature projects look like they have more promise these days
2. there is a lot of junk and pseudo-science around low-temp fusion ideas to trap the unwary investor.
 
  • #17
Simon Bridge said:
I'm making a (somewhat glib) reference to thermonuclear weapons. This approach to getting a fusion reaction works but is not feasible for power generation for, hopefully, obvious reasons.

Not all fusion research is for power. More than a few fusion dollars go into weapons research. For example it is the main mission of NIF fusion lab in America. I wonder what percentage of the total fusion budget is split this way.
 
  • #18
d3mm said:
Not all fusion research is for power. More than a few fusion dollars go into weapons research. For example it is the main mission of NIF fusion lab in America. I wonder what percentage of the total fusion budget is split this way.
Power generation is much significant challenge than task of improvement (and not creation) of weapons that never be used and huge inventory of which is already in existence.
Simply, low energy efficiency of today's lasers (not more than 1%) defines impossibility for NIF program to enter in power generation sector. Simply you should pump into the laser 100 J for pulse energy 1 J that goes to the thermonuclear target (hohlraum) which at Q=5 gives you fusion energy 5 J which then should be converted into the electricity with 50-60% of efficiency. So, in the best case spending 100 J you gain 2.5-3 J.
We need go two ways for laser inertial fusion:
1. To improve efficiency of laser at least on order of magnitude
2. To improve Q factor of hohlraum on 1, 2 and better 3 orders of magnitude.
Both these ways have some difficulties and at today's level of technology have very limited opportunities of further improvement.
But people involved in NIF say that they can simulate the weapon. And they've got financing from the DOD in excess of DOE. I think that only this is the reason why NIF is considered as weapon program.
 
  • #19
There are lots of reasons to study fusion besides energy production and weapons development - but I bet those are the big payers.
 
  • #20
Simon Bridge said:
There are lots of reasons to study fusion besides energy production and weapons development - but I bet those are the big payers.
I doubt on "a lot".
There is one reasonable at least for me reason why NIF is considered as weapon program – less promising for power generation approach found some financing from the DOD.
And there are many other examples of financing of useless things by Governmental organizations.

Can you mention one more reason of usage fusion except power generation or weapon?
Space traveling? Actual?

We live in the end of oil era, when risk of big nuclear conflicts are neglectable with increasing risks of asymmetric conflicts in which technology advanced countries fight with outdated combatants and therefore only power generation is significant for us today.
Because of it DOE and similar other organizations are the best payers. And not for example NASA and DOD.
DOE pays billions, DOD millions, while NASA thousands.
That is only priorities issue.
 
  • #21
Joseph Chikva said:
TOKAMAKs always (from the beginning till now) was thought as pulse machines. ...
ITER is indented for longer pulse then 30 sec - approximately 1000 sec. But in either way machine is indented to run "pulse by pulse" or "shot by shot".
...
By pulse do you mean a repetitive pulse operation with some reasonable duty cycle? If so, no major tokamak has been run like that, nor will ITER. Normal operation is one shot for some seconds, then days or months until the next.

Among other problems, no tokamak has ever generated sufficient tritium from a blanket to maintain its own operation, nor will ITER.
 
  • #22
mheslep said:
By pulse do you mean a repetitive pulse operation with some reasonable duty cycle? If so, no major tokamak has been run like that, nor will ITER. Normal operation is one shot for some seconds, then days or months until the next.
ITER is not commercial reactor. Yes, commercial reactor should repetitive pulse operation: 1000 sec pulse and very soon the following shot and so on.
Why they need days months? I doubt about "months", but "days" - may be.
Simply, neutral beam injection compiles of gas filled chamber directly connected with vacuum chamber with the help of long pipe called "atom conductor" in Russian. I do not know English term.
And for keepng vacuum they coat internal surface of that pipe with titanium adsorbers and cool that pipe down to cryogenic temperatures. Then after each shot they should desorb gas form the walls heating them.
This design is less practical for commercial reactors but if we would find the way how to heat plasma quickly and how to drive the current after the end of induced pulse without NBI beam, TOKAMAKs are viable right now. As they provide enough plasma density long enough time.
And I have an idea how.
 
  • #23
Joseph Chikva said:
... Why they need days months? I doubt about "months", but "days" - may be.
I should have said typical experimental performance to date, not 'normal'.

TOKAMAKs are viable right now. As they provide enough plasma density long enough time.
Viability implies a demonstrated long operation time, something greater than few seconds, or a high duty cycle for shorter pulses. So far, no tokamak has even remotely approached those conditions.
 
  • #24
Joseph Chikva said:
I doubt that "a lot".
Can you mention one more reason of usage fusion except power generation or weapon?
Space traveling? Actual?
I said study not "use", but, since you asked for just one... muon catalyzed fusion is used to build large nuclei for study.
 
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  • #25
mheslep said:
I should have said typical experimental performance to date, not 'normal'.


Viability implies a demonstrated long operation time, something greater than few seconds, or a high duty cycle for shorter pulses. So far, no tokamak has even remotely approached those conditions.
Brothers Right too demonstrated flight only on some hundred meters, then offered their flying toy to USA army from which they naturally refused. Some people have seen that the concept worth for further development. As result today the main strike force of any advanced army is aviation and civilian aviation.
Together with demonstration of low repetition rate of modern experimental TOKAMAKs, defining as I have already explained you by necessity to desorb “atom conductor’s” walls, TOKAMAK concept – the combination of toroidal and poloidal fields to confine plasma has also demonstrated enough double product – on several orders of magnitude higher then first machines.
In principle, first machines having not NBI injection and being fed by capacitor banks could give pulse repetition rate comparable with machine gun or internal combustion engine.
I said you – I know how to make TOKAMAK viable right now and sent the sense of my invention to DOE and placed that at this forum too. I was invited on several fusion related conferences and think on which to go.
TOKAMAK is viable concept as unlike others provides acceptable confinement with enough density. They have not unlike others scientifical problems but only new technical ideas are needed.
 
  • #26
Simon Bridge said:
I said study not "use", but, since you asked for just one... muon catalyzed fusion is used to build large nuclei for study.
Really? The birth of one muon IIRC 210 MeV even neglecting low efficiency of process followed from low selectivity.
How many fusion events can you provide in lifetime of one muon - IIRC about 1 microsecond?
 
  • #27
Joseph Chikva said:
I doubt on "a lot".
Can you mention one more reason of usage fusion except power generation or weapon?
Space traveling? Actual? We live in the end of oil era, when risk of big nuclear conflicts are neglectable with increasing risks of asymmetric conflicts in which technology advanced countries fight with outdated combatants and therefore only power generation is significant for us today. Because of it DOE and similar other organizations are the best payers. And not for example NASA and DOD.

Space travel is both. Either you use the reactor for power, or you blow up a bomb behind you and surf the blast.

Defence company Lockheed Martin last week at Google's Solve for X announced they will have fusion power prototype in 4 years(!). He predicted they can generate 100 MW by 2017. I do not think his claim is realistic.

Google's solve for X: https://www.solveforx.com/

You can find the Lockheed fusion presentation in the moonshots section but a copy is here: He shows the Lockheed Martin prototype fusion reactor.

DoD is funding a lot more fusion reserch tha you probably think. They want to stop buying oil from people they do not like, and they need electrical power for lasers. NIF is a defense lab not because their laser is weak but because "scientific curation" of nuclear weapons was theiroriginal mission .
 
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  • #28
d3mm said:
Space travel is both. Either you use the reactor for power, or you blow up a bomb behind you and surf the blast.

Defence company Lockheed Martin last week at Google's Solve for X announced they will have fusion power prototype in 4 years(!). He predicted they can generate 100 MW by 2017. I do not think his claim is realistic.

Google's solve for X: https://www.solveforx.com/

You can find the Lockheed fusion presentation in the moonshots section but a copy is here: He shows the Lockheed Martin prototype fusion reactor.

DoD is funding a lot more fusion reserch tha you probably think. They want to stop buying oil from people they do not like, and they need electrical power for lasers. NIF is a defense lab not because their laser is weak but because "scientific curation" of nuclear weapons was theiroriginal mission .
I've seen Lockheed's presentation. There are many words about challenges humanity has. But nothing about what kind fusion (concept) they are going to do in such short time period. If that is a presentation - very strange presentation.

If you have better idea how much money DoD funded in fusion research, please provide numbers. Because I am sure that that number will be on orders of magnitude less than DoE done.

And I am afraid that making decision from whom crude oil should be purchased is not a DoD's competence. :)

You want to avoid dependence of your country on oil producers?
How about to change interstate transportation structure? To develop for example railway cargo moving (infrastructure of which is weak in USA as far as I know) instead of transportation by trucks? You would get about twice reduction in oil consumption from 10 to 5 millions barrels per each day. And required more electricity to produce on fission nuclear plants.
But that is not of interest of such American companies like Exxon, Chevron, Halliburton, etc. Also this solution is not of interest of many people involve in automotive industry.
Do you think that there is any problem with fission power generation? Or fusion will be cheaper? No.
Will fusion power plant be smaller than fission one? Again – no.
At least from the beginning fusion will not be cheaper and smaller and therefore timescale 30-50 years for its development is acceptable for country seriously thinking about future.
 
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  • #29
US FUSION BUDGET 2013

US government R&D spending for 2013. It's free despite having a buy button.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/rdreport2013/ [Broken]

They have summary tables
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/rdreport2013/tablelist.shtml

Let's look at DoE (Dept of Energy)

table II-11, DoE R&D 2013 by function (pg 148)
* defence = 4691m
* general science = 4568m
* energy = 2644m
* Total 11,903m
Now we see DoE spends more on defence than on energy.

The page 151 shows why:

DoE Atomic Energy Defence Activites (pg 151) (total not just R&D)
* atomic wpns science 7577m
* --- science 350m (fusion? don't know)
* --- engineering 151m
* --- Internal Confinement Fusion 460m
* --- simulation and computing 600m (fusion simulations)
* nuclear nonproliferation 2,500m
* naval reactors 1,050m
* office of adminstrator 141
* Total ~12,000 of ~27,000 total

So we see that DoE pays for all the atomic bombs and military reactors. They also pay for the US fusion program under their Defence allocation. It (defence) is about half of DoE's total budget.

Examining the fusion funding:

US Fusion program Breakdown (pg 150)
* science 154
* facilties 221 (*)
* iter 150
* enabling R&D 23
* total = 398 (of 460 --- 62m unaccounted for)

(*) Includes NIF. I also don't know why you say their laser is weak; it is the world's largest. They are a bomb lab first and a power lab second.

Offtopic: HeP 777. Nuc Physics 527. I read around HeP and it says they are pretty much cutting back, but maintaining their CERN participation.

Let's look at DoD funding. DoD does not give a meaningful breakdown of what spends on, but its total R&D budget is 72,500m (plus they have another block of money reserved for them that they have to ask to use) compared to 11,903 for DoE. DoD has 2 publically announced fusion projects, being EMC2 and Whiffleball, both attempts to build a shipboard fusion reactor.

DoE spending on fusion is probably greater than DoD spending. I never said it wasn't. However I did say that, one, much defence money goes into fusion but not for power, and this disorts public perception because they think fusion cash is power cash; two, in addition to the above mentioned US fusion budget, DoD does have its own separate fusion program.

Some "US" fusion research is being done privately too but it hard to call it "American" when it's done by a corporation who is employing people from all over world and likely to sell it overseas too. However the US govt's major contribution to civillian fusion research seems to be their donation to ITER.
 
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  • #30
d3mm said:
I also don't know why you say their laser is weak; it is the world's largest.
Yes, NIF lasers are very powerful but I said “efficiency of laser is weak – about 1% or little more or little less”.
This efficiency does not allow getting a positive energy from NIF in either way at any realistic Q factor of hohlraum.
d3mm said:
DoD has 2 publically announced fusion projects, being EMC2 and Whiffleball, both attempts to build a shipboard fusion reactor.
Both or the same? And 3 or 4 people worked, only several millions were spent and only for the first phase. One NAVY's missile worth more. As result several table-top machines with no scaling at all. The last machine showed fractions of milliwatt fusion power with kWs input.
 
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  • #31
NIF is an experimental facility that is supposed to support inertial fusion research for power applications, support the Stockpile stewardship program (Weapons), and support basic science research in high energy density physics.

I don't remember the exact numbers but NIF periodically publishes the breakdown of their shots by purpose. The power campaign by far received the most shots. (~300+), the weapons program was next (~10-100), and finally the basic science programs only received a hand full (~10). I've emailed a friend to see if he knows the exact breakdown.

I don't deny that NIF has weapon applications, but to date most of the research on NIF has gone to support peaceful purposes not weapons.

I also want to clarify that NIF and most of the ICF research is supported by the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration). The office of Fusion energy sciences funds magnetic confinement research and basic plasma physics. The facilities budget under the OFES does NOT include NIF. It does include DIIID, NSTX, Alcator C-MOD, MST, and smaller scale experiments.

As for other uses of fusion, power is by far the big one, but people are interested in fusion as a neutron source. These sources can be used to detected clandestine materials (explosives and nuclear material). They can also be used to create medical isotopes like Tc-99m.

I stated above the DOE OFES supports basic plasma sciences. Plasmas are huge in the the semi-conductor industry, and currently responsible for the continuation of Moors law. Magnetic confinement experiments like MRX study magnetic reconnection which helps us understand space weather. This is important for the telecommunications industry, because they have to shut down or move the satellites when solar storms send highly energetic particles our way. There are also many similarities between plasma turbulence and atmospheric turbulence.

Finally fusion research drives research in high temperature super conducting magnetics, cryogenics, vacuum technologies, durable materials the can survive extremely harsh environments, high fidelity computation, etc. The applications of which extend far beyond power.
 
  • #32
the_wolfman said:
I don't deny that NIF has weapon applications, but to date most of the research on NIF has gone to support peaceful purposes not weapons.
Agreed. People put in the word "weapon" some mystic sense. While weapon is also an engineered product like many others and while NIF is a typical inertial confinement approach similar to canceled now "Light Ions Fusion" and not yet heavily started "Heavy Ions Fusion". May be in the program scale some weapons simulations was done. I really can not imagine what but funding from DoD is the fact. As well as fact is that at today's level of technology laser fusion has not any posibility to produce net power.
 
  • #33
Further checking reveals you are correct that the source of NIF funding is NNSA not OFES, but both are DoE from the military portion of the budget.

I was recently reading an article on NIF

http://www.nature.com/news/laser-fusion-put-on-slow-burn-1.12016
The US$3.5-billion NIF uses lasers to crush a 2-millimetre pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point of fusion. Rather than irradiating the fuel directly, the lasers shine into a cylindrical capsule. The capsule walls then emit X-rays that squeeze the fuel pellet until it explodes (see diagram).

This indirect approach mimics the ignition system in a thermonuclear weapon, which uses radiation from a fission 'primary' stage to squeeze hydrogen isotopes in the fusion 'secondary' — creating a powerful explosion.

The NIF's main mission is to gather laboratory data on the process to help weapons scientists to care for the ageing US nuclear stockpile

Now it seems they are having trouble achieving ignition via this method and are having to explain it to congress, and now are refocussing their efforts to fusion power.

http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/politics_and_policy/nif_to_shift_emphasis_after_the_facility_s_failure_to_achieve_ignition[/URL]
[quote]"Ignition was never the endgame," Cook says. "The endgame is really stockpile stewardship." For NIF's applications to laboratory astrophysics and fundamental science, he adds, "the endgame is just having a very capable facility with diagnostics that can explore things that you can't otherwise go out and measure."[/quote]

In other words, they have no concrete goal or objective for civillian power generation - their one concrete goal was weapon curation. If NIF is currently rebranding itself towards fusion power, that's only because of problems in their primary mission (weapons).

It really did surprise me how slowly fusion power was progressing despite all the money being spent on it, but then I realized that a lot of the money being spent on fusion isn't going towards power.
 
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  • #34
Simon Bridge said:
...
...
I didn't want to write too much in case nobody was interested. ...
...I was more interested in pointing to an example of low-temp fusion that wasn't junk science.

Fusion does not have to involve very high temperatures but:
1. the high temperature projects look like they have more promise these days
2. there is a lot of junk and pseudo-science around low-temp fusion ideas to trap the unwary investor.

In your opinion is there any hope of break-even via electrostatic confinement?

http://ssl.mit.edu/publications/theses/PhD-2007-DietrichCarl.pdf

My math is not good enough to judge.

old jim
 
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  • #35
d3mm said:
It really did surprise me how slowly fusion power was progressing despite all the money being spent on it, but then I realized that a lot of the money being spent on fusion isn't going towards power.
E.g., Heroin (diacetylmorphine*hydrochloride) was developed as medicine drug but now is marketed only by clandestine dealers. As its properties does not allow usage for medical application. History of science knows many such examples when failure in one branch gives some results used in another.
 
<h2>1. What is fusion power and how does it work?</h2><p>Fusion power is a type of energy that is produced through the fusion of two atomic nuclei, typically hydrogen isotopes, to form a heavier nucleus. This process releases a large amount of energy, which can be harnessed to generate electricity. In a fusion power plant, the fuel is heated to extremely high temperatures and confined using magnetic fields, causing the nuclei to collide and fuse.</p><h2>2. Are fusion power plants safe?</h2><p>Fusion power plants have the potential to be much safer than traditional nuclear power plants, as they do not produce long-lived radioactive waste and do not have the risk of a meltdown. However, there are still safety concerns surrounding the handling of the fuel and the potential for accidents or leaks.</p><h2>3. How efficient is fusion power compared to other energy sources?</h2><p>Fusion power has the potential to be extremely efficient, as it produces a large amount of energy from a small amount of fuel. It is estimated that fusion power plants could produce 4 times more energy than traditional nuclear power plants, and 10 million times more energy than fossil fuels.</p><h2>4. What are the challenges in making fusion power plants feasible for widespread use?</h2><p>One of the main challenges in making fusion power plants feasible for widespread use is the high cost and complexity of building and operating them. The technology is still in its early stages and requires further research and development. Additionally, there are challenges in finding suitable materials to withstand the extreme temperatures and radiation in the fusion reactor.</p><h2>5. When can we expect fusion power plants to be available for widespread use?</h2><p>It is difficult to predict an exact timeline for when fusion power plants will be available for widespread use. Currently, there are several research projects and prototypes in development, but it may take several decades before fusion power can become a viable source of energy on a large scale. However, with continued advancements in technology and funding, it is possible that fusion power plants could become a reality in the near future.</p>

1. What is fusion power and how does it work?

Fusion power is a type of energy that is produced through the fusion of two atomic nuclei, typically hydrogen isotopes, to form a heavier nucleus. This process releases a large amount of energy, which can be harnessed to generate electricity. In a fusion power plant, the fuel is heated to extremely high temperatures and confined using magnetic fields, causing the nuclei to collide and fuse.

2. Are fusion power plants safe?

Fusion power plants have the potential to be much safer than traditional nuclear power plants, as they do not produce long-lived radioactive waste and do not have the risk of a meltdown. However, there are still safety concerns surrounding the handling of the fuel and the potential for accidents or leaks.

3. How efficient is fusion power compared to other energy sources?

Fusion power has the potential to be extremely efficient, as it produces a large amount of energy from a small amount of fuel. It is estimated that fusion power plants could produce 4 times more energy than traditional nuclear power plants, and 10 million times more energy than fossil fuels.

4. What are the challenges in making fusion power plants feasible for widespread use?

One of the main challenges in making fusion power plants feasible for widespread use is the high cost and complexity of building and operating them. The technology is still in its early stages and requires further research and development. Additionally, there are challenges in finding suitable materials to withstand the extreme temperatures and radiation in the fusion reactor.

5. When can we expect fusion power plants to be available for widespread use?

It is difficult to predict an exact timeline for when fusion power plants will be available for widespread use. Currently, there are several research projects and prototypes in development, but it may take several decades before fusion power can become a viable source of energy on a large scale. However, with continued advancements in technology and funding, it is possible that fusion power plants could become a reality in the near future.

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