Nuclear fusion power - inspiration.

[harpy]

hello : )

 

I am trying to find new positive thoughts, great reasons and things to look forward to for when nuclear fusion power stations are connected to our power grids. When we have power sources around the world that emit near zero emission and the fuel to run these stations costs very little, maybe this will open many wonderful doors that will be, until that day, firmly shut due inefficiency and expense.

 

many of these ideas below are wishful thinking, but are not impossible if the governments have control,(not a privatecorp)

 

examples :

 

energize a near zero emission transportation network?

 

filter and separate out poisons/toxins from our drainage before the waste reaches the rivers and seas?

 

inspire organic farming by offering free energy to those that wish to do so. maybe even grow exotic organic fruit in colder climates by using green houses with heaters?

 

offer our governments control to supply free energy to people that have positive ideas for our communities and environment.

inspiring people to do good things by offering them free energy, saving them money, instead of inspiring people to do bad things to make money.

for example : imagine a synthetic paper factory making toilet rolls, A4 paper and alike, the whole factory running from free fusion energy, because the factory helps save the rain forests. Might be quite inspiring for when people choose to set up new businesses. doing good for everyone, minimising pollution/ disease and ecological threats.

 

any thoughts on this ,positive or negative, thanks.

harps

: )

[Schrödinger's hat]

hello : )

 

I am trying to find new positive thoughts, great reasons and things to look forward to for when nuclear fusion power stations are connected to our power grids. When we have power sources around the world that emit near zero emission and the fuel to run these stations costs very little, maybe this will open many wonderful doors that will be, until that day, firmly shut due inefficiency and expense.

 

many of these ideas below are wishful thinking, but are not impossible if the governments have control,(not a privatecorp)

 

examples :

 

energize a near zero emission transportation network?

 

filter and separate out poisons/toxins from our drainage before the waste reaches the rivers and seas?

 

inspire organic farming by offering free energy to those that wish to do so. maybe even grow exotic organic fruit in colder climates by using green houses with heaters?

 

offer our governments control to supply free energy to people that have positive ideas for our communities and environment.

inspiring people to do good things by offering them free energy, saving them money, instead of inspiring people to do bad things to make money.

for example : imagine a synthetic paper factory making toilet rolls, A4 paper and alike, the whole factory running from free fusion energy, because the factory helps save the rain forests. Might be quite inspiring for when people choose to set up new businesses. doing good for everyone, minimising pollution/ disease and ecological threats.

 

any thoughts on this ,positive or negative, thanks.

harps

: )

 

Hmm, I may be a bit cynical, but I mostly have negative thoughts.

First of all, unless something happens to capitalism, we'll probably just increase production and wind up paying just as much (only using more energy to produce more stuff). Or even worse, just increase our population.

It might turn out good for the people who currently have energy as the limit on their food/water etc, but in terms of stopping people from harming the environment, I'm not so sure. (They might just start mining instead of cutting down the trees for wood, to get more rare minerals).

Here is a good explanation of why we can't have unlimited exponential growth, it doesn't matter what technology we get, we're still going to have to deal with the problems in the way society is structured if we want to get some kind of utopia.

 

Second downer:

Our fusion generators aren't very good. As far as I know only the tokamaks are anywhere near commercially viable, and they are limited to comparatively low energy reactions (..I think it's D H?) which have neutrons as a byproduct. This results in fairly large quantities of low grade radioactive waste as all the shielding needs to be dealt with.

They're also big, complex and expensive.

 

There's some potential with Thorium fission breeder-reactors. These are supposed to be simple, comparatively cheap, safe and produce roughly the same amount of waste as the fusion reactors (but some of it is higher grade). I'm not sure why there isn't more enthusiasm for this technology, I think there may be worries due to the technology being untested and concerns over proliferation.

 

Solar is looking better and better, there's really no shortage of sunlight, and we're closer to having solar panels that about the same price as normal roofing materials than we are to having good fusion reactors.

The down side here is it only gives you power for part of the day. This would be fantastic if we could re-structure the social aspects of manufacturing and energy use, but people want their 9-5 work days, and their shift working factories and air conditioning that works whenever they want it.

[harpy]

thanks for your reply,

 

yes, we are many years away from the first fusion power stations, but they are certainly on the way.

what I was hoping here was is to discover ideas that could inspire the acceleration of this technology. ( to increase funding for the people working in these areas) as prof. brain cox once said " Last year we spent more money on ringtones, than on nuclear fusion research" (2008)

 

I do like the idea of solar panels because each of us can have our own power station on our roof or in the garden. but the sky is not always blue and night time does fall. perhaps solar panels in orbit? microwaving the energy down to sub stations on the surface? But this is pehapss further out of reach than a fusion power station? Or manufacturing billions of square meters of panels for the surface of the Earth?

 

At present it is estimated 20 -30 years until the first fusion power stations come into effect. So i am hoping the science experts here could point out some new perspectives on why near zero emission energy could be a great thing. : )

 

perhaps a few more reasons why clean energy is needed :

 

There would less carcinogens in the atmosphere, less cardio vascular disease ,asthma for example.

less need for foreign oil.

fusion power is less hazardous than fission ( no chance of a Chernobyl type event)

 

ideas welcome, good or bad.

[Schrödinger's hat]

Well, one other point that I forgot to mention is anything we build will be too late to help. There are problems that we need to be most of the way to a solution before any fusion reactor could be ready. Even if we had some sort of breakthrough that made it far more viable.

[Enthalpy]

I explain there why Rubbia's thorium breeder can't run without 10* more uranium reactors, hence would use little of the available thorium, and is dangerous and polluting:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2026

shorter version:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2761

and then any uranium reactor, run with plutonium and some thorium, is just as good for this task as a specially-built reactor.

 

Tokamaks not only induce radioactivity through the produced neutrons. They need tritium, which isn't available naturally and uranium reactors can't produce in usable quantity, so a tokamak (or any D-T fusion reactor) has to produce its own tritium from lithium. Because this needs to multiply neutrons, the process is very polluting, as much as a uranium reactor. Explanations there

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2450

especially rationale with some figures there

http://saposjoint.ne...6&t=2450#p32310

 

My bet is that tokamaks will be the very last to produce usable net energy, after the Z-striction, the magnetized target fusion, maybe laser fusion achieve it - and, yes, all will be very late, much later than our need stop emitting carbon dioxide, and far after we have renewable energy.

 

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

Edited September 17, 2011 by Enthalpy

[Schrödinger's hat]

I explain there why Rubbia's thorium breeder can't run without 10* more uranium reactors, hence would use little of the available thorium, and is dangerous and polluting:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2026

shorter version:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2761

and then any uranium reactor, run with plutonium and some thorium, is just as good for this task as a specially-built reactor.

 

Have you got references for any of this? Thorium reactors needing plutonium is news to me. I had read in places that there was concern over the amount of neutrons produced as it pertains to breeding enough fuel for the next part of the cycle, but I was under the impression it was not a theoretical limit.

[Enthalpy]

Rubbia's design needs plutonium to start and to work (and I believe all do). It can't use an other nuclide to obtain the reactivity. But it produces only 233U, no plutonium.

 

So it needs a present-day uranium reactor to supply plutonium, or rather, if you put figures on it, 10 uranium reactors for one Rubbia thorium reactor. And then you can replace this one Rubbia reactor with a classical uranium one, run with plutonium, and if you like, add thorium instead of uranium. Same benefit, no investment.

 

http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/fnss/abstracts/abst_29022018.html

http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/fnss/fulltext/29022018.pdf

[mechaniker]

It is hard ! here is my thinks ! http://mecanicosaereos.blogspot.com/2011/11/nuclear-fusion-is-it.html

[Moontanman]

I explain there why Rubbia's thorium breeder can't run without 10* more uranium reactors, hence would use little of the available thorium, and is dangerous and polluting:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2026

shorter version:

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2761

and then any uranium reactor, run with plutonium and some thorium, is just as good for this task as a specially-built reactor.

 

Tokamaks not only induce radioactivity through the produced neutrons. They need tritium, which isn't available naturally and uranium reactors can't produce in usable quantity, so a tokamak (or any D-T fusion reactor) has to produce its own tritium from lithium. Because this needs to multiply neutrons, the process is very polluting, as much as a uranium reactor. Explanations there

http://saposjoint.ne...php?f=66&t=2450

especially rationale with some figures there

http://saposjoint.ne...6&t=2450#p32310

 

My bet is that tokamaks will be the very last to produce usable net energy, after the Z-striction, the magnetized target fusion, maybe laser fusion achieve it - and, yes, all will be very late, much later than our need stop emitting carbon dioxide, and far after we have renewable energy.

 

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

 

LFTR reactors safer than current fission reactors and produce less, shorter lived waste...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

I have split the branch regarding solar fusion to the speculations forum.

 

Zorro - please stick to established science when replying to posts in the main forum. We will consider merging the two solar nuclear fusion threads currently in specs.

 

 

and I made Moon look like a thread necromancer

[Enthalpy]

 

LFTR reactors safer than current fission reactors and produce less, shorter lived waste...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

Not even YouTube suffices to make them work...

 

No single LFTR has ever worked, despite India has invested much in them. Not even a convincing proof-of-concept exists.

 

Every fast neutron reactor detonates like a plutonium bomb if hit by a big kinetic energy penetrator.

 

Thorium reactors generally demand plutonium and nothing else to start, but don't produce it, so they can't replace uranium reactors.

 

LFTR produce little actinides, but as much fission radioactive waste as uranium reactors.

[Moontanman]

According to the info in the videos the only reason we didn't go with Thorium reactors to begin with was the plutonium production of an uranium reactor which was used so they could make bombs. Thorium reactors are just as easy to operate as uranium reactors and produce much less much shorter lived radioactive waste.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8&list=PL46C2BD92EA739A33