Whatever happened to fusion power?

[Atlant]

Years ago, we were near "break-even" on fusion power and
the talk in the field was that it was just a question of
making the investment to build a commercial-scale Tokomak
and fusion would be on its way. No more energy crisis, no
more (or well, hardly any more) nuclear waste, clean energy
for everyone.

Then, apparently as they noticeed point #1 and how it might
impact their friends in the "energy" business, the Reagan
administration seriously cut the budget for the various
fusion programs and it all seemed to recede into nothingness
like one of those pleasant dreams that evanesces when you're
awakened by the blare of the smoke detectors.

What ever happened to fusion power?

Does anyone have any good links to a "survey" report
or three describing the current state of the art?

Atlant

[JackDragna]

1. Believe it or not..

..this is something that Republicans needn't take the blame for. A lot of expectations were raised with the fradulent cold fusion assertions a while back, expectations that don't meet how close we are to being able to use fusion as a reliable way of getting energy. I don't have any particular link, but I do know a fair amount of scientists and I'm told it's going to be a long while before we have the technology to harness fusion energy.

[Atlant]

9. My note deliberately ignored the "Cold Fusion" bru-ha-ha.

My note deliberately ignored the "Cold Fusion" bru-ha-ha; if I wanted
to post about THAT, I'd have put my thread in "The Meeting
Room" with all the other, umm, "interesting" threads. :-)

Atlant

[BrokenSegue]

15. Fusion

No Cold Fusiong ie Hot Fusion is not efficient or easily controllable. Many scientists have claimed to have Cold Fusion in their hands but none have suceeded. If it is discovered the world will change.

[markbark]

2. Googling came up with

These sites:

www.td.anl.gov/fusion.html (Argonne National Labs)
www.fusion.org.uk (EU version of essentially the same thing)
wwwofe.er.doe.gov (US Department of Energy Site)


Ever since the late 70's fusion power has always been described as "viable within a decade"

The biggest (and admittedly non-trivial) problem is containing a fusion reaction long enough to make it self sustaining. Keeping plasma at 100 million C is no easy task either.

Shave with Occam's Razor on this one, and remember Napoleon's quote too:

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"

Now I'm not saying that the engineers and physicists working on fusion are incompetent (hell, they're smarter than I'll EVER be! ) but this is one particular nut that is hard to crack. BFEE interference notwithstanding, making fusion power economically viable is HARD.


--MAB

[slackmaster]

3. Break-even refers to energy in vs. energy out, not economics

Here's a nice collection of fusion links:

http://www.fusion.org.uk/links/

We'll get there, but it will be many years before anyone starts talking about commercial production of energy.

[Atlant]

8. I understand that.

> Break-even refers to energy in vs. energy out, not economics

I understand that; I used to work for a subcontractor to Princeton
Plasma Physics Lab after the PLT, during the PDX and a bunch of
"neutral beam injection experiments", and when they were just
setting out to build the TFTR.

Atlant

[CafeToad]

4. Solar energy - that's fusion-generated power, right?

OK, I know that's not what you meant, but

All energy is solar!!

http://www.impression5.org/solarenergy/abcs.html

Fun Fact! (E=Energy)

E in all coal on earth + E in all oil on earth + E in all natural gas on earth = 1/130 of the total amount of energy reaching the earth in the form of sunlight every year!



My point is that there's plenty of solar energy reaching the earth to supply all our energy needs if it was harvested efficiently - perhaps it would be wise to leave the 'fusion reactor' (the sun) far, far away and focus efforts on reaping the benefits rather than trying to reinvent the wheel (in this case, once again the sun).

[BrokenSegue]

16. But...

First, most of that energy is reflected by our atmosphere.
Some turns into wasted heat.
Some are caught by plants or the Ocean.
That removes a lot of the energy. Then our solar cells are inefficient so Solar power isn't as atractive as it seeems.

[punpirate]

5. More than the overhype...

... fusion research was delayed by diversion of funds. In the late `80s and early `90s, there were reports in local NM papers that fusion research money had been siphoned off to do nuclear weapons modeling and analysis, particularly at Sandia Labs. The reason given was that it was a better use of the money, since underground testing had ceased. To the labs, fusion was fusion, whether for weapons or for energy.

The diversion was also justified by a certain amount of cynicism on the part of fusion energy researchers--the claims of low radiation were not exactly true, and the technical problems associated with bringing theory to practical demonstration seemed nearly insurmountable with the money available.

[aneerkoinos]

6. 50 years away?

EU, Canada and some others are going to bild the biggest reactor so far, so it's not been given up. But if I remember right, the majority opinion even among nuclear scientists is that commercial use is 50 years away.

[enki23]

12. that's the in joke, you know

it's *always* been 50 years away.

[seasat]

7. Suprisingly Shrub actually supported fusion power in his budget

Repukes kept blocking funding during Clinton's term but * has got a couple of billion in either passed or proposed funding to contribute to building a Tokmak test generator. I'm not sure what his motivation in this is. Maybe he's trying to throw off criticism for his drill every orafice policy.

[Atlant]

10. Do you have a link (for the new tokomak)? (NT)

[seasat]

11. It's part of an international effort.

link

[Dissenting_Prole]

13. Hmmmmm.

Bush Administration: "We are going to build a giant fusion machine! But we need your tax dollars to purchase 1200 tanks, 800 fighter jets, 3 aircraft carriers, 14 battleships and a sh*tload of grenade launchers in order to build it."

US public: "Okay."

[freethought]

14. It's still out there, but it needs some extra life

Forget about cold fusion, it may not be what we think.
There have been some amazing break throughs in hot fusion in the last couple of years. The only problem is the total lack of media attention they get. Anything I have seen has been in small articles and tidbits in magazines.

Two breakthroughs at Sandia Labs in New Mexico. The first was overcoming 'erosion'. When a fusion reaction is underway the heat erodes the interior of the containment vessel. They were able to slow and even stop it by adding and inert gas to the vessel.

Another advancement was the development of the Z-machine. Described as a microwave oven on steroids it uses microwaves to initiate the fusion reaction.

And more recently, also at Sandia Labs, they used the Z-machine to compress a simulated fuel pellet from the size of a BB(about 20 tenths of and inch) down to the diamter of a human hair, a twenty fold reduction in volume. Theoretically a volume reduction to 1/13
of original volume is needed to initiate a fusion reaction. No word yet if they intend to do the same experiment with real dueterium or Trittium fuel pellets.

I have been keeping an eye out for any new news but it has been pretty mum. Follow the links other posters have given.

Now, to ruin your day a little. Bush Baby did budget money for an international effort called I.T.E.R. (I can't remember what it stands for). The intention is design and build the first functional tomakak( a fusion reactor).
Fusion is still out there and maybe with in reach. All more the reason to push the effort.

[NNadir]

17. Not to beat a dead horse

that I often beat here, fusion energy will always depend on a viable fission system, since fusion reactors use (radioactive) tritium. As a mononeutronic reaction, fusion reactors have a breeding ratio below one, and thus cannot, even under the best obtainable conditions, make more tritium (from lithium) than they consume.

All tritium today is made in fission reactors or from other active neutron sources, the latter on a research scale.

[Endangered Specie]

18. Fusion power will probably take 50-100 years

to use comercially, that is. The feasibility of containing a reaction like this is like building something to contain a thermonuclear weapon, not easy.

Until then, there are many other energy sources to work and improve on: solar, wind, hydro, and yes, nuclear.

[midnight armadillo]

19. That's exactly it

Billions have been spent on fusion, with nothing to show other than slow, incremental progress, and the eternally moving 30 to 50 year date for a commercial reactor.

What sort of progress on renewable energy could be possible with this? How about increasing solar panel efficiency above the 5% or so they get now?

[LSatyl]

20. We're going to build one pretty soon:

Just look at the site of Iter. BBC News ran an article last month.

Basically, scientist from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, the U.S, China and South Korea, are designing the new reactor. In December they'll make a decision on where to build it, finalizing the design in April 2004. Work is supposed to start in late 2004.

This is the biggest international cooperation effort after the ISS. So there's still some hope :)

[enki23]

21. it's about fifty years away.

just like it was in 1950

[bigtree]

22. current home of fusion boondoggle

France chosen as EU candidate for thermonuclear project
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031126150405.6o2ymy9e.html

Any administration's interest in thermonuclear fusion is to advance their notion of a space-based nuclear laser system.

Laser fusion is being investigated in many laboratories in the United States and elsewhere. At the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the laser pulses are designed to deliver, in total, some 200 kJ of energy to each fuel pellet in less than a nanosecond. This is a delivered power of about 2 X 1014 W during the pulse, which is roughly 100 times the total sustained electric power generating capacity of the world. The feasibility of laser fusion as the basis of a thermonuclear power reactor has not been demonstrated as of yet, but research is continuing at a vigorous pace.

The deployment of such a system would almost certainly lead to a space weapon's race.