...

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

1 minute ago, BLA said:

Commonwealth will announce the site of their first Fusion plant before the end of the year.

The Green New Deal has not been enacted yet.  Read it .  $ Trillions.

We should know if Commonwealth Fusion has a winner in about 4 or 5 years. I'll give you a call then. 

 

I hope they do have a winner. We can then redirect the Green New Deal energy money, very little will have been spent by then. Please do note that the GND includes social programs that easily account for 80% of the cost. It also doesn't account for ROI for the energy investments. On average these energy projects make at least as much money as they cost. Most make more (i.e. are profitable) and like any other industry there is the occasional failure. 

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

5 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Oh and both solar and wind are powered by the Sun which is a fusion reactor

Are you sure? The internet told me it's a giant hamster on his wheel spinning so fast it's on fire!

Thank god it's hot enough to keep our flat earth warm. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

10 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Commonwealth shows that 'net yield' is on their 'To Do' list. This is the screen shot from their website.

That is for the commercial scale reactor. The lab scale reactor had all that done. they still need to work out the scaling. It isn't obvious. There will be a couple of iterations to the design as it comes along.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

SPARC has not yet demonstrated anything, because it has not yet been built. I have been reading articles about nuclear fusion research since I was about 15 years old, so about 55 years. There have been reports about fusion being achievable "in the near future" just about every year since 1965. I will believe it when I see a scientific report of an actual working reactor producing more electricity (not heat) than it consumes.

The most easily-achieved fusion in a magnetically-confined plasma is the fusion of Deuterium (H2) and Tritium (H3) ("DT fusion"). SPARC aims for DT fusion. DT fusion produces gamma rays and neutrons.   (D + T -> He + n + energy). Those neutrons will smack into the structure of the reactor and turn some of it into various radioactive atoms. Deuterium is a relatively rare non-radioactive isotope of Hydrogen that is fairly easy to extract from water. It is produced and used in industrial amounts, primarily as the moderator in heavy-water fission reactors. Tritium is an artificial radioactive isotope of hydrogen that must be produced in a reactor. It is currently produced in fission reactors but could be produced in a DT fusion reactor, although producing more than you consume may be a challenge.

[0R0 + 6,251]

24 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

SPARC has not yet demonstrated anything, because it has not yet been built. I have been reading articles about nuclear fusion research since I was about 15 years old, so about 55 years. There have been reports about fusion being achievable "in the near future" just about every year since 1965. I will believe it when I see a scientific report of an actual working reactor producing more electricity (not heat) than it consumes.

The most easily-achieved fusion in a magnetically-confined plasma is the fusion of Deuterium (H2) and Tritium (H3) ("DT fusion"). SPARC aims for DT fusion. DT fusion produces gamma rays and neutrons.   (D + T -> He + n + energy). Those neutrons will smack into the structure of the reactor and turn some of it into various radioactive atoms. Deuterium is a relatively rare non-radioactive isotope of Hydrogen that is fairly easy to extract from water. It is produced and used in industrial amounts, primarily as the moderator in heavy-water fission reactors. Tritium is an artificial radioactive isotope of hydrogen that must be produced in a reactor. It is currently produced in fission reactors but could be produced in a DT fusion reactor, although producing more than you consume may be a challenge.

The solution is He3 isotopes as feed, solves the problem of containing neutrons. Problem is getting the rock from the moon.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

58 minutes ago, 0R0 said:

The solution is He3 isotopes as feed, solves the problem of containing neutrons. Problem is getting the rock from the moon.

😀 D+He3 has a Lawson criterion that is 16 times higher than D+T.  Crudely translated, it is 16 times harder to establish the plasma conditions for D+He3 ignition than for D+T ignition. The researchers have spent the last 70 years trying to get to D+T and have not yet succeeded.

I personally believe that we will ultimately get to nuclear fusion power, but probably not by magnetic confinement.

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

3 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

I personally believe that we will ultimately get to nuclear fusion power, but probably not by magnetic confinement.

Some kind of mega compression on hydrogen instead?

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

ITER’s  first plasma is 2025 

I really think this has the best chance of working as it’s on a scale like no other fusion reactor project.

it has the worlds best physicists working on it and has funding from a dozen or so major countries.

The site is pretty much done and most of the equipment is well on the way to being completed.

it is a truly a global project with the USA , Russia, China, India , Japan, UK, France, Italy, Germany etc all coming together with extraordinary engineering and scientific achievements already Accomplished  https://www.iter.org/

check it out guys

As BLA says it might be a white elephant but then again it might just work!

[Meredith Poor + 897]

11 hours ago, 0R0 said:

That is for the commercial scale reactor. The lab scale reactor had all that done. they still need to work out the scaling. It isn't obvious. There will be a couple of iterations to the design as it comes along.

The 'Lab Scale Reactor' has a Q below 1, at .7, according to the commentator in the video. A number of other companies have Q around that number. The objective is to get to Q > 10. So they have a ways to go.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

8 hours ago, Strangelovesurfing said:

Some kind of mega compression on hydrogen instead?

There are three ways to do that: gravitational, explosive, and via "inertial confinement". The sun uses gravity. This approach has been operational for about 13 billion years. Explosive compression has been demonstrated. These devices are called thermonuclear weapons. Inertial confinement is done using truly massive lasers. This approach has been the subject of research and development since about 1975, with some really, really big systems such as the ICF being built. It lags behind magnetic confinement, so it is still the same " we will have it in 20 years" fantasy land as magnetic fusion.

No, I think we will get to fusion with much smaller devices that use very highly directed and concentrated energy. One possibility is p+B11, where an extremely short pulse of protons is accelerated to extreme energies using a free-electron-type laser and fired into a tiny, short-lived, very high temperature plasma of B11. The trick is in the ridiculously precise timing, which was not possible before the required advances in electronics.

 

[BLA + 1,666]

14 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

😀

I personally believe that we will ultimately get to nuclear fusion power, but probably not by magnetic confinement.

 Commonwealth SPARC uses the same Tokamak design as ITER.

The major difference is the magnets.  ITER uses electromagnetic coils with superconducting wires cooled with liquid helium. 

The ITER Central Solenoid is being mfg in the U.S.  It was the most powerful magnet at the time. 

Commonwealth uses newer advanced superconducting magnet technology made of yttrium barium copper oxide.  I believe these were developed at MIT.

These high temperature superconducting magnets are substantially more powerful than not only ITER coils but the other couple of dozen ongoing projects as well. This sets Commonwealth Fusion apart from the rest of the field. 

This allows for:

* a stronger more contained plasma field

* Smaller footprint (SPARC = Tennis Court .  ITER = Soccer Field)

* Lower production costs (ITER estimate $22 Billion but likely much more . SPARC a fraction of that.  Today's Fission Reactors cost about $23 Billion.)

The Journal of Plasma Physics recently published 7 papers on Commonwealth Fusion SPARC.  These papers have been peer reviewed by 31 of the leading Phd's in the field, many of which are working on the ITER project in France.

Commonwealth Fusion will announce the site of the first SPARC Reactor build before year-end and commence construction before June 2021. Completion projected in 3 to 4 years.

If successful commercial product in early 2030's.

Edited October 24, 2020 by BLA

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

SPARC has not yet demonstrated anything, because it has not yet been built. I have been reading articles about nuclear fusion research since I was about 15 years old, so about 55 years. There have been reports about fusion being achievable "in the near future" just about every year since 1965. I will believe it when I see a scientific report of an actual working reactor producing more electricity (not heat) than it consumes.

The most easily-achieved fusion in a magnetically-confined plasma is the fusion of Deuterium (H2) and Tritium (H3) ("DT fusion"). SPARC aims for DT fusion. DT fusion produces gamma rays and neutrons.   (D + T -> He + n + energy). Those neutrons will smack into the structure of the reactor and turn some of it into various radioactive atoms. Deuterium is a relatively rare non-radioactive isotope of Hydrogen that is fairly easy to extract from water. It is produced and used in industrial amounts, primarily as the moderator in heavy-water fission reactors. Tritium is an artificial radioactive isotope of hydrogen that must be produced in a reactor. It is currently produced in fission reactors but could be produced in a DT fusion reactor, although producing more than you consume may be a challenge.

I too have been following fusion research, about the same length of time but I started much younger. My father worked for the Atomic Energy Commission and when I was six years old I sat on Teller's knee. Yes, that Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. I told him I was going to be a nuclear physicist, which was a mouthful to say for a six year old. Needless to say he thought that was pretty good. Luckily, given what a fustercluck the industry has become, I didn't stick with nuclear, but I never stopped reading about it. Even my father had the good sense to get out. Of course he was on the weapons side, same basic principles, just faster. 😎

I agree about containment, that's always been the bugaboo. Tokamak devices will consume roughly 30% more power than the energy they're trying to contain. What do you make a bottle out of that holds the heat of the sun? That's the fundamental problem. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

3 minutes ago, BLA said:

 Commonwealth SPARC uses the same Tokamak design as ITER.

The major difference is the magnets.  ITER uses electromagnetic coils with superconducting wires cooled with liquid helium. 

Commonwealth uses newer superconducting magnet technology made of yttrium barium copper oxide. 

These magnets are substantially more powerful than not only ITER design but the other couple of dozen ongoing projects as well.  

This allows for:

* a stronger more contained plasma field

* Smaller footprint (SPARC = Tennis Court .  ITER = Soccer Field)

* Lower production costs (ITER estimate $22 Billion but likely much more . SPARC a fraction of that.  Today's Fission Reactors cost about $23 Billion.)

 

I said we would probably not get to nuclear fusion power, meaning useful electricity delivered inexpensively to the grid. The ITER is not designed to produce electrical power at all, much less cost-effective power. To me, SPARC is just another experiment in 70-year progression of experiments that were going to work "real soon now".  The problem is that  even after they achieve Q>1 ("scientific breakeven") they will then need to solve a large number of very difficult engineering problems to first get to engineering breakeven (more electricity produced than consumed) and then to commercial breakeven, which involves mundane stuff like plant lifetime and waste disposal in addition to serious scaling.

[BLA + 1,666]

On 10/24/2020 at 12:13 PM, Dan Clemmensen said:

I said we would probably not get to nuclear fusion power, meaning useful electricity delivered inexpensively to the grid. The ITER is not designed to produce electrical power at all, much less cost-effective power. To me, SPARC is just another experiment in 70-year progression of experiments that were going to work "real soon now".  The problem is that  even after they achieve Q>1 ("scientific breakeven") they will then need to solve a large number of very difficult engineering problems to first get to engineering breakeven (more electricity produced than consumed) and then to commercial breakeven, which involves mundane stuff like plant lifetime and waste disposal in addition to serious scaling.

Yes. That's what it is all about. Getting a commercial fusion reactor. 

Mumguaard describes in his papers how they get to 10>.  We'll know in 4 or 5 years. 

Fusion has always been a decade or two away and has not delivered to date.  

 

I'm rooting for them as are others.

PMA = Positive Mental Attitude.

Too many dour negative whining sulking complaining victims in all aspects of today's society .  

We'd all be driving horse and buggies and lighting our homes with candles if we all thought like you. 

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by BLA

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, BLA said:

Yes. That's what it is all about. Getting a commercial fusion reactor. 

Mumguaard describes in his papers how they get to 10>.  We'll know in 4 or 5 years. 

Fusion has always been a decade or two away and has not delivered to date.  

 

I'm rooting for them as are others.

PMA = Positive Mental Attitude.

Too many dour negative whining sulking complaining victims in all aspects of today's society .  

 

I'm rooting for them too. I wish them well, just as I have rooted for all of the earlier developments. It's like rooting for the Chicago Cubs to win the Series.

Note that Mumguaard describes how they intend to get to >10, not how they currently get to >10. When reading this stuff, as always, it's important to distinguish present tense from future tense.  I'm not dour or whining about everything. I'm hopeful about artificial intelligence, EVs, renewable energy, and certain alternative approaches to nuclear fusion power.

[BLA + 1,666]

On 10/24/2020 at 12:40 PM, BLA said:

 Sometimes ya just have to laugh at it all.

 

" All we have to do is get him elected then we can do whatever we want"

https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2020/10/weekend-at-bidens-is-the-best-political-ad-heading-into-the-election/  

 

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by BLA

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

I downvoted BLA's post because it is off-topic.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

I downvoted BLA's post because it is off-topic.

15 Yards.  Unsportsmanlike Conduct.  1st down, @BLA

[BLA + 1,666]

20 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

15 Yards.  Unsportsmanlike Conduct.  1st down, @BLA

https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2020/10/weekend-at-bidens-is-the-best-political-ad-heading-into-the-election/