FUSION REACTOR: Ultimate "Holy Grail" of Clean Energy. Becoming a reality ? The hydrocarbon killer

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Laughter is the best medicine!😂

The problem with trying to figure what the heck is going on with oil, and the price thereof, is that there is no solid data to base a prediction on.

We were supposed to reach ‘peak oil’ several times in the past 50 years, but this hasn’t materialized. We keep finding more oil in places previously ‘under’ explored due to advances in geophysics, we are finding more and more as technology allows us to explore in deeper water depths and we can even get significant oil out of shale if the price is right.

On the surplus issue....nobody rigorously and accurately tracks this. Sure, the EIA sends out a weekly questionairre, which is followed up monthly, but where do the numbers come from for the rest of the world?

Reservewise, we have proven reserves, unproven reserves, reserves we publish to attract investors and reserves we use to forward political agendas.

Heck, we could wake up tomorrow and find out there is no surplus oil and the price shoots to $300/bbl!

[PE Scott + 563]

1 hour ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Reservewise, we have proven reserves, unproven reserves, reserves we publish to attract investors and reserves we use to forward political agendas.

Heck, we could wake up tomorrow and find out there is no surplus oil and the price shoots to $300/bbl!

If the price was that high I suspect there would suddenly be much more oil that operators were willing to extract by whatever means possible. I do agree though, the price could swing rapidly and suddenly with an unexpected truth bomb that catches people off guard.

Look at Japan for example. They're wholly dependent on oil imports so they even considered methane hydrates off the sea floor. Crazy stuff.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/energy-dense-methane-hydrate-extracted-by-japanese-chinese-researchers/%3famp=1

We wont run out of FF before the oil market loses momentum, in my opinion. 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

“Look at Japan for example. They're wholly dependent on oil imports so they even considered methane hydrates off the sea floor. Crazy stuff.”

Methane hydrates have been studied for decades at least. China drilled a ‘successful’ methane well around 2015-2016 (although a guy named Wyatt, an American, designed it...).

The real issue with producing methane hydrates is the volumetric considerations going from a solid to a gas....and the resultant seabed ‘slump’ if you get it wrong!

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

13 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

I used to be a huge fusion supporter, but reality beat that out of me, now it feels like praying for warp drive to be invented.

I personally believe we will see Thorium reactors working commercially before my kids are teenagers. 

 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

4 hours ago, PE Scott said:

We wont run out of FF before the oil market loses momentum, in my opinion. 

My guess is that we will be using fossil fuels for atleast the majority of the rest of my lifetime (I'm a millenial; although an older one). However, it will be less than we are using today. There is natural demand destruction happening in the West and whilst renewables might not be there yet in terms of economics (and new nuclear tech is relatively far away) the downward cost curves for renewables speak for themselfes. There is a reason big oil is starting to brand themselfes as big energy. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

21 hours ago, BLA said:

You're correct , "trash"

Does Oil Price back that trash ? 

 

I think it's a paid advertisement but they put their name on it.  It's permalinked at the top of every forum page in that grey bar at the top.

Quality standards. Haha $$

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

17 hours ago, BLA said:

 

My guess (and its only a guess) Commercial Fusion 30 years away.

 

Perfect, now we agree, sort of.

I'm only 41 but I've been a science geek since.. forever.  Fusion is always 20 years away - just like everyone having their own flying car.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

22 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

 

@Enthalpic you seem so willing to consider all useless uneconomic unrealistic crap green energy and then you mock fusion??

you must  be retarded or the ancestor of those that didn’t believe in the wheel!

for thousands of years man wanted to fly and it was ludicrous to those of a closed mind like you!

guess what it’s a reality now!

 

See above.  30 billion investment, no working power plant.

So many other sources of renewable energy are available right now and they are known to work.  Renewables are just criticized because they are more expensive or less convenient than fossil fuels. 

You are praising something that doesn't work yet, and would cost millions per watt at the current rate. haha pun intended.

Humans have done fusion since the 1950's, just can't put a bomb/sun in a bottle and make electricity from it yet.  The best "plants" are like break even energy for a few seconds the last time I looked.

The little solar panel in an old calculator running under moonlight still outperforms fusion generator plants.

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Enthalpic

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 2/6/2020 at 3:28 PM, Enthalpic said:

See above.  30 billion investment, no working power plant.

So many other sources of renewable energy are available right now and they are known to work.  Renewables are just criticized because they are more expensive or less convenient than fossil fuels. 

You are praising something that doesn't work yet, and would cost millions per watt at the current rate. haha pun intended.

Humans have done fusion since the 1950's, just can't put a bomb/sun in a bottle and make electricity from it yet.  The best "plants" are like break even energy for a few seconds the last time I looked.

The little solar panel in an old calculator running under moonlight still outperforms fusion generator plants.

 

From a cursory reading, what is "different this time" about fusion is the use of Helium3 isotope instead of heavy H2 for half of the atomic reactants, the differentiating result is that no high energy chargeless neutrons are shot off from the reaction and bombard the containment structure till it crumbles. Only charged particles are produced and can be contained in the magnetic structure (Tokomak?).  Then you can use it effectively since you can direct the energy to where you need it from the plasma reactor. 

Only problem is that He3 is very rare on earth and found in individual pieces of rock. The moon on the other hand, has lots of it all over the surface, hence the new billionaires' space race. 

I couldn't read through the promotional blurb at the top of the page as it is written in typical obfuscatese. 

My recollection of high school science camp where I picked to go to the laser and fusion science department was the elaborate laser setup and the flash tubes and Neudymium glass lenses and accelerators, or whatever you call them, Then the plasma chamber and most of all, the burn marks on the walls.  Small ones from missed laser targeting, and large light brown cloud like ones from escaped particles or radiation from the plasma chamber caps.