Coming soon: fusion energy

[Zwaintsai]

_The_ most interesting ongoing scientific experiment I'm aware of:

http://focusfusion.org/

These guys are attempting to build a relatively simple and cheap fusion reactor that generates electricity through aneutronic boron-hydrogen fusion. Not only that, but they think they can achieve it by the end of 2010 and with a couple of millon dollars.


Awesome, huh?

Also, I'm pretty convinced these guys are neither crackpots nor con artists. The science seems sound as far as I can tell, and they are quite open about their theories and experimental progress.

 

[Geminii]

It'd be nice, but fusion (even that touted strictly by very educated and respected scientists and engineers) has been "a few years away" for many decades now.

Like flying cars, I'll be more than happy to welcome them to the world when and if they eventually get here, but until actual real commercial products start rolling off the production line and being used by Joe Public, I'm not holding my breath.

Fantastic breakthroughs, even plausible ones, get one scientifically-backed announcement, and then a second one by another group in the event that the first one runs into implementation trouble. If the second group of respected scientists and engineers doesn't come up with anything in ten years, then for me the item in question gets tossed onto the pile of "believe nothing until it physically exists".

 

[Chronomar]

(!)

I knooooooooow! And I am much more optimistic than I usually let myself be, but with the continual erm..."setbacks" in the NASA program, this is the only twinkly ray of hope I have.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...ty-warm-up-successful-next-step-fusion-tests/

"The hunt for fusion energy is one that has been plagued by false starts and overly-optimistic announcements. This week, however, researchers at the National Ignition Facility in California announced a major new step: firing all of its 192 lasers together for the first time, and channeling the beam into an area no bigger than a pencil eraser.
That tiny target is called the hohlraum. It’s a gold-plated cylinder intended to contain the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which would fuse together during a potential fusion reaction. In this test, documented in the journal Science this week, the 192 lasers heated up the hohlraum to “only” about 6 million degrees Fahrenheit. But, team member Jeffrey Atherton says, the NIF is working its way up to the really powerful reactions. “The point is that we were doing it at a scale that’s about 20 times larger than has been done, with a laser power that accordingly is about 20 times higher than has been done, with a precision and efficiency that hasn’t been done before,” he said [MSNBC]."

 

[Zwaintsai]

It'd be nice, but fusion (even that touted strictly by very educated and respected scientists and engineers) has been "a few years away" for many decades now.

This seems to be true for many potentially revolutionary technologies. Human-level AI will always happen in 10 years, immortality will arrive by the time the claimant is 70, ect. So yes, these things should be looked at with a healthy dose of scepticism. What I like about this project, though, is that it's not "a few years and a couple of hundred million dollars away" but rather they already have funding, a timetable, and some positive experimental results.

I'm not saying it can't fail, but I think it compares favourably with any current fusion research project, including NIF. My problem with NIF is that even if it were succesful, it would still not address the fundamental problem that many fusion schemes share with traditional fission nuclear power: the need to build massive and complex gigawatt-scale power plants to make it work. Even if the fuel were completely free, the large capital cost and construction time (~decade) would keep it from being adopted in large scale, just like with today's nuclear power.
Also, using the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle, as they do in most fusion projects, produces some radioactive waste, which is known to be highly toxic to politicians.

 

[Geminii]

Good point about immortality. I think humans will eventually achieve it - or as near as makes no difference - but it will take more like another eight to twelve hundred years to do even close to properly.

I'm also not of the opinion that freezing my head would allow me to be usefully reconstructed in the future. Even assuming that far-future society would prefer a fairly ignorant new citizen instead of a really cool frozen head.

 

[Zwaintsai]

Todays ignorant citizen is tomorrows exotic caveman. Frozen people would be preserved as historical relics, if nothing else, and if they can be brought to life, wouldn't it be nice to have a living caveman instead of a frozen one?

I also think it can be done. All the relevant information remains in the brain, or should remain if the freezing is done properly, of course no one knows for sure. If it does, it's just a matter of developing the nanoscale imaging and assembling technology to put the pieces back together.

Ten centuries is a bit pessimistic. I'd say by 2100 for both reconstruction and indefinite lifespan.

 

[lafmeche]

_The_ most interesting ongoing scientific experiment I'm aware of:

http://focusfusion.org/

These guys are attempting to build a relatively simple and cheap fusion reactor that generates electricity through aneutronic boron-hydrogen fusion. Not only that, but they think they can achieve it by the end of 2010 and with a couple of millon dollars.


Awesome, huh?

Also, I'm pretty convinced these guys are neither crackpots nor con artists. The science seems sound as far as I can tell, and they are quite open about their theories and experimental progress.

There are a number of other small fusion projects that look promising as well. My personal favorite is the Polywell. It's currently funded by the navy, so details are sparse, but it's looking very good and has big names behind it. Their ultimate goal is to burn B11 for fuel, which should be completely clean and is extremely common.

General Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/index.html

Forums (lots more info):
http://www.talk-polywell.org

There are some fantastic discussions in the forums, though it's fairly technical.

 

[Zwaintsai]

Polywell is probably the most promising fusion approach after focus fusion.

The physicists behind Polywell and Focus Fusion, Bussard and Lerner gave both speeches at Google a few years ago regarding their research:

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really)

Focus Fusion: The Fastest Route to Cheap, Clean Energy

Polywell has the disadvantage of being two orders of magnitude more expensive than focus fusion, and the fact that it's being developed in secrecy. So it's a bit hard to tell wether it's viable of or forthcoming in the near future.
It's still well worth the money if it does work, and focus fusion doesn't.

Also, Bussard died, which is a bit of a bummer.

 

[lafmeche]

Polywell has the disadvantage of being two orders of magnitude more expensive than focus fusion, and the fact that it's being developed in secrecy. So it's a bit hard to tell wether it's viable of forthcoming in the near future.
It's still well worth the money if it does work, and focus fusion doesn't.

Also, Bussard died, which is a bit of a bummer.

Yes, it is a shame that Bussard is gone, but they have a great team to carry on. Nebel is a very knowledgeable guy and seems to be leading them in the right direction. He even participates in some of the discussions on the forums.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by orders of magnitude more expensive. They're only in the range of seven figures, which is more than enough to prove the concept and is pennies compared to most big power-related research projects.

As far as viability, they continue to get increases in funding, with bigger and bigger goals to reach. It's hard to see how that would work if they weren't making significant progress. While they can't give out tons of details, they do update the community periodically. At this point, the main things they're thinking about are scalability and losses at the cusps. Nebel himself has stated that they currently do not see any show-stopping problems.

 

[Luminates]

Maybe the lights of this new breakthrough will be seen in my life time, but that being said, it's still going to take some time for an answer behind this motive to be found, and then ideally implemented into scientific study.
Think of how many new advances could be made with this new form of technology?

 

[lafmeche]

Wow, I'm posting a lot today...

Maybe the lights of this new breakthrough will be seen in my life time, but that being said, it's still going to take some time for an answer behind this motive to be found, and then ideally implemented into scientific study.
Think of how many new advances could be made with this new form of technology?

I spend a reasonable amount of time considering what might happen if cheap, ultra-easy fusion does work out (I personally think it's a matter of when, not if..).

More than likely it will mean increased consumerism and waste, but my hope is that it will usher in a new period of technology advances and scientific research. With such abundant energy, we would have the potential to solve many/most of the serious problems in the world while simultaneously removing some of the primary sources of conflict. I'm sure that's overly optimistic of course, but it's interesting to consider.

 

[Zwaintsai]

I spend a reasonable amount of time considering what might happen if cheap, ultra-easy fusion does work out (I personally think it's a matter of when, not if..).

So do I. Consumerism would most certainly increase, not only in first world countries, but most importantly in the third world, which would finally be able to catch up in terms of material living standards. Waste would not, since cheap energy would allow most anything to be recycled economically.

Space travel would become available to almost everyone. We could have space travel in a scale we now have ari travel. And air travel in the scale we have sea travel.

In fact I don't see any fundamental material problems that can't be solved with cheap energy. Recycling, raw material extraction, manufacturing, desalination, farming, it all really comes down to energy. With cheap fusion energy we would soon have a post-scarcity economy.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by orders of magnitude more expensive. They're only in the range of seven figures, which is more than enough to prove the concept and is pennies compared to most big power-related research projects.

I was under the impression that they needed eight figures for a commercial plant. I might be wrong. But seven is still more than six needed by focus fusion for both proof-of-concept and commercialization. And yes, both are pennies compared to big fusion projects.

 

[lafmeche]

I agree that cheap energy could solve all of those problems, but I don't see people changing quite so quickly, at least in the US. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

As far as a full-scale reactor for the Polywell, you're correct. A first-run could cost up to $100 mil, but not subsequent reactors. I didn't realize you had given them enough credit to get to that point.

At any rate, I don't see why this has to be an us-vs-them kind of thing. Both projects have pros and cons, and either has the potential to work or fail. In my opinion, it's always better to have multiple projects of this sort working toward similar goals. It increases the chances of success.

 

[Zwaintsai]

At any rate, I don't see why this has to be an us-vs-them kind of thing. Both projects have pros and cons, and either has the potential to work or fail. In my opinion, it's always better to have multiple projects of this sort working toward similar goals. It increases the chances of success.

I absolutely agree with you on this. Guess I'm just trying to promote my favourite project, as focus fusion seems to be less well known than polywell.

It' also true that people won't change. Hopefully material abundance will bring the best out of people, though I wouldn't bet on it. As always, old problems will get solved and new problems will come to take their place. It's the hierarchy of needs. People hoping to get all their problems solved will be disappointed.

For INTPs a post-scarcity world might be very desirable, since it would allow us to have the time and resources to do the things that interest us. Some people might feel loss of purpose in life, if it suddenly became a trivial task for everyone to achieve high living standards.

 

[warryer]

So do I. Consumerism would most certainly increase, not only in first world countries, but most importantly in the third world, which would finally be able to catch up in terms of material living standards. Waste would not, since cheap energy would allow most anything to be recycled economically.

Space travel would become available to almost everyone. We could have space travel in a scale we now have ari travel. And air travel in the scale we have sea travel.

In fact I don't see any fundamental material problems that can't be solved with cheap energy. Recycling, raw material extraction, manufacturing, desalination, farming, it all really comes down to energy. With cheap fusion energy we would soon have a post-scarcity economy.

I couldn't agree more. Just think of all the social impacts too. There would be oppurtunity wherever anybody could look. The class system would become irrelevant. The relative value of "things" would be identical. I suspect people would focus on the arts and sciences vs scrapping to stay alive. It would be such a different world than what we know.

While fusion is a possibility, its a technology of tomorrow. We already have all the fusion energy we need hitting the earth every single day in the form of light. So why do we need to create our own?

I think the best next step to take now is to make improvements on solar collectors. The best part is that its currently available.

The problem with this seems to be manufacturing costs. I like to think of this in the same way that I think of the activation energy for a chemical reaction. Once it gets going the returns will be far greater than the input.

 

[NothingTodo]

The problem is humanity is afraid of change. It will take decades for humanity to accept this and by then it will be to late.

 

[lafmeche]

I absolutely agree with you on this. Guess I'm just trying to promote my favourite project, as focus fusion seems to be less well known than polywell.

It’s understandable. They’ve actually discussed focus fusion a good bit over at talk-polywell. If you’re into fusion, you might enjoy reading those forums. While they obviously like the Polywell, they actively discuss all fusion and most of them are perfectly open to other projects.

It' also true that people won't change. Hopefully material abundance will bring the best out of people, though I wouldn't bet on it. As always, old problems will get solved and new problems will come to take their place. It's the hierarchy of needs. People hoping to get all their problems solved will be disappointed.

For INTPs a post-scarcity world might be very desirable, since it would allow us to have the time and resources to do the things that interest us. Some people might feel loss of purpose in life, if it suddenly became a trivial task for everyone to achieve high living standards.

I couldn't agree more. Just think of all the social impacts too. There would be oppurtunity wherever anybody could look. The class system would become irrelevant. The relative value of "things" would be identical. I suspect people would focus on the arts and sciences vs scrapping to stay alive. It would be such a different world than what we know.

I think this is very unlikely. Certainly, I’d like that to happen, but people won’t change. There’s a possibility of less jobs due to increased efficiency/automation and there’s no guarantee that the money saved will go toward anything useful. More likely, it will line to pockets of the people in charge. This might be an overly pessimistic view, but I have a hard time giving the human race much credit at the moment.

While fusion is a possibility, its a technology of tomorrow. We already have all the fusion energy we need hitting the earth every single day in the form of light. So why do we need to create our own?

I think the best next step to take now is to make improvements on solar collectors. The best part is that its currently available.

The problem with this seems to be manufacturing costs. I like to think of this in the same way that I think of the activation energy for a chemical reaction. Once it gets going the returns will be far greater than the input.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. By the time the light makes it through the atmosphere and is collected, it’s not nearly as abundant as solar advocates will lead you to believe. At our current technology level (even the newest experimental panels), we simply can’t get enough energy from solar power, even if we covered huge tracts of land with panels. Maybe this will change in the future, but we’re not there yet and we don’t know hot to get there. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever get there. If these current fusion projects work, you could see production reactors in 10 years or less. (no, there's obviously no guarantee for fusion either, but the projects we're discussing are almost like a yes/no question - if they work, production reactors can be made quickly and cheaply)

 

[warryer]

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. By the time the light makes it through the atmosphere and is collected, it’s not nearly as abundant as solar advocates will lead you to believe. At our current technology level (even the newest experimental panels), we simply can’t get enough energy from solar power, even if we covered huge tracts of land with panels. Maybe this will change in the future, but we’re not there yet and we don’t know hot to get there. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever get there. If these current fusion projects work, you could see production reactors in 10 years or less. (no, there's obviously no guarantee for fusion either, but the projects we're discussing are almost like a yes/no question - if they work, production reactors can be made quickly and cheaply)

Most sources say that solar energy reaches us at a rate of 1000W/m^2 at optimum conditions. I will grant you the main problems with solar collectors are efficiency and manufacturing costs. Solar panels on a manufacturing scale have an efficiency of around 15-20%. The very best using expensive rare metals reaching 40-45%. These measures being the conversion rate of sunlight to electricity.

Then you have solar thermal power which I think is the most promising in terms of improvement. Overall system efficiency is quoted at 2.6%.

If you think about it all energy sources today (oil, coal, food, etc...) are really the storage of solar energy.

As far as covering tracts of land, who said that we had to do that? Some 75% of this earth is covered in water. Why cant we have floating power plants. I don't quite know what the land area requirement would be to meet the world's demands. We could even take that energy and convert it to liquid hydrocarbons for storage and transport. Not to mention beaming energy collected from space down to earth via microwaves.

I don't mean to say that solar is superior to fusion as really they work on the same principal just on a different mode. I'm pointing out possibilities. I would be thrilled if tomorrow in the papers I read: fusion energy made possible.

Anyhow, energy is what I plan on making a career on. It's just so damned interesting.

 

[Zwaintsai]

Global energy consumption is 1.5 x 10^13 watts. Under optimal conditions, with 25% efficiency that would take 60 billion square meters, or 60 000 square kilometers of panel. As a point of comparison, the area of Belgium is 30 528 km^2.

Say we also have a very low solar panel price, say $100 per sqm. This would make 6 trillion dollars with highly optimistic parameters. That's 1/10th of global GDP. Actually we should also account for rise in consumption (very important if the third world is to industrialise), transmission losses, panel replacement costs, and the fact that optimal conditions are hard to come by. So there's more to powering world with solar power than just rolling your sleeves.

Now I'm not trying to badmouth solar, if fusion proves to be unattainable, space-based solar power will probably be the next best thing. Just wanted to give you the scale of the problem. Solar, as it is now and in the near future, might stave off an energy crisis, but it wouldn't make energy cheap, much less free.

Let's compare this to, say focus fusion. A 5 MW unit would cost ~$100 000 in mass production, that's $0.02 per watt. Globally, $300 billion. As energy price drops, people's ability to pay increases. Also there's minimal need for supporting infrastructure (like steam turbines or long power lines), and it can churn out power regardless of the time of day or location.

 

[lafmeche]

The problem is humanity is afraid of change. It will take decades for humanity to accept this and by then it will be to late.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I don't think this will get stuck under the 'nuclear is bad' umbrella. Most (viable) fusion projects involve small pieces of equipment that bear no resemblance to current fission technology. Other than that fear factor, I don't think the general public will even know (or care) about this. They'll just like having cheap energy.

Most sources say that solar energy reaches us at a rate of 1000W/m^2 at optimum conditions. I will grant you the main problems with solar collectors are efficiency and manufacturing costs. Solar panels on a manufacturing scale have an efficiency of around 15-20%. The very best using expensive rare metals reaching 40-45%. These measures being the conversion rate of sunlight to electricity.

Then you have solar thermal power which I think is the most promising in terms of improvement. Overall system efficiency is quoted at 2.6%.

If you think about it all energy sources today (oil, coal, food, etc...) are really the storage of solar energy.

Not going to argue with any of that...

As far as covering tracts of land, who said that we had to do that? Some 75% of this earth is covered in water. Why cant we have floating power plants. I don't quite know what the land area requirement would be to meet the world's demands. We could even take that energy and convert it to liquid hydrocarbons for storage and transport. Not to mention beaming energy collected from space down to earth via microwaves.

Land-based solar plants are barely viable at the moment, for the reasons we've already covered (efficiency, cost). Making panels that float would be hard. Making them also point in the correct direction is harder. Do they float individually or do we build giant floating platforms? If they float individually, how do we tether them safely and effectively?

Now factor in inevitable problems - ship collisions, interference with wildlife, maintenance and system failures (salt destroys everything). How hard is it going to be to get people out to floating solar plants to repair the things when they break?

As far as converting to liquid hydrocarbons - I'm not sure if that's feasible, but if it is, you're adding another process with low efficiency to the chain. Then you have to burn the hydrocarbons, another low efficiency process. Plus, now you have the potentially harmful emissions from burning the hydrocarbons.

Orbital solar may be viable, but the cost is probably going to be staggering. I'm eager to see how the Japanese project turns out, though.

I don't mean to say that solar is superior to fusion as really they work on the same principal just on a different mode. I'm pointing out possibilities. I would be thrilled if tomorrow in the papers I read: fusion energy made possible.

Anyhow, energy is what I plan on making a career on. It's just so damned interesting.

I certainly don't mean to turn this into a solar vs. fusion argument. I'm not saying that we should abandon solar research or that it has no place on the grid, but I always advocate caution because very few of the people I've discussed this with understand how problematic it would be if we tried to go completely solar. (I don't mean you, just in general)

I considered a career in power myself (ended up in medical devices instead, though I haven't ruled out a change). I look forward to seeing your name plastered across the web after you solve our energy problems

 

[warryer]

Global energy consumption is 1.5 x 10^13 watts. Under optimal conditions, with 25% efficiency that would take 60 billion square meters, or 60 000 square kilometers of panel. As a point of comparison, the area of Belgium is 30 528 km^2.

Say we also have a very low solar panel price, say $100 per sqm. This would make 6 trillion dollars with highly optimistic parameters. That's 1/10th of global GDP. Actually we should also account for rise in consumption (very important if the third world is to industrialise), transmission losses, panel replacement costs, and the fact that optimal conditions are hard to come by. So there's more to powering world with solar power than just rolling your sleeves.

Let's compare this to, say focus fusion. A 5 MW unit would cost ~$100 000 in mass production, that's $0.02 per watt. Globally, $300 billion. As energy price drops, people's ability to pay increases. Also there's minimal need for supporting infrastructure (like steam turbines or long power lines), and it can churn out power regardless of the time of day or location.

I don't expect to spend that 6 trillion over night. It would have to be done over time at the limit of current capacity. If we look at current capacities of 3.6GW/yr it would take about 4,000 years to meet all of today's demands. Absolutely rediculous but, that would translate to $1.5 million/yr .

I wonder how this would be effected if you were to turn around and use the energy you are producing in the manufacturing process. As in you build a plant (solar or fusion) take that electricity to power your current capacity and potentially add more. I can really only speculate at this point as I haven't sat down to do any numbers.

So looking at it from that point, solar seems very unattractive. The upsides are that they are static, should require minimal maintenance, and fuel costs are zero. The fact that they take no fuel (lets not be technical about it, hydrogen fusion of the sun etc) to produce power is the biggest selling point of solar.

Land-based solar plants are barely viable at the moment, for the reasons we've already covered (efficiency, cost). Making panels that float would be hard. Making them also point in the correct direction is harder. Do they float individually or do we build giant floating platforms? If they float individually, how do we tether them safely and effectively?

Now factor in inevitable problems - ship collisions, interference with wildlife, maintenance and system failures (salt destroys everything). How hard is it going to be to get people out to floating solar plants to repair the things when they break?

I didn't think this through too deeply. But my idea on the surface involved large tanker ships converted into factories.

A tanker would drive itself to a point on the equator where the hours of peak sunlight are the highest while also finding a place where the weather is favorable.

The ship reaches its destination and unfurls its cargo. The floaters could be some cheap plastic air bladders. I don't know how much cargo a tanker would be able to hold but I know its substantial. As far as the stabilizing the panels, I'm sure there is a way to do it with gyroscopes.

As far as converting to liquid hydrocarbons - I'm not sure if that's feasible, but if it is, you're adding another process with low efficiency to the chain. Then you have to burn the hydrocarbons, another low efficiency process. Plus, now you have the potentially harmful emissions from burning the hydrocarbons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer–Tropsch_process

This is how Nazi Germany was able to keep up the fight as long as they did. The idea is to take an amount of hydrogen gas + carbon monoxide + energy + catalyst to convert to any variety of hydrocarbon chains.

The reason I state ocean based site is because of the availablity of water for H2. There is a way to convert CO2 into CO + O2. I don't know what the exact process is. Perhaps it's electrolytic. This would in turn result in an emission cycle neutral fuel. The efficiency is no doubt very poor. But its a way to store sunlight for night time use.

I considered a career in power myself (ended up in medical devices instead, though I haven't ruled out a change). I look forward to seeing your name plastered across the web after you solve our energy problems

Haha maybe one day . My main interest lies in turbines though. I want to bring turbines into cars and for localized power. Localized power meaning the internet for electricity and everybody would have a backyard powerstation. Not quite ground breaking stuff as fusion may prove to be. The fuel will prove to be most difficult (damn you thermodynamics!)

---

We can all agree that large amounts of research and discovery will need to be done before we can reach an energy utopia (which I am sure will happen).

Any info you can give me on the state of fusion will be much appreciated. It's not something I know very much about.