Fusion Nuclear Reactor to get the Green Light
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
Soldato
Nozzer said:
Thank God for that, I thought they would waste it.
Soldato
Dude, you've got your own nuclear reactor, I am so jealous.Fusion said:
Soldato
Quick, send them your calculator.asim said:They are going to kill us all
One slight miscalculation and the planet earth will be nothing more than space particles.
I don't know what goes on in the mind of the terrorist, but using their forward thinking they will blow up a super power plant (like this) and then, hijack a news station to tell the whole of europe what they have done. Of course we will all be in a black out so can't watch it. 
On fusion - There's only one being built and it's not commercial. I like fusion though, I think it has the potential to be a successful and significant source of power but there is one large proviso - it needs 30 years of essentially business as usual to develop the technology then another 15 years before it makes a significant and commercial contribution and I don't think we've got the 30 years R&D time or will be in a position from ~2036 to start large scale building.
And having said that the article says:
Officials project that 10-20% of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century.
I didn't just pull those timings from thin air, I was at meeting with Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UK’s top man on fusion) in April and he clearly outlined the current position and the schedule of work over the next few decades.
Briefly only real remaining scientific challenge is the chamber wall. The material has to withstand bombardment of several megawatts per square meter of 14MeV neutrons for several years - maintaining the required structural integrity and not creating long lasting radioactive isotopes. A BCC steal is a promising candidate but there is much work to do in that area. Other than that is the engineering challenge of systems integration.
Regarding timings, ITER should be operational within 10 years and in parallel, the material testing facility (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, IFMIF) to find suitable wall materials should, once agreement is reached be built within 10-12 years. The first prototype power stations can be designed in parallel and should be ready to be built after some 8-9 years of data and analysis from ITER. The demonstration power station will take about 8-9 years to build resulting in fully operational power station within 27-28 years from now and commercial power stations maybe 15 years later.
And having said that the article says:
Officials project that 10-20% of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century.
I didn't just pull those timings from thin air, I was at meeting with Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UK’s top man on fusion) in April and he clearly outlined the current position and the schedule of work over the next few decades.
Briefly only real remaining scientific challenge is the chamber wall. The material has to withstand bombardment of several megawatts per square meter of 14MeV neutrons for several years - maintaining the required structural integrity and not creating long lasting radioactive isotopes. A BCC steal is a promising candidate but there is much work to do in that area. Other than that is the engineering challenge of systems integration.
Regarding timings, ITER should be operational within 10 years and in parallel, the material testing facility (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, IFMIF) to find suitable wall materials should, once agreement is reached be built within 10-12 years. The first prototype power stations can be designed in parallel and should be ready to be built after some 8-9 years of data and analysis from ITER. The demonstration power station will take about 8-9 years to build resulting in fully operational power station within 27-28 years from now and commercial power stations maybe 15 years later.
I seriously hope this is a joke, it's this kind of rubbish that's stagnated nuclear growth.They are going to kill us all
One slight miscalculation and the planet earth will be nothing more than space particles.
It's a shame this new technology won't be demonstrated until 2040, we'll probably be at 50% or less of fossil fuels reserves by then and the project will be abandoned.
Great advance, just came far too late unfortunately.
Edit: LOL @ necropost.
Man of Honour
I was about to comment on the age of the article till I saw the age of the post...
Burnsy
Burnsy
Soldato
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I love the bit about the 1 kg of fuel produces as much energy as 10,000,000kg of fossil fuel. A coal fired powerstation can get through 10,000,000kg of coal (10,000 tonne) in a day no problem. But coal is an extremely easy to obtain fuel, deuterium or tritium or boron 11 or whatever might be in vast quantities but how easy are they to process?
Man of Honour
Deuterium is found in sea water, tritium is found as a by product of existing heavy water production
So pretty easy really
Burnsy
Soldato
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I understand that it is abundant, but what captial infrastructure is needed to provide it.
Based on the phrase 1kg equivalent to 10,000,000kg fossil fuels.
A 2000MW powerstation will use 15-20,000,000kgs a day at full load.
Assuming all 60GW of the UK were coal that would be 450-600,000,000kgs a day. So by the equivalence above thats 45 to 60kgs of fusion fuel a day.
Now I've had difficulty finding a decent price for tritium but anywhere from $300/g to $10,000/g are bandied around on the web. Taking the lower price and lower usage thats $13.5million in fuel a day. Now that favours favourably against coal at say £70 per tonne equalling £42million in coal to produce 24 hours at 60GW. But what capital cost to produce tens of kilo's per day to make something that sells by the gramme. Of course if tritium costs $10,000/g then the daily cost could be upto $450m a day for 60GW.
Ouch
Based on the phrase 1kg equivalent to 10,000,000kg fossil fuels.
A 2000MW powerstation will use 15-20,000,000kgs a day at full load.
Assuming all 60GW of the UK were coal that would be 450-600,000,000kgs a day. So by the equivalence above thats 45 to 60kgs of fusion fuel a day.
Now I've had difficulty finding a decent price for tritium but anywhere from $300/g to $10,000/g are bandied around on the web. Taking the lower price and lower usage thats $13.5million in fuel a day. Now that favours favourably against coal at say £70 per tonne equalling £42million in coal to produce 24 hours at 60GW. But what capital cost to produce tens of kilo's per day to make something that sells by the gramme. Of course if tritium costs $10,000/g then the daily cost could be upto $450m a day for 60GW.
Ouch
If I remember rightly, tritium is a real show stopper for rapid fusion build. There simply isn't very much of it, what exists today a legacy by-product of the nuclear weapons industry, future sources of tritium are the wall material of a fusion reactor - that limits the speed new reactors can be built.