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This is R&D - not a commercial path. These types of fusion projects are trying to prove the most basic piece of the puzzle: net energy generation. And it is a

This is R&D - not a commercial path. These types of fusion projects are trying to prove the most basic piece of the puzzle: net energy generation. And it is a big problem, even for Commonwealth. I've heard that the magnets are underperforming by about a factor of 2 - and that's 4 years into the project. But commercialization is a lot more than just proving that the concept is physically possible. It was proven possible that man could walk on the moon, but it's not a commercial activity 50 years in. Commercialization for nuclear energy systems means global deployment, mass manufacturing, lack of proliferation risk, extreme safety, etc. Fusion systems like Commonwealth's do not meet any of these criteria. They are constantly generating radioactive waste because they have to breed their fuel and reprocess it on site. To commercialize, you have to be able to deploy the technology in a significantly better way than traditional fission. These large fusion prototypes ($65B for ITER and $5B for Commonwealth based on their 2015 white paper, so probably 2-4x larger now) exacerbate traditional nuclear's cost problems because they are construction projects that will last decades. Viable nuclear solutions will be factory manufactured rather than constructed. For comments from MIT dissenter in 80s that stand true today: http://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Trouble-With-Fusion_MIT_Tech_Review_1983.pdf http://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Trou... For a review of fusion problems: https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/iter-is-a-showcase-for-the-drawbacks-of-fusion-energy/ https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/iter-is-a-showcase-for-the-d...

deleted 7y ago
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trhway 7y ago
yep, at least until we get aneutronic fusion going with direct schema of electricity generation bypassing the heat engines, the fusion on Earth has no chances of competing with the most of the existing and especially solar/wind energy sources. Other than that the 2 most interesting potential applications are weapons and space propulsion. Those applications are better served by inertial confinement (laser, Z-machine, fusor, DPF) which historically been showing better results and usually at much lower costs (and even the high cost NIF can be redone today using modern solid state which would lower the cost/size dramatically) yet historically the resources have been poured into the huge systems like Tokamak.
- smaddox 7y ago
  > yep, at least until we get aneutronic fusion going with direct schema of electricity generation bypassing the heat engines, the fusion on Earth has no chances of competing with the most of the existing and especially solar/wind energy sources. This sounds like unfounded opinion to me. While I agree that ITER derived designs are unlikely to compete economically, that doesn't prevent alternative designs, especially hybrid fusion/fission sub-critical reactor's, from competing.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    For those not familiar, here's the wikipedia page on hybrid fusion-fission [1]. The idea is to use a sub-break-even fusion reactor as a source of very high energy neutrons that would trigger fission in uranium or thorium isotopes that are otherwise non-fissile. For example U-238, which constitutes 99% of all uranium on earth, and which is currently the dead weight as far as uranium is concerned (worse, you spend a lot, a lot of money to separate U-235 from U-238). U-238 can undergo fission when targeted by fast neutrons, but can't sustain a chain-reaction, so fusion-fission hybrid reactors can't lead to a Chernobyl event (but a Fukushima is possible). Not clear why we don't hear more about fusion-fission hybrids on HN. It sounds like such a promising technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion%E2%80%93fission_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion%E2%80%93fission...
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Hybrid fission-fusion reactors combine the worst features of both. Why would anyone want one?
Iv 7y ago
If Apollo 11 had found oil on the moon, we would have a few thousand people living there already. There is just nothing profitable in going to the moon. With fusion the opposite is true: we know energy is precious, and we know its market price. Just prove it can be done and commercialization will happen very quickly.
- clarkmoody 7y ago
  > If Apollo 11 had found oil on the moon, we would have a few thousand people living there already. You're forgetting the most important piece of information in the economy: price. Since oil produced on Earth is cheap, compared with hauling it back from the Moon, we don't get any from the Moon. Now, if we had found some exotic energy source that didn't exist on Earth at all, that would be a different story.
  - soperj 7y ago
    Hauling it back from the moon wouldn't be overly expensive. It'd be getting there in the first place that would.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    > Now, if we had found some exotic energy source that didn't exist on Earth at all, that would be a different story. Which does exist, btw: helium-3 which is deposited by the solar wind and captured in cold traps on the lunar poles. It doesn't exist on Earth in any quantity, except artificially produced in nuclear laboratories. He3 fusion is easier to achieve and less dangerous to operate.
    - clarkmoody 7y ago
      Sounds like an excellent reason to go to the Moon :-)
      - dTal 7y ago
        Unlikely: "The helium-3 incantation" - http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 tl;dr the popularity of mine-the-moon-for-he3 meme is due to wishful thinking about sustainable moon colonies, and there's no analysis that suggests it's even remotely practical to do.
songeater 7y ago
>I've heard that the magnets are underperforming by about a factor of 2 - and that's 4 years into the project. Hi - could you pls point me to the source for this? Would be great to see actual data on where we are on these projects. thx
- baking 7y ago
  There are no "magnets" at this point, so not sure what he is talking about. Basically they are building up HTS Twisted Stacked-Tape Cables (TSTC) and they plan on building their first full-size prototype coil in 2020. Current tests include subjecting conductors to a 13T field in a 700mm chamber at the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan. One of the key properties of HTS is that they maintain superconductivity at high magnetic fields. Some slides from a recent talk discussing this phase of research: https://indico.cern.ch/event/775529/contributions/3309887/attachments/1828600/2993908/Minervini_HTS-for-Fusion-WAMHTS-5.pdf https://indico.cern.ch/event/775529/contributions/3309887/at...
- hairytrog 7y ago
  Overheard a wailing researcher at a bar in Boston. Sorry.
  - songeater 7y ago
    gotcha thank you.
Terr_ 7y ago
I figure this sci-fi punchline is relevant: > Rod: Your kind began as self-repairing distributed storage systems for our supercomputers. When the cities fell, some of you survived, and changed just enough to continue to survive and evolve. You are now at least a million generations removed from anything we created. > Kevyn: You created? You don't mean you personally, do you? > Rod: Me personally? What do you think I look like? Some kind of an engineer? > Kevyn: Actually, What I thought was that you looked really, really old. > Rod: Heh... You youngsters, are always so cute with your little accidental insults. No, I didn't create you. Engineers did. I created something far more powerful... The marketing campaign that made you profitable. Source: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-12-16 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-12-16
theothermkn 7y ago
I'm a little dismayed that your first link is, as you note, from the 80s, and that your second link is about ITER, another old design that is orders of magnitude larger than the scheme in the article, a size it must have due to the very same technical limitation that the subjects of the article are working to remove. But that is hardly the only disappointing thing about your post; It's just fear-mongering. Of course a development reactor isn't going to be "manufactured," but "built." What prototype has ever been manufactured before it was proven? One of the very points of fusion is its low proliferation risk. I don't know why you burden fusion with "extreme safety," either. Bicycles don't have "extreme safety," and we seem to do just fine. The impact of a fusion "disaster" is probably much less than a fall off of a bicycle.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  He is pointing out a very important reality though. First you prove physical viability. Then engineering viability. Finally, after operating a full commercial unit for a while, you may prove economic viability. It's easy to assume physical viability leads to economic viability but this really is not the case.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    If you can show by general arguments that engineering viability is unlikely, demonstrating physics viability is pointless.
  - hairytrog 7y ago
    it's a she.
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      Oh crap. I'm sorry. Thanks for the correction. Too late for it to let me edit.
- hairytrog 7y ago
  Let's just toss out all physics pre 2000 because it's old. lol. Truth doesn't age. Just using ITER as an example. I can update that link with a Commonwealth one in a few years I suppose. Manufacturability is a function of a lot of things like parts, systems, interactions, size, mass, supply chain, transportability, etc. Generally speaking, more complex things are less manufacturable and they become manufacturable by simplification and reduction. As a kind of measure of manufacturability, look at the cost. Think about the most expensive piece of technology that is mass manufactured today. It's probably the 777 or 737 - so price tag on order <$100M. Big ships are on order $10Ms. Maybe military procurement goes into the $500M, but those are low quantity and generally failed programs. So if it's more than $100M and much more complicated than a wide body aircraft, today's economy and technology level is probably not going to be able to mass manufacture it. The size and complexity of these fusion systems is physically constrained by various factors many of which are physics limited. And even with the innovations they propose but have yet to prove out, the size and complexity is still too large to manufacture. Regarding fusion's proliferation risk: "One of the best ways to produce material for atomic weapons would be to put common, natural uranium or thorium in the blanket of a D-T reactor, where the fusion neu- trons would soon transform it to weapons- grade material. And tritium, an unavoidable product of the reactor; is used in some hydro- gen bombs. In the early years, research on D-T fusion was classified precisely because it would provide a ready source of material for weapons."

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

trhway 7y ago

yep, at least until we get aneutronic fusion going with direct schema of electricity generation bypassing the heat engines, the fusion on Earth has no chances of competing with the most of the existing and especially solar/wind energy sources. Other than that the 2 most interesting potential applications are weapons and space propulsion. Those applications are better served by inertial confinement (laser, Z-machine, fusor, DPF) which historically been showing better results and usually at much lower costs (and even the high cost NIF can be redone today using modern solid state which would lower the cost/size dramatically) yet historically the resources have been poured into the huge systems like Tokamak.

smaddox 7y ago
> yep, at least until we get aneutronic fusion going with direct schema of electricity generation bypassing the heat engines, the fusion on Earth has no chances of competing with the most of the existing and especially solar/wind energy sources. This sounds like unfounded opinion to me. While I agree that ITER derived designs are unlikely to compete economically, that doesn't prevent alternative designs, especially hybrid fusion/fission sub-critical reactor's, from competing.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  For those not familiar, here's the wikipedia page on hybrid fusion-fission [1]. The idea is to use a sub-break-even fusion reactor as a source of very high energy neutrons that would trigger fission in uranium or thorium isotopes that are otherwise non-fissile. For example U-238, which constitutes 99% of all uranium on earth, and which is currently the dead weight as far as uranium is concerned (worse, you spend a lot, a lot of money to separate U-235 from U-238). U-238 can undergo fission when targeted by fast neutrons, but can't sustain a chain-reaction, so fusion-fission hybrid reactors can't lead to a Chernobyl event (but a Fukushima is possible). Not clear why we don't hear more about fusion-fission hybrids on HN. It sounds like such a promising technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion%E2%80%93fission_hybrid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion%E2%80%93fission...
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Hybrid fission-fusion reactors combine the worst features of both. Why would anyone want one?

Iv 7y ago

If Apollo 11 had found oil on the moon, we would have a few thousand people living there already. There is just nothing profitable in going to the moon. With fusion the opposite is true: we know energy is precious, and we know its market price. Just prove it can be done and commercialization will happen very quickly.

clarkmoody 7y ago
> If Apollo 11 had found oil on the moon, we would have a few thousand people living there already. You're forgetting the most important piece of information in the economy: price. Since oil produced on Earth is cheap, compared with hauling it back from the Moon, we don't get any from the Moon. Now, if we had found some exotic energy source that didn't exist on Earth at all, that would be a different story.
- soperj 7y ago
  Hauling it back from the moon wouldn't be overly expensive. It'd be getting there in the first place that would.
- garmaine 7y ago
  > Now, if we had found some exotic energy source that didn't exist on Earth at all, that would be a different story. Which does exist, btw: helium-3 which is deposited by the solar wind and captured in cold traps on the lunar poles. It doesn't exist on Earth in any quantity, except artificially produced in nuclear laboratories. He3 fusion is easier to achieve and less dangerous to operate.
  - clarkmoody 7y ago
    Sounds like an excellent reason to go to the Moon :-)
    - dTal 7y ago
      Unlikely: "The helium-3 incantation" - http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2834/1 tl;dr the popularity of mine-the-moon-for-he3 meme is due to wishful thinking about sustainable moon colonies, and there's no analysis that suggests it's even remotely practical to do.

songeater 7y ago

>I've heard that the magnets are underperforming by about a factor of 2 - and that's 4 years into the project. Hi - could you pls point me to the source for this? Would be great to see actual data on where we are on these projects. thx

baking 7y ago
There are no "magnets" at this point, so not sure what he is talking about. Basically they are building up HTS Twisted Stacked-Tape Cables (TSTC) and they plan on building their first full-size prototype coil in 2020. Current tests include subjecting conductors to a 13T field in a 700mm chamber at the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) in Japan. One of the key properties of HTS is that they maintain superconductivity at high magnetic fields. Some slides from a recent talk discussing this phase of research: https://indico.cern.ch/event/775529/contributions/3309887/attachments/1828600/2993908/Minervini_HTS-for-Fusion-WAMHTS-5.pdf https://indico.cern.ch/event/775529/contributions/3309887/at...
hairytrog 7y ago
Overheard a wailing researcher at a bar in Boston. Sorry.
- songeater 7y ago
  gotcha thank you.

Terr_ 7y ago

I figure this sci-fi punchline is relevant: > Rod: Your kind began as self-repairing distributed storage systems for our supercomputers. When the cities fell, some of you survived, and changed just enough to continue to survive and evolve. You are now at least a million generations removed from anything we created. > Kevyn: You created? You don't mean you personally, do you? > Rod: Me personally? What do you think I look like? Some kind of an engineer? > Kevyn: Actually, What I thought was that you looked really, really old. > Rod: Heh... You youngsters, are always so cute with your little accidental insults. No, I didn't create you. Engineers did. I created something far more powerful... The marketing campaign that made you profitable. Source: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-12-16 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-12-16

theothermkn 7y ago

I'm a little dismayed that your first link is, as you note, from the 80s, and that your second link is about ITER, another old design that is orders of magnitude larger than the scheme in the article, a size it must have due to the very same technical limitation that the subjects of the article are working to remove. But that is hardly the only disappointing thing about your post; It's just fear-mongering. Of course a development reactor isn't going to be "manufactured," but "built." What prototype has ever been manufactured before it was proven? One of the very points of fusion is its low proliferation risk. I don't know why you burden fusion with "extreme safety," either. Bicycles don't have "extreme safety," and we seem to do just fine. The impact of a fusion "disaster" is probably much less than a fall off of a bicycle.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
He is pointing out a very important reality though. First you prove physical viability. Then engineering viability. Finally, after operating a full commercial unit for a while, you may prove economic viability. It's easy to assume physical viability leads to economic viability but this really is not the case.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  If you can show by general arguments that engineering viability is unlikely, demonstrating physics viability is pointless.
- hairytrog 7y ago
  it's a she.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Oh crap. I'm sorry. Thanks for the correction. Too late for it to let me edit.
hairytrog 7y ago
Let's just toss out all physics pre 2000 because it's old. lol. Truth doesn't age. Just using ITER as an example. I can update that link with a Commonwealth one in a few years I suppose. Manufacturability is a function of a lot of things like parts, systems, interactions, size, mass, supply chain, transportability, etc. Generally speaking, more complex things are less manufacturable and they become manufacturable by simplification and reduction. As a kind of measure of manufacturability, look at the cost. Think about the most expensive piece of technology that is mass manufactured today. It's probably the 777 or 737 - so price tag on order <$100M. Big ships are on order $10Ms. Maybe military procurement goes into the $500M, but those are low quantity and generally failed programs. So if it's more than $100M and much more complicated than a wide body aircraft, today's economy and technology level is probably not going to be able to mass manufacture it. The size and complexity of these fusion systems is physically constrained by various factors many of which are physics limited. And even with the innovations they propose but have yet to prove out, the size and complexity is still too large to manufacture. Regarding fusion's proliferation risk: "One of the best ways to produce material for atomic weapons would be to put common, natural uranium or thorium in the blanket of a D-T reactor, where the fusion neu- trons would soon transform it to weapons- grade material. And tritium, an unavoidable product of the reactor; is used in some hydro- gen bombs. In the early years, research on D-T fusion was classified precisely because it would provide a ready source of material for weapons."