5 ms·

Many comments have claimed this, but I disagree. Plasma confinement as science has largely been solved now. Like the Rocket Equation, Computational Fluid Dynami

Many comments have claimed this, but I disagree. Plasma confinement as science has largely been solved now. Like the Rocket Equation, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and other aspects of Aerospace, we know the parameters of how to do it, and it is simply a matter of searching the space, reducing the parameters, via engineering iteration. We also knew that landing rockets was possible, and closed-cycle combustion engines were possible, the physics said so, and even had prototypes that could do it, but with SpaceX, it is not the science that's the issue, or even one-off engineering feats, but practical, economical, scalable production. With Fusion, we've already achieved confinement times and burns that show we can make it work. But making it work in a prototype reactor is a far cry from making it work in a commercial reactor which needs to be run everyday and maintained. ITER's been going for 13 years now, and I don't think they're solving any of the problems that SPARC will solve. Yes, tokamak prototypes have provided the insight to help nail down the plasma physics, but small scale fusion prototypes have helped to do, with much faster turnaround time than $20+ billion mega projects. What SPARC is saying is that small is beautiful. That because of scaling of the B-field to the fourth power, if you focus on stronger magnets, you can dramatically reduce both the size and the cost to build your fusion reactors. That is, if you double the strength of your B-field, you shrink the size of the machine needed by a factor of 4. So clearly, instead of focusing on ITER, you should focus on the economics and scaling of REBCO manufacturing, and increases in magnetic field you can eeek out because they pay huge dividends. In other words, we are not longer at the Von Braun stage of rockets, or even the Apollo stage, we're at the SpaceX stage of dramatically reducing manufacturing costs and increasing use. Likewise, I think Fusion is poised to move past the Von Braun stage of "is this possible" to "can we build a real reactor?" As long as people can let go of huge super-projects, and we can get funding for a bunch of innovative startups in the space to try various techniques and designs for engineering small, cheap, and rapidly. Likewise, for Thorium reactors, we already know Molten Salt Reactors work, we already know the Thorium cycle works, and we even know a commercial plant works, as Germany ran one at one point. There are oodles of startups now vying to build small scale thorium reactors. The role the government could play here is, like with NASA, the DOE, could provide capital to reduce risk, and get some of the more promising ventures off the ground. Most importantly, they need to be allowed to fail.

dredds 6y ago
If only the "force" in Space Force referred to propulsion power rather than military domination. :(
XorNot 6y ago
"At what cost" is what I'm going to ask. Startups will do it - okay - at what cost? What funding do they need that ITER is somehow consuming their budget? The US military expenditure for fiscal year $934 billion dollars. That is not the actual spend. ITER, over it's entire 20-30 year history will cost about $23 billion USD projected. So a $1 billion or less per year. By comparison, the US military budget between FY 2019 and FY 2020 increased in proposed (i.e. the actual spend was more) by $63 billion USD. So the US, somehow, between 2019 and 2020 found the money for another 3 entire ITER projects. Just kick another 3 20-30 year projects out, fully funded. Uber has raised $24.5 billion USD to date. A company who's principle asset is an algorithm which dispatches taxis, raised enough money to literally fund it's own ITER project. So "At what cost" - what are these startups needing to be budgeted for, that are going to be so much cheaper, that they are unable to get any of this money? Set aside the actual defense spend of the US - but I mean, how can you, the US runs nuclear powered carriers, and would have infinite utility for a compact fusion power plant - how is it that ITER is always the problem here, and not that this notion of "we need startups" might actually be running into funding issues because on closer examination they're not actually as cheap, the data is not as convincing, or they're actually about to ask for just as much money. So again, how much money do these alleged startups need? Why is it apparently so hard for them to get it, when the total valuation of ITER is being thrown around by venture capitalists pretty regularly and the prize is dominance of the next several centuries of power generating technology?
- cromwellian 6y ago
  SPARC already raised $500 million. No one claimed ITER is consuming their budget, if ITER is consuming anything, it's people, actual scientists in academia working on it, instead of working on smaller scale projects. It's an opportunity cost. Look, even if ITER is a success, it still won't even produce electricity, that's require DEMO, a follow on project. We're talking post 2035 just for the first Deuterium-Tritium operation. Now, do you think by 2035+, which is 15 years from now, commercial fusion reactors are going to be run off Niobium-Tin cooled with Liquid Helium? Or do you think commercially available REBCO, which needs only liquid nitrogen, and whose superconductivity doesn't falloff as field strengthen increases, will be used? By 2035, whatever DEMO uses of the ITER design will be 30 years old. Meanwhile, hundreds of smaller scale fusion devices could have been built, with equivalent field strengths, but at far far less cost. Would you rather run one massive international experiment with dozens of bureaucracies, or run hundreds of smaller experiences, and collect a lot of data from many more designs in the mean time? We don't need the kill ITER to fund more startup fusion research in this country. ARPA-E funded Solyndra and Tesla. Solyndra failed, Tesla succeeded, paid their money back, and created a new industry leading car company with a market capitalization larger than all US car companies combined. I'd call ARPA-E and DOE's investment portfolio HUGELY successful. If they were a Silicon Valley VC, all the other VC's would be envious.

dredds 6y ago

If only the "force" in Space Force referred to propulsion power rather than military domination. :(

XorNot 6y ago

"At what cost" is what I'm going to ask. Startups will do it - okay - at what cost? What funding do they need that ITER is somehow consuming their budget? The US military expenditure for fiscal year $934 billion dollars. That is not the actual spend. ITER, over it's entire 20-30 year history will cost about $23 billion USD projected. So a $1 billion or less per year. By comparison, the US military budget between FY 2019 and FY 2020 increased in proposed (i.e. the actual spend was more) by $63 billion USD. So the US, somehow, between 2019 and 2020 found the money for another 3 entire ITER projects. Just kick another 3 20-30 year projects out, fully funded. Uber has raised $24.5 billion USD to date. A company who's principle asset is an algorithm which dispatches taxis, raised enough money to literally fund it's own ITER project. So "At what cost" - what are these startups needing to be budgeted for, that are going to be so much cheaper, that they are unable to get any of this money? Set aside the actual defense spend of the US - but I mean, how can you, the US runs nuclear powered carriers, and would have infinite utility for a compact fusion power plant - how is it that ITER is always the problem here, and not that this notion of "we need startups" might actually be running into funding issues because on closer examination they're not actually as cheap, the data is not as convincing, or they're actually about to ask for just as much money. So again, how much money do these alleged startups need? Why is it apparently so hard for them to get it, when the total valuation of ITER is being thrown around by venture capitalists pretty regularly and the prize is dominance of the next several centuries of power generating technology?

cromwellian 6y ago
SPARC already raised $500 million. No one claimed ITER is consuming their budget, if ITER is consuming anything, it's people, actual scientists in academia working on it, instead of working on smaller scale projects. It's an opportunity cost. Look, even if ITER is a success, it still won't even produce electricity, that's require DEMO, a follow on project. We're talking post 2035 just for the first Deuterium-Tritium operation. Now, do you think by 2035+, which is 15 years from now, commercial fusion reactors are going to be run off Niobium-Tin cooled with Liquid Helium? Or do you think commercially available REBCO, which needs only liquid nitrogen, and whose superconductivity doesn't falloff as field strengthen increases, will be used? By 2035, whatever DEMO uses of the ITER design will be 30 years old. Meanwhile, hundreds of smaller scale fusion devices could have been built, with equivalent field strengths, but at far far less cost. Would you rather run one massive international experiment with dozens of bureaucracies, or run hundreds of smaller experiences, and collect a lot of data from many more designs in the mean time? We don't need the kill ITER to fund more startup fusion research in this country. ARPA-E funded Solyndra and Tesla. Solyndra failed, Tesla succeeded, paid their money back, and created a new industry leading car company with a market capitalization larger than all US car companies combined. I'd call ARPA-E and DOE's investment portfolio HUGELY successful. If they were a Silicon Valley VC, all the other VC's would be envious.