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General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
- hannob 5y agoThe important sentence: "It won't generate power". It's all fine to do this as a research project. But this is not a technology that is going to solve our energy problems any time soon - and it certainly shouldn't distract from deploying the solutions that exist today, aka mostly wind+solar.
- StreamBright 5y agoFinally something mildly interesting coming from Bezos. I guess he is bored out of his mind at this stage.
- wpasc 5y agoI agree, if capitalism and the free market is to produce individuals who have fuck-you-money^2 then it would be great if they did interesting/innovative things that the market as a collective may pass on as being too risky and/or researchers can't get the funding for bc there's not enough money or the grant seems too risky.
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- merpnderp 5y agoIf Bezos is paying for it, then by definition the market is investing in it. Unless you think Bezos's money exists somehow outside of the market. When I invest in an ice cream cone, that ice cream is about to be destroyed and my investment will soon be down the toilet, but I was certainly participating in the market. If Bezos's reactor blows up, it will be little bits of the free market raining down. And if it powers the world with endless green energy, there will be little green energy free market electrons pumped across the world.
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- relativ575 5y agoHe funds Blue Origin to the tune of a billion USD a year, and he is scheduled to take the first commercial flight on BO's New Separd in July. I doubt he is bored. He also funds Bezos Earth Fund, if you're curious what else he is up to once he steps down from running Amazon.
- adrianN 5y agoVery cool. I like that we spend money on alternative routes to fusion. Funding has been so sparse in the last decades that tokamaks essentially sucked up all of it. Maybe other approaches can be built smaller and cheaper.
- ben_w 5y ago> Hundreds of pneumatic pistons are then used to compress the plasma until the atoms fuse, generating massive amounts of heat. Pneumatic pistons? How is air pressure even close to enough force to make the slightest difference to a fusion reaction?
- lumost 5y agoIt's a question of relative scale. If you have big enough pistons squeezing a small/light enough amount of plasma then you could make the pressure work. It's great to see non-tokamak designs being developed
- mikeyouse 5y agoSee "Compressed Gas Drivers" here for their description.. https://generalfusion.com/technology-magnetized-target-fusion/ https://generalfusion.com/technology-magnetized-target-fusio... There's a longer video on that page as well with more details.
- DennisP 5y agoI have no idea how much compression they get, but I do know they're targeting a middle range between magnetic fusion (low density, long confinement) and inertial fusion (high density, short confinement).
- kwhitefoot 5y agoIt's not air pressure, it's a shock wave in liquid metal. The BBC article is simplified a bit too far for anyone with a technical background but I doubt if a more accurate version would be much more meaningful to most people. There is a patent on it: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9424955B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9424955B2/en ----Quote: 2. Description of the Related Art Various systems for heating and compressing plasmas to high temperatures and densities have been described. One approach for accomplishing plasma heating and compression by spherical focusing of a large amplitude acoustic pressure wave in a liquid medium is described in U.S. Patent Publica tion No. 2006/0198486, published Sep. 7, 2006, entitled “Pressure Wave Generator and Controller for Generating a Pressure Wave in a Fusion Reactor”, which is hereby incor porated by reference herein in its entirety. In certain embodi ments of this approach, a plurality of pistons is arranged around a substantially spherical vessel containing a liquid medium. A vortex or cavity is created in the liquid medium. The pistons are accelerated and strike the outer wall of the vessel generating an acoustic wave. The acoustic wave generated in the liquid medium converges and envelopes a plasma that is introduced into the Vortex, thereby heating and compressing the plasma. ----end quote
- mchusma 5y agoI think this makes 3 fusion projects aiming for 2025: SPARC, ITER, and this.
- boringg 5y ago2025 will come and go. 2030 more likely. Hope to be incorrect.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoFusion will be available during the Year of the Linux Desktop.
- boringg 5y agoHaha. As someone who works deeply in the energy industry timelines and scope creep always happen. Sales/project development is so aggressive on timelines and the unknown unknown pretty much always blow up timelines. That and regulatory issues. Chances of Fusion delivering in 2025 is pretty low but I appreciate the optimism. Downvote away with your rose colored glasses.
- briffle 5y agoDon't forget Lockheed Martin, that said they would have one about 15 years ago "in 2-3 years"
- 317070 5y agoIt is no coincidence. If everything goes to plan, ITER will demonstrate first plasma in 2025, which will be a bit of a PR nightmare for ITER (as it will not have high Q's, and go out of operation for another 10 years after that). So a lot of alternatives, like SPARC, General Fusion, Lockheed, Tokamak Energy, Commonwealth Fusion, ... are all aiming to demonstrate in 2025 as well, because it will contrast nicely to the ITER approach costing a lot of government money. Anyone that will beat the Q of iter in 2025, might see more government funding flowing their way between 2025 and 2035, because they managed to do the same, but orders of magnitude cheaper.
- boringg 5y agoWhy'd they build it in the UK instead of the US? Curious about the location.
- andruc 5y agoGiven it's a collaboration between a Canadian company and a UK research program, I'm not sure why the US would be considered.
- boringg 5y agoUS private investment - more opportunity for fusion reactors in US if progress is indeed proved out. Collab between the two does justify the reason though.
- buggeryorkshire 5y agoAccording to the BBC there was a large consideration paid for by the UK Government. This isn't a criticism of them btw - it's exactly the sort of thing we should be subsidising - but it may explain it.
- boringg 5y agoMakes sense - looks like UK is trying to building on being a specialist in fusion tech.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoI would rather have UK gov invest in the company than "subsidise" - it is not clear why it is fair to subsidise this company as opposed to other start-ups in this space.
- danpalmer 5y agoThey're extending an existing team/experiment/project called JET. https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/research/joint-european-torus/ https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/research/joint-european-torus/
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- Element_ 5y agoI don't know why it is prefixed with "Bezos Backed", Bezos VC is just one of 10 big investors in the company.
- Guest42 5y agoTo me it seems like an unfortunate but common tactic in marketing-land to seek out any sort of affiliation with a well known brand and to publish it as much as possible.
- rock_hard 5y agoIt’s actually the media outlets who do this because it generates more traffic for the article It’s why they will also throw in other large brand names and stock tickers of entities that could be of the slightest relevance A large chunk of media traffic comes from Google alerts for large brands…so the writers try to game the system here
- pelasaco 5y agofor clickbaiting.
- RandallBrown 5y agoBecause Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people in the world and he has essentially unlimited money.
- varispeed 5y agoBecause governments are too afraid to ask for accounting books and sift through various schemes and slap back tax.
- lonelyasacloud 5y agoHow many of the other backers are as widely known and regarded for their technical foresight as Bezos?
- gentleman11 5y agoI read that fusion is safer than fission because it emits less particles and is harder to cause a 10k year meltdown. Is that accurate?
- jlos 5y agoFission is a chain reaction, Fusion is not. A fusion reaction is so unstable that if the reactor failed the conditions for sustaining fusion would immediately stop. It's basically the hottest plasma we can make suspended in a magnetic donut surrounding by near absolute zero temperatures. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak
- gentleman11 5y agoI had assumed both were chain reactions due to stars. That’s interesting
- choeger 5y agoWell, technically, that's right. Fusion is a chain reaction. (albeit, "chain" might be a stretch here. Let's say it is a continuous process in stars.) But it's driven by gravity, not neutrons. You just need to bring about 70 times the mass of Jupiter into one place and that's it. Child's play, essentially ;).
- guscost 5y agoThe enormous pressure inside stars is what sustains the reaction. Neutrons coming off a fusion reaction, even if moderated, can’t really “squeeze together” other particles in any sense. Also, per unit volume, the sun produces about as much power as a compost pile.
- only_as_i_fall 5y agoDoes the volume of the sun include its Corona in that last statement?
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoThe article should be featuring Dr. Michel Laberge who actually funded the company, or other scientists, not Besos. Perspective given in the article belittles great strides made by fusion pioneers and poisons discussion on public policy: Fusion has advanced faster than Moore's law - and unlike the holy grail of computing, true AI, it's now clearly within reach. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hsmge/moores_law_for_fusion_50_years_of_progress/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hsmge/moores_law_for_... >"Frustrated by the slow progress, private companies [innovate]" This is not about frustration, it's about opportunity: After decades and billions spent on research and engineering, all "open source", and training a generation of plasma scientists, venture capital can hire these people into profitable ventures. I'd like to ensure these people are given proper credit, and actually make some money off their great contribution to humanity. I fear that all we will do to reward greatest minds is give them mediocre jobs.
- bla3 5y ago> it's now clearly within reach that graph ends more than 20 years ago and implies that some important threshold should've been crossed 15 years ago. Did that happen?
- phreeza 5y ago"Fusion Energy: Research at the Crossroads - ScienceDirect" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435119301254 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511... Figure 1 has an update showing that the exponential trajectory has stalled.
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- phreeza 5y agoWhile interesting, the figure you linked is from 2003. Is there an updated version that includes the last 2 decades? Edit: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435119301254 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511... Figure 1 has an updated version, and it is rather bleak.
- nix23 5y agoI already know how that story continues: https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Eternity-Phillip-P-Peterson/dp/1977974015 https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Eternity-Phillip-P-Peterson/d...
- honkycat 5y agoIMO, a massive investment and proliferation of fusion reactors is humanity's last hope. Assuming it isn't already too late.
- _Microft 5y agoAre they any faster to build than fission reactors? If not, we can as well start building fission reactors instead of having to get the technology right and then to build them. (If you insist on a type of nuclear power.)
- jeffbee 5y agoWe could build the optically-coupled ground stations for the gravity-confined fusion power source around which our planet orbits at a small cost and within a few years.
- asimpletune 5y agoCan you explain this more?
- _Microft 5y agoThat's solar power.
- jeffbee 5y agoIt kinda spoils the joke, but OK. The Sun is a self-sustaining fusion plasma that already exists. It is confined by its own gravity. It will continue running at a steady state for billions of years. Except for melanomas, this source of power is completely harmless to human life. In order to plug this thing into the electric grid, all we need to do is capture the free electromagnetic emissions of the Sun. We already have this technology, called a photovoltaic cell. The production of such cells is an industrial engineering problem. There are no technological barriers. Compare to "fusion power", for which the ignition, confinement, and exploitation of the energy are all totally unsolved technological problems.
- honkycat 5y ago
- nomoreplease 5y ago> It won't generate power, but will be 70% the size of a commercial reactor. That surprised me. At 70% of the size for $400M, I wonder why they didn't just try to build a commercial reactor in one go Is this the a mid-step between a small demo and a full reactor? What do they do with the building after they've tested it?
- thinkcontext 5y agoYes, its a mid-step. They don't know exactly how to build a commercial reactor yet. The scale they've worked at so far tests the basic design but it can't break even (no fusion reactor has yet) or function continuously. They are going to build the minimum size that they think will achieve these goals but it will also have to be capable of testing to be able to fine tune operation. A commercial reactor wouldn't be built like that. Also, keep in mind that cost doesn't scale linearly. Likely cost goes up with the cube of the size or higher.
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- mullingitover 5y agoI honestly don't understand why there's so much focus on fusion. It's an inferior method of producing energy - extremely fussy, still produces nuclear waste, still capable of producing nuclear weapons material, and has yet to deliver a net surplus of energy[1]. When I was younger I never saw a peep about the nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation problems with fusion - it was just pitched as this miracle technology that was ten years away. I was really excited about it, but the more I learn about fusion the more it appears to be a giant money bonfire. We'd be better off just coming up with good fast breeder reactor designs that have good safety measures. A breeder reactor can burn its fuel completely, it's a tried and true technology and it's our best shot at eliminating fossil fuels. The fusion research is important science, and I completely support researching it, but it's not a technology that's going to be commercially useful in our lifetimes and it's not better or cleaner technology than modern fission reactor designs. [1] https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/ https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-the...
- k__ 5y agoShouldn't (at least) the USA have enough sub tropical geography for solar panels?
- mullingitover 5y agoWe definitely do! However the rate that solar can be added is nowhere near fast enough to replace fossil fuels in a timeframe that meets our climate goals and prevents environmental catastrophe[1]. > Solar and wind power alone can’t scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany’s concerted recent effort to add renewables—the most ambitious national effort so far—was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany’s peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That’s just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target. > To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup—and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries—decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet-11547225861 https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-th...
- rob_c 5y agoHow and when did general fusion become a Besosian company ?!...
- Shadonototro 5y agoso it begins, after lobbying in EU for exiting Nuclear energy, specially in France they are back to sell theirs ;) i knew it, wrote about it few years ago here
- bobsmooth 5y agoI think General Fusion's approach is one to keep an eye on. Instead of magnetic confinement, they use pistons to compress liquid metal into which the fuel is injected. The force of the collapsing liquid causes the fuel to fuse, releasing energy which is captured by the metal and then extracted with a heat exchanger.
- trhway 5y ago>they use pistons to compress liquid metal into which the fuel is injected. i wonder whether (and how) they can do it better than the explosive lens of the fission primary. I mean they have to do it better as otherwise there wouldn't be need for the fission primary.
- laverya 5y agoTo me, this has an obvious answer - size/weight. A fission primary is in the 50-150kg range, and can spark quite a bit of a fusion secondary at once. How many tons of pistons would you need for the same effect?
- trhway 5y agoi meant the explosive lens of the primary, not the primary itself. The lens is formed by the shock waves of normal explosives moving at 10km/s. We know that that isn't enough to spark the fusion. Thus the question - can their pistons generate the better dynamics than the explosive lens? They have to in order to spark the fusion. If they can - then how?
- bobsmooth 5y agoExplosives are single use. GF's promotional videos say one fusion reaction per second.
- mrfusion 5y agoWhy doesn’t the heat of fusion vaporize the metal? Does the plasma touching the metal stop the reaction?
- DubiousPusher 5y agoQuestion from a total ignoramus here. TLDR: Despite recent progress, is it possible that fusion will reach efficiency where it is net positive in energy output but still too expensive to be useful? Long Version: When I first heard about fusion, the idea was that this immense energy could be harvested taking advantage the the conversion of matter into energy. Everything I heard was that the quantities are so great that if we could just nail the sustained fusion reaction we could harvest potentially limitless energy. As I've come to understand it however, it is not so simple. The big question is in how long you can sustain the reaction and how much energy it costs to start it in the first place. It seems to me the strides that have been made over the last few decades are to bring the cost down enough and extend the reaction long enough that the net energy loss is lower, then break even and now possibly a net gain. I've seen some articles imply that this turn of events means fusion is definitely on the table as a near future abundant energy source. My question is this. Is it a forgone conclusion that the current trends will continue? Because if not, doesn't that mean fusion could still get stuck somewhere where there is a net energy gain but it's still too expensive to be useful?
- spartanatreyu 5y agoYes and no. The first generation of fusion reactors will be expensive and monolithic, but we will learn a lot from them and it will prove their fundamental functionality. The second generation reactors will likely be using better fuels and squeezing plasma into different shapes to keep them running as long as possible. Even if other renewable energy sources continue to get cheaper and become prolific, they still have the problem of energy storage. Simply put, we don't have anywhere near the resources required to build all that storage. So what we need instead is a solid mainline energy source (nuclear and fusion). In the case of a massive breakthrough in energy storage, at best it will just delay fusion power. We will still need to use fusion off planet.
- hutzlibu 5y ago"we don't have anywhere near the resources required to build all that storage." Sources? There are lithiumfree batteries, made from cheap metals. Saltwater batteries for example. Airpressure as energy storage. Hydrogen or more processed into methanol .... Etc., etc. all working technology as of today. And sure, sure, storage comes with lower efficency, but there is no reason, we cannot transform the various deserts into big solarplants. Fusion would be awesome to have. But I see no indication, that it will be ready anytime soon, when we need it, to produce clean energy at scale. And if it is ready, we probably still need resources, like Helium-3. Ready to mine the moon?
- FridayoLeary 5y agoAmazon Prime Energy. Delivered to your front door (and beyond).
- Animats 5y ago"Hundreds of pneumatic pistons are then used to compress the plasma until the atoms fuse, generating massive amounts of heat." Huh? Pneumatic pistons?
- nickparker 5y agoIn the original General Fusion plan: Pneumatic pistons which strike anvils in the chamber wall creating a shockwave which implodes the liquid wall with fusion-igniting pressures. I think they may have moved away from that in favor of big pneumatic pistons pushing tiny piston heads directly into the liquid though. Mechanical advantage is the area ratio, which you can easily make quite large.
- mrfusion 5y agoWhy don’t the piston heads melt when touching the molten liquid?
- api 5y agoPick an alloy with a higher melting point?
- robocat 5y agoThe liquid metal is mostly lead which has a fairly low melting point so doesn’t need anything exotic. Melting point is 327.5°C which you easily can reach on a stovetop for comparison https://www.google.com/search?q=maximum+temperature+stovetop https://www.google.com/search?q=maximum+temperature+stovetop
- mrfusion 5y agoThat makes sense. But why doesn’t the lead vaporize from the heat then?
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoWell at atmospheric pressure it has to get all the way to 1749 C to boil. Pressure raises the boiling point.
- varispeed 5y agoSo Amazon avoids tax, then uses that money to "fund" energy plant that tax payer will be charged for? Am I reading this correctly?
- LatteLazy 5y ago>It won't generate power, but will be 70% the size of a commercial reactor. If it doesn't generate power, what does it do? Will fusion happen there? Why does it need to be 70% of size of a "commercial reactor" if it isn't one? I feel like I am less I formed about this project than before I knew it existed...