5 ms·
The article doesn't really go into detail about this (it's mentioned in the video) but the key breakthrough they're referring to is increasing the magnetic fiel
by cletus 5y ago
The article doesn't really go into detail about this (it's mentioned in the video) but the key breakthrough they're referring to is increasing the magnetic field strength from HTS (high-temperature superconducting) magnets to 20 Tesla [1].
It's hard not to come away from reading any of this without thinking what a huge boondoggle ITER was and is and there was plenty of reason to think that before now.
A lot of talk here is given to net energy production. That is a key milestone but it's not by itself sufficient for commercial fusion power production.
Example: imagine a plant costs $10B and products 100MW of net power. It has a lifespan of 30 years and requires $500m/year in maintenance and staffing. That capital cost and operating costs need to be amortized over the lifespan of the plant so even though it's 100MW of net power production, those numbers simply aren't commercially viable.
I applaud these efforts but I remain skeptical on when (if ever) we'll have commercial fusion power production, for several reasons:
1. The issues of turbulence with a super-heated plasma;
2. Power loss through neutrons; and
3. Damage caused by neutron embrittlement of the reactor itself.
Personally I think solar is still the frontrunner for the first renewable mass-scale power production method that will be cheaper than fossil fuels and thus replace fossil fuel plants for economic reasons.
I'm glad there are a bunch of commercial enterprises focused on this. I hope at least some of them explore some of the alternative forms of fusion (ie other than hydrogen). For example: proton-Born fusion [2]. Aneutronic fusion would have huge advantages.
[1]: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a37924936/worlds-strongest-magnetic-field/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a37924936/wo...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Boron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Boron
- sandworm101 5y agoAnd look at how much liquid helium is required for the cooling plant. There isn't enough on the planet to build many reactors like this. https://www.iter.org/construction/cryoplant https://www.iter.org/construction/cryoplant >> In order to deliver the cooling fluids to the machine, a large cooling plant has been built at ITER that ranks as the most powerful single-platform cryoplant in the world.
- luckylion 5y agoIsn't that to be expected during proof-of-concept builds? Once you can show that it's actually possible, you can start optimizing the process. Fusion could be a super breakthrough, even if it never gets super cheap and "we power the world by doing this one weird trick and all we need is one building". Provides reliable energy 24/7, is safe to use (as in no melt-down potential that people would be scared about) and does neither produce co2 nor blast coal dust particles all over the world. I'm sure we could do the same with nuclear power, but it's politically impossible in many countries, because the name short-circuits people's minds.
- tsimionescu 5y ago> Provides reliable energy 24/7, is safe to use (as in no melt-down potential that people would be scared about) and does neither produce co2 nor blast coal dust particles all over the world. None of this is really plausible for any fusion plant, especially in the early phase. The first plants will likely be plagued by expensive time consuming periodic maintenance. They will be prone to catastrophic failures if plasma containment fails, easily killing everyone in or near the plant. They will be constantly spewing radioactive tritium. They will require fission plants to produce new tritium. They will require rare materials to create the superconducting magnets and others.
- luckylion 5y agoSure, I'm not claiming that they'll be there next year (or possibly ever). If the predictions/promises/whatever you might want to call it, hold true, they'd be great, and it's not totally crazy like the perpetual motion people. If not, then we've spent a few billions and probably just learned a lot of interesting stuff and improved a bunch of scientific areas.
- heavenlyblue 5y ago> They will be prone to catastrophic failures if plasma containment fails, easily killing everyone in or near the plant. I think that is impossible because plasma isn’t actually that dense and if you turn off the magnets it immediately stops being plasma.
- maccam94 5y agoCommonwealth Fusion Systems has addressed all of those issues: 1. The higher field strength from the new HTS magnets eliminates turbulence. 2. The ARC reactor will use a FLiBe molten salt blanket to capture energy from neutrons and breed tritium to be used in the fusion reaction. 3. The ARC reactor is designed to have a swappable 2cm thick vacuum chamber, which is the component subjected to the most neutron radiation (everything else is shielded by the molten salt blanket). These chambers are expected to last a year, and while they are moderately radioactive waste, the amount of material is relatively small and they should become safe in the order of a decade. I highly recommend watching Dr. Whyte's talks on YouTube, he discusses the challenges, design, and performance in an approachable way. There's a timestamp index in the comments on this video: https://youtu.be/KkpqA8yG9T4 https://youtu.be/KkpqA8yG9T4
- kingcharles 5y agoMy father, who was born in the early 30s, used to regularly bring up his memory of the introduction of nuclear (fission) power and how it was oft-quoted as going to be "too cheap to meter". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
- ncmncm 5y agoThey were lying through their teeth then, too, and knew it. It has become a tradition.