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The NIF is probably more useful for coming up with new fusion bomb designs than for stockpile stewardship, as you say, but what makes you say hot fusion can nev
by beloch 13y ago
The NIF is probably more useful for coming up with new fusion bomb designs than for stockpile stewardship, as you say, but what makes you say hot fusion can never be economically viable? The sun is proof that nature can do this on a grand scale! It may be a long ways off, but "a long ways" becomes "never" without experimental work like the NIF. Yes, the U.S. is probably doing this primarily to create new weapons just as the space race was really about developing ICBM's. However, the fundamental science being done has huge long-term potential. It's a sad, but true fact that, sometimes, scientists have to use the megalomania of states to fuel research that has the potential to benefit all of humanity.
Fission power is a separate matter. The single most important thing that most people still do not understand is that power grids have almost zero capacity for storing energy. That means most alternative energy sources, such as wind or solar, can never exceed a certain percentage of the grid's production capacity or it will become unstable. On-demand energy generation is still needed, and there's absolutely no reason to fear nuclear power while we're still using coal power, which is far more deadly in every sense! It's not just the West that has this fear either. Look at Japan's recent nuclear shut-down[1] (from 30% of their grid to 0%, replaced with fossil fuels), and tell me that isn't going to influence China!
[1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/14/us-japan-nuclear-shutdowns-idUSBRE98D0DL20130914 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/14/us-japan-nuclear-s...
- dekhn 13y agoWhether the sun is capable of fusion isn't super important. We can take advantage of that, but it doesn't mean we can build many safe plants based on an evolution of the NIF design. If your alternative fuel requires hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the future, just to show viability of the basic research concept, before it can actually be useful, you will be at a massive competitive advantage relative to alternatives. What I am saying, is that relative to other potential investments, fusion does not seem to be a worthwhile investment, as the risk/payoff ratio is worse. As for the rest of your comments, I mostly agree I'm aware that alternatives like wind and solar have limits, but we can still use them to great effect (as augmenters, and ways to reduce reliance of less sustainable sources).
- darkmighty 13y agoYes, and it's not certain that we will ever be able to have a stable, viable fusion plant. There are even somewhat recent works showing that certain kinds of confinement which were being tried in the early days are not theoretically viable. We're still a few orders of magnitude away from energy, and we're probably quite a few reactor design innovations and material breakthroughs away, I'd say, as far as my layman knowledge goes.
- swamp40 13y agoWell, ever is a long time. Give it another 1000 years. We will get fusion sooner or later - just to say we did it, if for nothing else.
- simonh 13y agoThat may well be true. But it also may well be true that absolutely none of the methods currently conceived are at all viable. If we are spending money fast because we think we're in a sprint to achieving viable fusion power, but it turns out we're actually in a marathon, then it's quite possible we're wasting vast amounts of money unnecessarily. That's not an argument to stop funding fusion research, but it is an argument to moderate it and possibly even broaden the types of research being done to more projects but at overall lower funding rates.
- chris_mahan 13y agoA hundred billion dollars is not a whole lot of money. We spent many, many times that on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the results there are passable at best.
- dekhn 13y ago(your comparison is nonsensical for many reasons) A hundred billion dollars is a lot of money. The annual budget of NIH is ~$30B and it funds a high fraction of the most advanced biological research worldwide. The DOE also has a budget $30B and funds (along with this project) many other projects including alternative energies, advanced computing and the Human Genome Project. NSF is (only!) another $7B, leaving around $33B addition funds for a diverse research portfolio. This kind of expenditure is required to maintain US at or near the highest level of technology research in the world (other countries can compete with us in many ways, such as lower labor costs). There are things that can only be physically done in a single location in the US and nowhere else in the world- and it will be that way until on of the postdocs goes back to Europe or Asia and replicates the result in their lab. So yes, $100B is a lot of money- and that's the kind of investment that often ends up benefiting the US (and other) economy. The fusion research-- to the extent that what NIF is doing is translatable to other domains-- doesn't really meet this sniff test.
- crystaln 13y agoCoal power is more deadly than fission power? When has coal power ever created the sort of crisis that occurred in Fukushima? Because of fission reactors, the safety of entire regions of the world is dependent on a consistent power supply and lack of human error, something that clearly we can not rely on. In the event of a cosmic emp or major meteor strike, these power plants are at risk.
- mquander 13y agoCoal power creates that kind of crisis every day, so we don't bother calling it a crisis anymore. A total of 240,000 years of life were said to be lost in Europe in 2010 with 480,000 work days a year and 22,600 "life years" lost in Britain, the fifth most coal-polluted country. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-coal-pollution-premature-deaths http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-...
- crystaln 13y ago"commissioned by Greenpeace International" who I'm sure would back the position that nuclear fission plants are safer than coal. Of course, nuclear power plants are safe short term. Their threat is catastrophe, which given time, is inevitable.
- regularfry 13y agoGreenpeace are not pro-nuclear.
- crystaln 13y agoI was being sarcastic to point out the irony of referencing a Greenpeace study to support nuclear power over coal.
- ars 13y agoEven with a catastrophe every 50 to 100 years nuclear kills far far less people than coal.
- ballard 13y agoWould fusion only weapons be covered under any existing non-proliferation or test ban treaties?
- tanzam75 13y agoThe Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty bans testing of any "nuclear" explosions. Doesn't matter if it's fission or fusion or both. (The United States has not ratified the CTBT, but generally abides by it.) The Non-Proliferation Treaty bans the proliferation of any "nuclear" weapons. Again, doesn't matter if it's fission or fusion or both.
- rdl 13y agoPure fusion weapons also essentially destroy current non-proliferation efforts, which are mainly built around controlling access to fissile materials, and only secondarily some technologies.