A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

The German Desertec project is in its death throws right now, most of the major big supporters have jumped ship and cut off funding. I guess they where all only in it for the subsidies.

Also Germany now has a record of 30GW peak installed PV as of this year after a massive spending spree. And what can we show for the 400 billion Euros spent? (Over half a trillion $)

Solar now produces about as much power as one normal coal or nuclear power plant and storage problems are not solved and major investments into the grid are needed to handle this power that comes into it, when the sun shines and not when it is needed. We are talking of a few thousand km of strong high voltage grid and tens of thousands of km of lower voltage grid. Who is going to pay for that?

Germany could have spent 1 less then one billion on a normal gas or coal plant or 5 billion for a modern and safe and clean nuclear power plant.

And where does all of the so called renewable energy come from in Germany? 3/4 are biomass, Germany is turning food into gas or electricity, which not only kills people but also has a negative environmental balance as lots of studies have shown. Rain forest destruction for palm oil plantations, more air pollution and even more green house gases.

Germanys neighbors are now installing huge switches at their borders to disconnect from the German grid, because they dont want to go into a blackout with the Germans, who are destabilizing their grid with all this "renewable" Energy that comes when it wants and not when needed.

Also many conventional power generators will go of the grid, because profitability is not given under these conditions. It is harmful to the power plant and inefficient to turn normal power plants on and off all the time and keep them in warm standby. Hence the German government is thinking of subsidies for them to keep running. Things are not all gold if you take a closer look.
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

I dont want to know how much sun light the UK gets, Germany is on a par with Alaska.

The Chinese have seen the light, they are building 25 nuclear power plants now till 2015 and are definitely going to build another 40 by 2020. They want to reach energy independence. And they want to make hydrogen from cracking water in thorium reactors and make gas and gasoline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... LX8jCKL9I4
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Steven, can you explain, what the problem is? The only problem we have, is that we are not building nuclear power plants fast enough. With power we can do anything we want, we could even desalinate sea water and turn the whole of the sahara into a huge crop basket for another 7 billion or more people.
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Richard, the dangers to our fragile society come from environmentalists on a mission, trying to tell others how they have to live. Liberty and freedom, free markets have brought us great wealth, this in danger now. The knowledge and the solution is not in the heads of a few environmentalists, it is distributed. I have checked all the things the environmentalists have succeeded to force upon others, and the interesting thing is that now one single measure actually is good for nature. Nothing of their policies does the slightest good for the environment. A classic case of well intended but with lots of unintended consequences that they did not fore see.

It is always fanatics that do most harm.
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

From Wikipedia unconventional sources of Uranium:
The uranium concentration of seawater is approximately 3.3 parts per billion but the quantity of contained uranium is vast. Researchers estimate there are some 4.5 billion tonnes - this amounts to approximately 1000 times more than known terrestrial resources.

Japanese scientists have shown that Uranium can be extracted from sea water with ion exchangers for 200$ a pound, Oak Ridge scientists have recently increased performance by magnitudes.

And just think of terrestrial Uranium: every ton of granite contains about 3 grams of uranium, how much granite is there?

But there are two guys who did the math. McCarthy and Bernard Cohen.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/prog ... r-faq.html

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/
ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Here is one such calculation for sea water in brief
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html
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Richard Hull
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Richard Hull »

Lots o' pie in the sky assumptions related to fusion and fission fuels. Regardless of availability of fusion fuels, it would be nice to get just one fusion reactor working at an economically viable level on the easiest possible reaction, D-T, prior to dreaming about which fuel we are to use and where it is coming from. This cart is miles out in front of the poor, currently useless, horse that is touted to win many races.

Uranium from sea water is also a bit of a dream. There is far too much in far easier to extract forms and higher concentrations still in the ground.

Given that fusion is not even on a visible horizon and the current political failure to advance fission in the free world, Coal remains the number one cheapest energy resource for the foreseeable near future, no matter how many other sources we heap on the pile of oughta'-be energy sources. I'm very pro-fission, but it is a dead horse in this country.

Again, most of this blather will probably be moot given totally non-energy related stuff brewing on the horizon. I am not personally committed to this bad result, but the world seems to be.

Richard Hull
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Jim Kovalchick »

Richard,
Fact check: nukes make cheaper power than coal. We passed coal at least fifteen years ago based on improved capacity factors and operating cost controls.
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Frank Sanns »

There have been three accidents out of just over 400 reactors worldwide. While the number of deaths from radiation is low, the amount of hardship by those involved is huge. Loss of properties, family members, pets, belongings, and entire lives are just gone. I have seen up and close what it looks like in Japan and the uncertainly with the food contamination that they are still battling. It is not pretty at all. While this is just the human factor which seems to be dismissed in many of these banters, let's look at the technology.

1. Nuclear is not foolproof. The odds are low but when things go wrong, they go very wrong and affect significant populations. There will be more accidents and it may be coming to a neighborhood near you.

2. More reactors means more highly radioactive waste. Even reprocessing, if implemented, does not eliminate ultra high level waste. It reduces the volume of the waste but all that is the most radioactive is still entirely present. It also by far increases the chance for nuclear proliferation.

3. More reactors means more quantities and opportunities for proliferation of fissile material. It also increases the number of potential targets for terrorists.

4. If left unchecked, energy will be consumed at a faster and faster pace even if there were a nuclear reactor in every person's backyard. It is not a solution. It is a symptom of a energy gluttonous society.

Frank Sanns
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Frank Sanns »

Math is not needed. History is.

The ancients knew how to manage their resources. There was water and sewage management in the first of the successful civilizations. There also was a large amount of utilization of wind for cooling and for doing mechanical work. Buildings were built to capitalize on daytime heating and held in dirt or stone structures for night time warmth. These are not survivalist tactics, they are prudent choices.

Building a house that has a significant number windows facing south can provide a significant portion of winter heat. Building under deciduous trees preserves this for the winter yet provide a cool canopy for shade in the summer. These are wise practices that were learned and utilized by even our fathers. Unfortunately it is being forgotten by the new "I want all I can get now" generation. These people did not unplug their transformer wall chargers for their smartphones as they did know any better and did not care. It was the smartphone manufacturers that, because of legislation and environmental groups, switched over to solid state switching power supplies that did not have the phantom load. Nobody had to give anything up and no trees were harmed in the process and no dangerous chemicals were needed. This is just a small example of what needs to be done for those that do not know any better.

FYI, I do not think it is "Green" for a couple to build a summer house that is enormous and put 30 kw of panels on the roof only to use it all. This is money being abused in the name of environment but it is not green. Not even close.

There are answers but they do not fit well into the box that the world it used to. Things need to be done with a diverse vision of the future and not with an unchecked "I want all I can get and I am entitled to get it" mentality.

Frank Sanns


Alexander Biersack wrote:
> Solar power first needs a large initial energy and resource investment. We dont have these resources now and it would be silly to do it. Solar collectors in deserts also pose a major challenge, with dust and storms.
>
> But the main point is that solar is such a diluted form of energy, that all deserts of the world would not suffice to supply a demand growing at 3% by 2070 or 2080. So solar is just a short bridge to nowhere.
>
> Anyone could do the math on the back of an envelop. It doesnt add up.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Alex,

The problem is very simple, the world energy consumption increases exponentially, so no amount of energy nuclear or otherwise will ever be enough, and your nuclear fission reactors will in the very near future do exactly what you predict, safely desalinate water and let the population increase without limits, until we face the next cliff.

What is our objective as humans?

Where do we want to be in 50, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000 years?

Is having one new microwave in the kitchen and one old one on the path progress or stagnation?

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Carl Willis »

The end is nigh.

I don't mean the end of the world as we know it...or the end of cheap energy...or the end of the fusion dream...or the heat death of the universe. Just the slightly-less-calamitous end of this thread. It's one of the longest threads of the 2012 year. It has little to do with the technological hobby of fusion as practiced in our community, and is instead revealing itself to be a mighty Wurlitzer of personal opination.

There is nothing wrong with having such opinions, but the posting guidelines include the following:

Inflammatory and noisy subjects belong elsewhere. Science and energy policy, climate change, and institutional fusion programs are examples of subjects that may reasonably be touched on from time to time in on-topic discussions, but as topics in themselves, are more appropriately discussed elsewhere."

I don't feel the need to apportion blame or to close the thread, but just drop a very subtle hint that it is time to focus again on what matters.

-Carl
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ab0032
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Richard Hull wrote:
> Lots o' pie in the sky assumptions related to fusion and fission fuels. Regardless of availability of fusion fuels, it would be nice to get just one fusion reactor working at an economically viable level on the easiest possible reaction, D-T, prior to dreaming about which fuel we are to use and where it is coming from. This cart is miles out in front of the poor, currently useless, horse that is touted to win many races.
>
Richard, I completely agree that we should focus on getting a fusion reactor at an economically viable level. Most people tend to forget that it also has to be economically sound.

> Uranium from sea water is also a bit of a dream. There is far too much in far easier to extract forms and higher concentrations still in the ground.
>
Of course it is far easier to extract from rich mines and it will be done. It is only nice to know that if the going gets rough, there is enough for all foreseeable future. The calculations are only based on seawater, because then the numbers can not be disputed so easily. The calculations become simpler and anyone can follow them.

> Given that fusion is not even on a visible horizon and the current political failure to advance fission in the free world, Coal remains the number one cheapest energy resource for the foreseeable near future, no matter how many other sources we heap on the pile of oughta'-be energy sources. I'm very pro-fission, but it is a dead horse in this country.
>
Sadly true. But that does not mean things will not change, once the Koreans and the Chinese have shown how to do it. It is a pity that we will have to license it from them in the end instead of being in the business of supplying the whole world with safe and clean modern nuclear power plants and leaving the interesting research fields to China and India.

Alex
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Carl Willis wrote:
> The end is nigh.
>
> I don't mean the end of the world as we know it...or the end of cheap energy...or the end of the fusion dream...or the heat death of the universe. Just the slightly-less-calamitous end of this thread</i>. It's one of the longest threads of the 2012 year. It has little to do with the technological hobby of fusion as practiced in our community, and is instead revealing itself to be a mighty Wurlitzer of personal opination.
>
I would find it sad if this thread was closed, as it is much more interesting to discuss these issues with more knowledgeable people than you would find anywhere else in a public community or on fb.

> There is nothing wrong with having such opinions, but the posting guidelines include the following:
>
> Inflammatory and noisy</b> subjects belong elsewhere. Science and energy policy, climate change, and institutional fusion programs are examples of subjects that may reasonably be touched on from time to time in on-topic discussions, but as topics in themselves, are more appropriately discussed elsewhere."</i>
>
As far as I can see no inflammatory stuff has come up, we are civilized people here and why shouldnt we discuss this in one thread?

> I don't feel the need to apportion blame or to close the thread, but just drop a very subtle hint that it is time to focus again on what matters.
>
> -Carl

I would greatly appreciate if we could continue a discussion to exchange arguments, I like to learn more about the downsides of nuclear fission and how serious they are, compared to the downsides of coal or PV or hydro. From all the facts I know so far, I am pro fission, but I am open to rational arguments and facts.

Alex
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Steven Sesselmann wrote:
> The problem is very simple, the world energy consumption increases exponentially, so no amount of energy nuclear or otherwise will ever be enough, and your nuclear fission reactors will in the very near future do exactly what you predict, safely desalinate water and let the population increase without limits, until we face the next cliff.
>
Yes it is exponential and we have been on that path for over 150 years of 3% growth a year. I know what it means and I dont have a problem with it. It will eventually come down by itself when it is time, no need for any anti humanist malthusian intervention now.

If nuclear power will not supply enough in 500 years and fusion has not been developed by then, which I strongly doubt, people and markets will work things out then. But there is absolutely no reason to go into hysteric "we have to safe energy mode" while we have a known clean and safe energy source that will supply us 20 times over beyond the end of the sun.

Population growth is slowing down globally and we are heading for severe demographic problems in Europe, China and the US, because of a much too fast decline due general misconceptions.

This "next cliff" is a club of rome type of drama, why is there going to be a cliff? What is going to happen? Is it really going to be bad? According to the club of rome billions should have died in the 80s because of a cliff that never happened. But the idea of this "cliff" should be buried unless real new arguments for it surface.

The West, the US and Europe and Japan make up about 10% of the world population, we have a nice life and use about 80% of the worlds resources. The other 6 or soon over 7 billion people also want our lifestyle, clean water, education, doctors, internet, washing machines, heating, and so on. And there is no argument that they should have less, and anyways we will not be able to prevent it.
This will continue to drive energy consumption up at 3% or even more in the near future.

It is a known fact that urbanization and progress will bring things down. World poverty is declining not only in relative terms but also in absolute numbers. Globalization and free markets have brought the necessary progress.


> What is our objective as humans?
>
> Where do we want to be in 50, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000 years?
>
First of all I believe in personal freedom and I am not a prophet, but I believe we will get fusion going soon and we will turn into a space faring civilization very soon. More people means more good ideas, more progress, more resources produced. Things will work out just fine, 7 billion people or 50 or 100 is all fine with me, this planet it big enough and times will only get more interesting and better, as they always have in the past.

> Is having one new microwave in the kitchen and one old one on the path progress or stagnation?
>
The path to progress lies in more people. If there is one Einstein among one billion, one inventor of penicillin, one inventor of the transistor or what ever, imagine what a hot ride we are in for now with 7 billion people. It will be just great as progress also accelerates exponentially.

Alex
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by ab0032 »

Frank S. wrote:
> There have been three accidents out of just over 400 reactors worldwide.

Isnt that a great record? Just three accidents and that is first generation nuclear power plants,
1) no deaths or cancer cases in Three Mile Ilse;
2) less than 50 deaths in Tschernobyl according to WHO and UN reports, although this was a huge mess;
3) and no deaths from radiation in Fukushima, non expected.

Fukushima was a GE design from the 1950s, would you consider the crashes of post war jets as a standard for your safety on a modern Boeing or Airbus?

Newer reactors will be magnitudes safer, as much has been learned from the past.


> While the number of deaths from radiation is low, the amount of hardship by those involved is huge. Loss of properties, family members, pets, belongings, and entire lives are just gone. I have seen up and close what it looks like in Japan and the uncertainly with the food contamination that they are still battling. It is not pretty at all. While this is just the human factor which seems to be dismissed in many of these banters, let's look at the technology.
>
It was a hysteric evacuation, caused by the scare tactics of green peace and others. More than 100 people where killed due to the evacuation. This evacuation should never have happened.
The cancer risk is minimal, Japanese eat a lot of fish, so the situation is not comparable to Russia and a population with iodine deficiency. The cancer risk is comparable to drinking a shot of alcohol once a year. Yes alcohol also causes cancer. So yes, its a mess, but it shouldnt be. Even the hotspots have only 150mSi in the first year, no reason to kill over 100 people in an evacuation. There are many places with higher natural background radiation in the world, should we evacuate them all? Most people should be allowed to return now, it should have been done earlier.

And second, hydro is one of the deadliest forms of energy, next to liquid gas, killing by far the most people. What do you say to those who loose their homes for hydro power? What about the millions, not hundred thousands, that lost everything for the am in China, what do you say to the people in South America? What about all the rain forest flooded there?

Here is a comparison of deaths for coal and hydro and nuclear, and just to put PV and wind into the picture, PV kills 440 per trillion kWh and wind 150.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html

> 1. Nuclear is not foolproof. The odds are low but when things go wrong, they go very wrong and affect significant populations. There will be more accidents and it may be coming to a neighborhood near you.
>
No human activity is foolproof, if you are born, you have problems. But the rational thing is to compare numbers of deaths, environmental damage caused by the different form of energy production. Interestingly nuclear is not only the cleanest but also the safest.
Yes, in a car only one dies, while in a 747 many die, and still it is way safer in a 747 than in a car.
We have to look at the deaths per TWh.


> 2. More reactors means more highly radioactive waste. Even reprocessing, if implemented, does not eliminate ultra high level waste. It reduces the volume of the waste but all that is the most radioactive is still entirely present. It also by far increases the chance for nuclear proliferation.
>
Which causes more proliferation, sending every one fuel elements and taking them back for recycling, and building new proliferation proof power plants and selling them or letting countries like Iran do it themselves?
Coal releases far more uranium, radon and thorium into the environment than NPP, another reason to build more of them, not less.
See here for example: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev ... lmain.html
I prefer small amounts of nuclear waste in containers to 2 mio tones of thorium and 800.000 tones of uranium released.

> 3. More reactors means more quantities and opportunities for proliferation of fissile material. It also increases the number of potential targets for terrorists.
>
There are designs that go underground and are even airplane crash proof, why would that be a better target than a stadium full of people at the superbowl?

> 4. If left unchecked, energy will be consumed at a faster and faster pace even if there were a nuclear reactor in every person's backyard. It is not a solution. It is a symptom of a energy gluttonous society.
>
I think that is a great idea, leave energy consumption unchecked and let it rise, we should let the markets work it out. Energy consumption is a direct measure for the degree of development of a civilization. We have abundant energy, we should make it cheap to enhance progress and development, we should send small fast microbreeders such as the proliferation proof, passively safe, core meltdown proof 4S by Toshiba, in the 100.000s to developing countries to help them get developed.

Alex
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by eugeniuszluzar »

ab0032 wrote:industrial dust collectors in deserts also pose a major challenge, with dust and storms.

But the main point is that solar is such a diluted form of energy, that all deserts of the world would not suffice to supply a demand growing at 3% by 2070 or 2080. So solar is just a short bridge to nowhere.

Anyone could do the math on the back of an envelop. It doesnt add up.
you're right, it's very interesting what you write here.
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Richard Hull »

A resurrection reply!

Agreed! Solar is just not going to cut it. Hundreds of millions spent by the current administration on solar startups and a 100% epic fail....Just like fusion!

Richard Hull
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Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by JoeBallantyne »

I for one would have to disagree that solar won't cut it.

I did a back of the envelope calculation a few months back, for a mere $1 trillion or so, you could put 4KW of solar panels on 100 million rooftops in America, if you assume it costs $10,000 per installation. If you actually went for it and started spending the money to really put solar on every roof in America, it would likely cost significantly less. Since solar panel costs are going down pretty fast, efficiencies are going up, and if you were doing every roof, the technology for installs would get standardized real quick, making it likely much cheaper than it is today.

If I recall correctly, I estimated that with the above, you could turn off a very significant chunk of the existing petroleum and coal based generation capacity. (I looked it up at the time on the US DOE's site, they have documentation on all of the different sources of power generation capacity.)

I suspect that if you tripled the capacity to 12KW installations, it would likely not double the cost, and at that point, you could start also using solar for powering transportation as well.

It's sad that we ALREADY HAVE the perfect nuclear power plant. It is safely 93 million miles away, the atmosphere and magnetosphere shield us from its most harmful radiation, and yet we can't find the political will to spend a mere trillion or 2, to get it done.

Pathetic IMO.

Especially if you think we've blown at least a couple of trillion on useless wars post 9/11.

Joe.
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Richard Hull
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Richard Hull »

When the gov't spends hundreds of millions to get solar panels made and start an industry and it all goes bust it is tough to put 4kw on the rooftops of millions of individual dwellings. That great old solar funace only works at optimum output for a maximum of perhaps 8 or 9 hours each day in the summer and this assumes 100% sun on all panels during that period (solar tracking). That same solar furnace causes earth's weather like overcast, fog, mostly coudy days, rain, hurricanes etc.

Solar just can't cut it for the folks who need central air/heat , microwave ovens, 24-7 refridgerators and deep freezers in their 4000 ++ square foot homes and all the electrical stuff that you dare not take away from them, ruining their cushy calm lives. Dreams are for dreamers and ideals for idealistists. Real folks who make the world spin are glutinous and always want more.

As I noted earlier the ready solution is 2 billion folks eliminated from this planet. Not an ideal or desirable solution, but a real solution nonetheless. One has to wonder which will occur first or be most likely in today's world..... 100 million homes with 4+KW of solar panels with grossly reduced comfort and pleasures compared to today's homes or the massive reduction in human beings due to any number of runaway, non-stop causes set in motion by the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Sorry but just need to clarify something - solar still works very well in winter: first, the sun is closer and more energy is delivered; the panels are cooler and hence, more efficient, and finally, the air tends to be clearer delivering more energy. As such, despite the shorter days, this is migrated by these improvements. Still, solar is only an aid and can't replace liquid fuels for many applications nor can it provide high energy density for many energy hungry applications. But solar has advanced tremendously in efficiency and lower cost for panels. As such, it is a viable aid in helping to generate clean power for both homes and some business.
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Richard Hull »

Absolute, direct, multi-kilowatt drive of electrical loads by solar panels is extremely rare. It is the norm to involve another step down technology.... Electrochemistry, (Batteries). The art in any form of successful solar power effort is not letting the load on the low impedance batteries outstrip the sun's ability to keep up in charging them over the long term. With clouds and less than 100% sun conditions, the norm is to vastly over supply solar panel capacity so that required charge rates are up to less than 100% sun conditions.

Wind is equally vulnerable to weather conditions. The net contribution of both systems is not worth a significant honorable mention in the international power game. Over 90% of the world's energy is and will remain on large power plants with 24-7-365 full continuous and emergency capabilities. Solar based lead-acid systems are probably the #1 critical emergency personal power provider for <1000 watt day to day needs in an out of control world. (survivorist's energy)

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Tom McCarthy »

As a side note,this book may be off interest to those who haven't already come across it: http://www.amazon.com/Plentiful-Energy- ... 1466384603

I'm currently reading (and thoroughly enjoying) the book, it's by two guys who were fairly high up at the Argonne National Laboratory and pioneered a lot of the initial fission plants. The book details one of their projects that was canned by Clinton, the Integral Fast Reactor, (IFR) that they view as a much better fission plant than some of the Light Water and Pressurised Water Reactors used today. The IFR idea is a sodium cooled reactor with onsite fuel reprocessing, disposal and so on...They also put in a few key safety measures and tested these, showing the reactor to shut down automatically (no operator interference!) on both loss of flow and loss of heat sink, which are two of the most critical reactor accidents and caused the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island incidents, respectively.

Richard, I know you're a fission advocate, so it might be of interest to you in particular.

Tom
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.

Post by Dennis P Brown »

There is no other operating fission power plant in the world, or any designed to date, that can match the low cost, ease of operation, unbelievable level of failure proof and hence overall safety level of the Candu heavy water fission reactor. That such a reactor is worthless as a power plant for a nuke sub prevented this outstanding design from ever being considered in the US (besides the fact that it was not invented here). Further, not needing any enriched fuel, it can't be used for weaponization or as an excuse to create an enrichment system.
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