For a good laugh from the University of Washington

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Dennis P Brown
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For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dennis P Brown »

This article is about the real issue of fusion - that a fully working thermonuclear fusion power plant (1/10 scale "model" shown) is already a done deal, and just so trivial to build that all that is left to do is show that such a plant will cost less than a coal fired power plant ... . In fairness, this is a science writer's interpretation of what they were told so (I hope!) they didn't really get told any of this utter nonsense by any person actually working on this project. Then again ... .

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 131156.htm
Dan Knapp
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dan Knapp »

Not sure what you're laughing about. Have you read their paper?
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Yes I did. It is irresponsible to calculate the cost of a make believe fusion design and claim it costs less than a coal plant - these people set fusion research back with such non-sense.
Dan Knapp
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dan Knapp »

I believe the "dynomak" design was published (in a peer reviewed journal) as a proposed engineering design, and a good engineering design normally includes a cost analysis. I think it can be argued that any engineering design is "make believe" until it is built and tested. Unless one is prepared to debunk a design based upon physical arguments rather than personal belief, it would be circumspect to do one's laughing in private.
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Andrew Robinson
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Andrew Robinson »

:eek:
I can wire anything directly into anything! I'm the professor!
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Richard Hull
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Richard Hull »

Perhaps this is just another "gimme some money and I'll build a fusion machine, you betcha', I promise".
"Money first, of course".....Fusion that works?.... " Oh That's much, much later or when I see from the prototype you paid for that I just need to scale it all up another order of magnitude later."

The above is the secret of how fusion really works in the real world. It has always been the secret to getting usable fusion. Just keep the money coming along with all the new ideas. No idea dies until someone recognizes that at any scale, it just will not do usable, sustainable 24-7-365 fusion....ever.

Meanwhile, full speed ahead on ITER, Sphereomak says its a go. 2024 for now, or bust! More Billions, more Billions.

Thorium breeders? Sodium TWR's? So yesterday....So fissiony...Go away.

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
Dan Knapp
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dan Knapp »

If we're now having civil discussion of personal beliefs, and not laughing at one another, I'll share mine.
I'm not as pessimistic as Richard about fusion power, but I do agree that advanced fission approaches are the next logical step in energy production. I strongly believe, however, that fusion will ultimately be key to the survival of the human race on this planet; and I believe that human ingenuity can find a solution to the problem. I am not convinced that the tokamak will be the solution. I agree with the prediction made by Bob Hirsch at the recent IEC workshop in Madison that the ITER project is likely to die in the not too distant future. It is unfortunate that a LOT of money will have been spent to no avail, and that the fusion field is likely to lose a lot of very talented people in the economic fallout.
It is unfortunate that the tokamak field has been driven by the particle collider mentality, i.e. bigger and bigger. It is refreshing that the laser inertial confinement people have been pursuing engineering studies on how that technology might be evolved to a fusion reactor. There are still missing pieces, but their arguments are becoming more convincing. The tokamak people will need to start taking a more engineering approach rather than a primarily physics experiment approach if they are to stay in the game.
I believe that we need to be pursuing multiple alternate approaches to fusion energy. A few very knowledgeable and very reasonable people even believe that some form of IEC could even be made to yield net energy. Flaws have been identified in the arguments in the Rider and Nevins papers that drove the nails in the coffin of fusion research on non-Maxwellian plasmas. It is way past due that someone with the requisite expertise publish a paper addressing them.
Yes, fusion research does cost a lot of money, but we spend a lot more money on less worthwhile things. We do need to spend our money wisely, however. It is unfortunate that our people in Washington are so preoccupied with fighting among themselves that they aren't addressing national and world problems. There's an election coming up where we have an opportunity to start cleaning house and sending a message.
Having said all that, I'd like to end with a comment about the Fusor Forums. While these forums are a cut above most fusion discussions on the web, there is a tendency at times for people to spew things based more on personal prejudice than any reasoned examination. When this happens, the reasonable people need to step up to the plate, particularly when the comments involve ridicule.
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dennis P Brown »

I do not laugh at nor ever try and insult people's ideas here. The proposal I'm laughing at is a university and they should know better - it is fine to do cost analysis for real systems but never for made up and complete nonsense like this. To claim a real fusion reactor could be built for less than a coal plant yet yield identical power is utter lying and to be award real money for that lie would be criminal - period. These people haven't produced a neutron much less a real stable plasma with the properties they'd need for a power plant even with their tiny unit which would need to be scaled by 10^3. Engineering isn't calculation of possible assumed outcomes based on wishful thinking but designs based on real world testing that produce real data - that, these people have not done. These con-artist are the types that set real researchers back and give the field a terrible name and are beneath contempt.

The joke of NIF has been laughed at and published by peer reviewed scientist - NIF's claim of "break-even" is 1/10,000 of what everyone agree's would be the required energy. Not exactly getting to the point that anyone feel's ICF can work (I work in this field, by the way.)

In this world, money for fusion is almost non-existent and even funding ITER is a big problem and that was a jump that many researchers feel is too large (yes, the basic idea of a Tokamak is flawed); most every researcher in the field would agree that multi-approaches are the best method but who, exactly, will play the many billions? Last I checked, no one. So it is critical that people not make funding agencies think that no one in the field is serious - like NIF has already done for ICF and these clowns are trying to do for MCF. So, as one reasonable person, I have stepped up to the plate and told it as it is.
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Bob Reite
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Bob Reite »

It's not unreasonable to build a scale model of a machine and do extrapolations from measurements taken from the model , as long as it is no smaller than 10% of the proposed final product. Beyond that there are just too many things that change in relation to size that make predicting the final outcome possible.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Yes, build a "scale" model of a fusion reactor that is 10% in size of what they claim is a proper reactor - this scale model would need to produce about 100 mega-watts of continuous fusion energy for 24/7 and for a number of months or at least many days (since they are saying this proto-type can be scaled into a working 1000 mega-watt plant that operates as well as a coal power plant - their words.) Also the operation of this real proto-type reactor of theirs was done at a cost rate that gave good numbers to indicate scale up to a full plant (i.e.24/7 fuel injection without disruption of the plasma, wall exposure to the intense neutron flux/gamma rays that demonstrated the required resistance to erosion/break down, and energy extraction without plasma disruption as well to name just a few issues of a real fusion power plant) ... not one of these goals was achieved - worse, no fuel was burned nor even a neutron of fusion energy produced. Exactly what does a "10% scale model" prove here? It held vacuum and made a light show for a short time - about all they demonstrated ... . Mr. Hull has produced a far better fusion reactor than these frauds.

I support research in fusion energy (I have a vested interest!) but people like this give the field not just a bad name, but convince sponsoring agencies that fusion is a joke - that hurts the whole field. Fusion energy is difficult and creating a tiny plasma bottle that support a non-burning plasma for very short time periods is trivially simple - just about anyone with a mech. pump and a NST can do that. I expect a lot more from a major university - shame on them.
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Chris Bradley »

I disagree with the condescension towards this paper. It is highly relevant and probes whether the experimental end-point for tokamak and its ilk is a scientific or a practical one.

I am all aboard with tokamak as an ongoing science project, but shudder when people suggest it is now 'an engineering project'.

I have questioned, and continue to do so, what the actual experimental objective of ITER is. It seems to serve no particular purpose and is a political hodgepodge without a true goal, which, consequently, will fail because of that alone.

As alluded to in other threads, and recent posts, there are known, viable routes forward for long term fission power (beyond slow reactors) that mankind should be pursuing. We should be fully powered by renewable and nuclear by now. I view it as a form of self-destruction of the human race that we are not there yet, and politics is to blame. (On a side note, I am sure this is why we have not observed other intelligent species in the Universe - because organised technological societies only last for a few hundred years before they naturally implode, politically. The control of unlimited and free power is both a magnificent danger but is simultaneously essential. It is a naturally unstable conundrum.)
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Re: For a good laugh from the University of Washington

Post by Dan Tibbets »

1 / 10th scale does not necessarily grow linearly in terms of output. If the 1/10th scale refers to linear dimensions, then increasing 10 fold would result in 1000 fold increase in volume, thus only 1 MW would translate into 1000 MW. Even this may be misleading though. Factors like magnetic field strength scaling may contribute as much or more as would temperature achieved.

Having said that, the projections from all fusions efforts are at least somewhat speculative at best. Perhaps the least speculative is tokamak approaches as they have approached Q=1 closely. Still the engineering to reach continuous rated power output is formidable. Two or three plants may be necessary in order to have one operational at any given time. And this is at a cost that is probably well above 10 billion dollars per plant. With tokamaks there has been nay sayers that base their arguments on these issues. Curiously, the tokamak community seems to ignore these economic realities. They are not pushing scale models as a predictor of final performance implement and cost . It is all about the physics.* This is perhaps less useful than actual efforts to present scaling predictions to a final product. At least such predictions are predictive of what is reasonable. Of course all of this remains speculative, but at least it is speculation on a small scale compared to tokamaks.
This doesn't meany any snake oil sales pitch should be funded. But if the physics at the current stage of development and the engineering predictions are reasonable, then ignoring such approaches when they are truely trivial in cost, is a dis service. The field reverse configurations seem to be gaining popularity and credibility at this time. Conversely, I do not think they have yet achieved anything close to the temperature or containment requirements. Electrical fusion (name Dr Parks is now using for the IEC aspects of the Polywell has at least achieved reasonable temperatures and densities. Confinement may also be even better than predictions. Of course other concerns are now becoming apparent which challenge prevous scaling predictions . How to get the darn electrons into the machine seems to be the dominate question now.

* Actually I am probably being unfair to the tokamak community. But the economic realities do seem to be minimized. The research is expensive and slow. But, if successful, the deployment will be even more expensive yet. This at least, is different for more energy dense proposals. The research is cheaper and the speculative deployment is much cheaper. Yes, even cheaper (or at least comparable) to a coal fired steam plant, especially when fuel costs are factored in. After all if thermal conversion is used the fusion reactor is equivalent to the incinerator in a coal plant. Most of the building and maintenance cost is in the steam plant. A tokamak is an exception to this. More dense alternate fusion reactors can reasonably be projected to cost much less than the tokamak behemoth - provided they work at all.

In short ;) there are three questions:
1) Can fusion give positive energy balances? I think yes, tokamaks at least are very close now.
2) If the physics work, can the engineering solutions be developed? This is a tremendous challenge for tokamaks, even if ITER is successful as predicted. Other approaches have their own challenges, but I believe none are as formidable as for tokamaks.
3) Can fusion power be economical? Probably not for tokamaks, unless someone can develop a high Beta tokamak. For other approaches, the question is more uncertain. Known cost scaling analysis techniques though do suggest that it is possible, if physics predictions are anywhere close to reality.

PS: One fusion reactor system that has been proven to work is the Sun. The ancillary physics and engineering issues are progressing towards increasingly attractive solutions. Solar cell (with cost and efficiency improvements), wind turbines, etc. are the "steam plants" for this fusion reactor.

Dan Tibbets
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