Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
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Richard Hull
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Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Richard Hull »

Since this is about the future of fusion, we need to talk about the fuel.

Right now 100% of the effort and 100% of the dollars are in D-T fusion with little hope of success or real power from a winning system from this fuel for another 30++ years.

So, let us say the real soon now becomes right now and D-T is perfected. Any one figure out how much T needs to be on hand and in the gas lines of the multigigawatt fusion power stations? It is very calculable. We don't have it and can't get it in the quantity needed, of course. How many nuclear fission plants will be needed to make it?

OK, OK, so we really use another fuel. Among the easys are D-D and D-He3. There is even less He3 than T! The mining of the moon is way off. Thus, D-D is the optimum available fusion fuel inspite of its neutronic nature and lousy energy return per fusion compared to D-T. D-D is a doable thing with enough water to D extraction plants working off fission power. That is still a lot of D that is going to be needed.

Some will say well once we tackle fusion, regardless of the fuel, we will be able to burn anything and P-B11 is just all over the place. B-11 ain't a gas and not much has been done in the way of securing the methodology of handling gigawatt yielding amounts of hazardous Borane or BF3.

Yes, this is just engineering, but still, will the fusion fuel be ready for a winning fusion system or will we be another 10 years after fusion success just breeding and stockpiling fuel?

We just will not be using D-T at the giga or terawatt level if the current fusion effort ever goes as the stary-eyed proponents plan.

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: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

This was the point I was banging on about in;

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7165#p49037

You point is right and which is where I am fundamentally confused over ITER. Is it an experiment, a proof-of-concept, or is it a piece of engineering?

It is possible to produce tritium by breeding it in the lithium jackets of a neutron emitting fusion reactor. Doing so also produces a good supply of energy in itself. Of course, you need one-to-one correspondence of a tritium nucleus synthesised for each neutron coming out to maintain enough fuel for tritium 'self-sufficiency' and for sure a goodly percentage will be lost, so the idea is to bung in some beryllium aswell which produces a shower of *extra* neutrons (if there aren't already enough flying around) through an endothermic reaction to keep the whole chain going.

Now, you'd think that if this were really the plan that somewhere along the line someone would want to prove that this process of tritium breeding is viable. And there are a couple - I believe the Russians and the Japanese want to see an ITER vessel tritium-breeding test jacket included. But it has never 'formally' been part of ITER and has not been accepted yet as part of the programme.

So ITER is still *just* testing out plasma control and still hasn't even reached the baseline of proof-of-concept because it's got no fuel supply! Some seem to think that this is actually a piece of 'test engineering' for the DEMO power-producing reactor to follow - but it clearly isn't.

best regards,

Chris MB.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Starfire »

The holy grail ITER concept is to achieve a temperature high enough for a fusion reaction - squeeze more into a smaller space - faster.

Perhaps you should attend a plasma physics summer school Chris
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by DaveC »

I thought ITER was actually a Weapons Test Device, cloaked as a fusion development system. It was never intended to be a practical prototype for a true steady state Fusion reactor.


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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

But this is my point – getting a fusion reaction going ISN’T what ITER’s mission is. ITER is trying to improve what is considered ‘known’ (which is unity power output as shown by JET) to the point where there is power amplification.

This is just jumping the gun and it seems to me there is a whole lot more that can be done with existing tokamaks, particularly JET, to get more knowledge of plasma stability BEFORE committing the ITER design.

For example, the design for ITER has been kicking around for decades, but it’s only in the last year or two that it’s been decided edge-instability-disrupting antennas are required (from the research in other tokamaks), hence a modified design has been recently submitted. How many more such realisations might occur if the effort is put into those projects?

ITER’s original principal purpose was to get an experiment going to test out materials. At its inception it was presumed that actual fusion plasmas were going to be a done-deal so the issue was more to do with researching and proving the materials to a standard to resist a constant neutron flux and to engineer the size required as demonstrated by extrapolation of existing tokamaks.

Tritium breeding is also meant to be a technical objective, but it has never been planned for in the project excepting leaving it to national participants to propose their own vessel-wall module projects, and as far as I am told this remains undecided. So – no tritium synthesis means it is no proof-of-concept. This is covering Richard’s point.

So with the design evolving as we speak, and with some technical objectives being missed off, it seems to me that ITER is now an experiment that has lost its way but has so much inertia towards an unclear set of goals that no-one can stop it. The experimenters are now under the control of the experiment and no-one involved in it seems able to recognise this.

I do not know if ‘Spiderman 2’ was intentionally meant to be such a direct critique of experiments like ITER [in the film, the ‘intelligent fusion arms’ take over the experimenter, then together they run amok], but it is said that fact often follows fiction!

So whatever we have heard from those involved and running the project, you get a different perspective if you stand back from it and are not ‘under its control’. It seems evident to me that those involved in it may not be the ones best placed to comment on the ‘bigger picture’ of what its historical/unique technical contribution to the evolution of fusion power is intended to be.

I do not question the science and experiment of ITER itself, I am questioning its very purpose. It is not currently planning to prove tritium breeding is viable, and everything else it aims to do appears possible with existing experiments. For a project of this scale, I see no point at all in aiming for power amplification (its only real objective) if there is no proof-of-concept for energy extraction of that power and fuel synthesis shown to be viable at the same time.

best regards,

Chris MB.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Richard Hull »

ITER was never a weapons test system........That is NIF (National Ignition Facility) It was created as part of the "Stockpile Stewardship" effort. A side arm that helped it get funded was "Hey!... We can also use the big numerous terawatt laser bank to investigate controlled power fusion!" "please boost our budget!"

NIF is rarely heard about now after a horrid debacle in mid course showed just how mismanagement can be found in the science Biz as well as big biz.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8174&hilit=NIF#p57846

NIF will do what it will to test more efficient nuke weapons ideas and, as time permits, will put on a show about laser confinement fusion complete with all the usual hype and promise in the media.

ITER 'is engineering' only in the sense that they have to physically assemble something that they hope functions as advertised. It is 'a proof of concept' only in that D-T is absolutely the easiest form of hot fusion in the universe and we can't seem to do it to any power ready advantage. They pray that if it goes, then they can lean back in their chairs, fold their hands and say that fusion of scrap meat and vegatables can be reduced to mere engineering challenges. (I don't think so Tim).

Alas, as always, we peer through the fusion store's window, expectant, with our noses pressed against the glass in wonderment.

D-D fusion is the winner. If we can get D-D to go (vastly more difficult) we will be really making tritium fuel to spike the reaction in a multi-megawatt fusion reactor.

There will always be the P-B11 hangers on.

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: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by mheslep »

One of ITER's goals is to test the effectiveness of producing tritium from a lithium blanket:
Li + n → He ( 2.05 MeV ) + T ( 2.75 MeV )
Most of ITER's actual power testing will apparently be done with externally produced tritium, I believe its coming from Canada.
http://www.iter.org/fuel.htm
http://www.fusion.ucla.edu/abdou/abdou% ... 20al_1.pdf
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

A couple of points:

ITER will have no 'power testing', it'll just have 'testing'. It can't make any power.

ALL of ITER's testing will be done by externally produced tritium. It will never make a single atom of tritium that it reburns for itself. (You'd imagine that if you were trying to show a proof-of-concept for a power supply that re-generates one of its fuel components that it'd be important to show that works, but this is not the case with ITER.)

This is an old report and it says "A decision on the types of TBMs allowed in ITER is scheduled in 2005." ...and that decision point has come and gone with no conclusion...

best regards,

Chris MB.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by mheslep »

The ITER website itself is fairly current if you want more information.

Yes by 'power' there I meant ITER maximum output, and not just the odd neutron fired into the Li blanket to test tritium production. Also, it is likely that ITER will indeed produce 10X more heat energy (not electric energy) out than is fed into the plasma for some minutes. The problem is more in the practicality of ITER. Q=10X, with ITER's great size, is not enough to compete with the alternatives including the most expensive fission plants, waste included.

Anyway, to stay on topic, I don't believe the fuel stock is a problem as Lithium is abundant. Storing kilotons of the stuff will be the trouble. Tritium storage is not mentioned now because there's just so little of it. Scaling up a million fold will change that.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

I would like to clarify my position, as I have what may appear a mixed view on ITER:

If ITER were really a 5 billion science experiment, I'd be all for it and a strong advocate. Likely success or failure - irrelevant. Just get on and do it!

But ITER has followed a political trajectory for many years now and I do not think it will break away from that. It has promised much yet could deliver nothing. It is a lurching mongrel of a machine that has yawed off the launch pad and is following a trajectory that looks like it will end up in a crash landing over the horizon somewhere.

I feel tritium breeding is the proof, if proof were needed. The timetable I have reads '2021: Short term tritium breeding'. So far so good. Then you read a little further and realise that there is no actual plan yet. There are a pile of proposals from partner countries, as attached, all of which are good ideas, none of which have ever been assembled as a 'thing' to see if it works.

When the first 35 billion of funding dries up after running 10 years late having never got that far in the programme, the tritum breeding will be a long lost hoped-for abandoned memory.

It's a bit like me saying "right, here's my programme to make fusors self-sufficient: here's the build plan..... good, got the funding and we've got that going..... oh yes, incidentally, whilst we're building this thing maybe we should decide which is the best proposal to get net-neutron break-even".

I recognise that tritium breeding is somewhat already a 'known science' but I think it is currently made by endothermic deuterium irradiation at CANDU rather than by exothermic lithium, and also NOT in the quantities required. Richard's original post is essentially correct and I feel is a critique that should have been closed down long before they started clearing the Cadarache site.

best regards,

Chris MB.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Reformator »

Richard Hull wrote:
> Since this is about the future of fusion, we need to talk about the fuel.
>
> Right now 100% of the effort and 100% of the dollars are in D-T fusion with little hope of success or real power from a winning system from this fuel for another 30++ years.
>
> So, let us say the real soon now becomes right now and D-T is perfected. Any one figure out how much T needs to be on hand and in the gas lines of the multigigawatt fusion power stations? It is very calculable. We don't have it and can't get it in the quantity needed, of course. How many nuclear fission plants will be needed to make it?
>
> OK, OK, so we really use another fuel. Among the easys are D-D and D-He3. There is even less He3 than T! The mining of the moon is way off. Thus, D-D is the optimum available fusion fuel inspite of its neutronic nature and lousy energy return per fusion compared to D-T. D-D is a doable thing with enough water to D extraction plants working off fission power. That is still a lot of D that is going to be needed.
>
> Some will say well once we tackle fusion, regardless of the fuel, we will be able to burn anything and P-B11 is just all over the place. B-11 ain't a gas and not much has been done in the way of securing the methodology of handling gigawatt yielding amounts of hazardous Borane or BF3.
>
> Yes, this is just engineering, but still, will the fusion fuel be ready for a winning fusion system or will we be another 10 years after fusion success just breeding and stockpiling fuel?
>
> We just will not be using D-T at the giga or terawatt level if the current fusion effort ever goes as the stary-eyed proponents plan.
>
> Richard Hull
Does it always depend on the type fuel?
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Richard Hull »

After the realization that fusion needs fuel to run. The obvious next important question is what type of fuel will we need?.... and....Do we have enough on hand to really get into the giga-watt fusion building mode?

We will not have the Mr fusion generator seen on the film "Back to the Future" that will give us fusion energy by dropping bananna peels and coffee grounds into it.

So, yes, what type of fuel is very important, assuming we ever succeed in the first place.

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: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Reformator »

Ok then, Helium-3 would be enough to build a multiterawatt fusion plant, wouldn't it?


If Fusor is complete after 3-5 years, is it in any interest to build a BIG Polywell Fusor plant in the size of DEMO?
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Richard Hull »

Where is the He3 going to come from? Have you priced it? A tiny lecture bottle is over $2700 on the open market now. A multimega watt reactor would need rather vast stores of it.

The entire point of my original post is that there is NO fusion fuel for gigawatt systems and fusion power generation..... Outside, perhaps, deuterium.

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: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Reformator »

Richard Hull wrote:
> Where is the He3 going to come from? Have you priced it? A tiny lecture bottle is over $2700 on the open market now. A multimega watt reactor would need rather vast stores of it.
>
> The entire point of my original post is that there is NO fusion fuel for gigawatt systems and fusion power generation..... Outside, perhaps, deuterium.
>
> Richard Hull
Yes, but after a Moon mining infrastructure is build, then a terawatt reactor would be feasible, right? It can't be more than an engineering decision.

If not, then P-B11 would do the work ?
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

The answers all lie on the following page. (ad nauseam)

search.php?site=fusor

and

http://yahoo.com

Please try actively pursuing some knowledge and express some degree of intelligent interpretation of what you find before posting questions already well answered, rather than expecting more feeding.

I don't mean to sound unhelpful, but the site isn't a one-one tutorial for first year students.

But - any such questions that have been well-researched and are found by that researcher to be new, difficult, or generally obscure and otherwise untraceable will receive bountiful responses, I am sure.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Carl Willis »

Amen.

Learn to be an intelligent user of the SEARCH features on this site and elsewhere. The p-B11 topic has been beat to death in prior discussions here, particularly at the basic level you are engaging.

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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Reformator »

Chris Bradley wrote:
> The answers all lie on the following page. (ad nauseam)
>
> search.php?site=fusor
>
> and
>
> http://yahoo.com
>
> Please try actively pursuing some knowledge and express some degree of intelligent interpretation of what you find before posting questions already well answered, rather than expecting more feeding.
>
> I don't mean to sound unhelpful, but the site isn't a one-one tutorial for first year students.
>
> But - any such questions that have been well-researched and are found by that researcher to be new, difficult, or generally obscure and otherwise untraceable will receive bountiful responses, I am sure.
This is ridiculous! You're not serious!

Gigawatts aren't enough either! We need at least terawatt power! Starship Enterprise produce 700 petawatts of energy! If waiting ITER/DEMO to reach this level, even 500 years won't be enough!!! So, Quantum energy is the next step.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Richard Hull »

Oh no!... Not the quantum vacuum or zero point again!!! I will not even go there.

And, yes, that moon based mining operation will certainly be after the year 2250.
This assumes zero world economic meltdowns, nuclear exchanges, major world wars and no global warming that might redirect the countless billions needed to set up a major moon base and mining operation. Going to the moon right now would be just like going there for the first time. Six or seven exploratory missions to test the reliability of the new hardware and vehicles over a period of 10 years before any tiny moon base is ever established maybe in 40 years. All would end with just one significant crash and burn or stranded crew left to die. (at least on the American program) The Chi-Coms have guys to burn so it won't phase them.

Again, all this assumes a pretty much stable world and world economy. I think 2250 might even be optimistic for He3 mining. Forget P-B11.

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: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

You're right. Ridiculous. Absolutely, completely and utterly ridiculous, hence I will not attempt to try to turn these discussions around again into something sensible.

And, no, I'm not a very serious person. I like things to be light hearted - but nonetheless founded in truth, respect, and the pursuit of things of real scientific consequence.

I bid you well in your future pursuit of self-learning in your curious world, where reality and fantasy appear to have crossed into some entangled state.
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by Chris Bradley »

I cannot help but think of the Father Ted episode where Dougal gets reality and dreams mixed up:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-0cgq6THR4
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Re: Fusion fuel -got any in multi-gigawatt amounts!!

Post by gamempire »

I hate to give the tldr(too long did not read) excuse, but I'm in crunch time for my critical design review for my Fusor at school, and just wanted to chime in to Richard's initial post.

In terms of reactor fuel, since He3 mining is out of the question for the foreseeable future, one needs to look at some other alternative reactions that might be useful, besides D-T, B-11, From some discussions with my brother (theoretical physics and chem degree, now in med school) and some of my professors (one who headed NRL's plasma physics division for a number of years), we've come up with some pretty neat experiments to run once my fusor is operational. Basically, its alot easier to hit a solid target with a gas ion then to pray to (insert supernatural diety/object/thing here/Q) that two gas atoms/ions will smash into each other to initiate fusion. Solid targets of LiD (or LiAlD4) or TiD2 are just some examples.

D + (6Li) → 2 (4He) + 22.4 MeV
→ (3He) + (He4) + n0 + 2.56 MeV
→ (7Li) + p+ + 5.0 MeV
→ (7Be) + n0 + 3.4 MeV

The only issue with this reaction is the high radioactivity of 7Be, but there are ways to deal with that.

The other thing I mentioned, TiD2, has a neat reaction that occurs; three body deuteron fusion (and possibly four body!).

Also, the big problem is converting the energy from the reaction into usable electricity and such. Steam turbines, though probably the easiest to implement when we get the reactions down pat, are also the most inefficient. One idea I had has to do with photovoltaic cells, but I still need to figure out a way to shield them in some fashion. But the basic idea is to use a 3 layer cell to capture the infrared, visible and UV portions of the emitted energy from the reaction. The top layer being infrared absorption, which would allow the visible and UV to pass through, with the visible being collected on the next layer, and the UV after that. All I have is a very general understanding of photovoltaic cells and such, but from speaking to fellow engineers who have designed and built solar panels, the idea isn't that far fetched.

Anyhow, food for thought. If anything I said doesn't make sense, its probably because I'm sick and have been writing for my critical design review for the last 20+ hours, and probably have 30+ more to go. Yay useless technical writing!

-Josh
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