Nations agree to build fusion reactor

[tocqueville]

By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union, the United States, Japan, China, Russia and others initialed a $12.8 billion agreement Wednesday to build an experimental fusion project they hope will lead to a cheaper, safer, cleaner and endless source of energy.

The seven-party consortium, which also includes India and South Korea, agreed last year to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, in Cadarache, in the southern French region of Provence.

The consortium hopes to develop the new technology saying it will help move away from the global dependency on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Fusion reproduces the sun's power source and produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nuclear_fusion_1

[MadHound]

1. Rather than go with pie in the sky, and experiment with future tech

Why not go with what we've already got, technologies like wind and solar. It has been shown that the US can fulfill all of its electrical needs, including factoring in for growth, domestically.

Rather than sit on our thumb and spin while waiting for some future tech to save us, let's get off our ass and start using the clean, renewable alternative energy source that we already have, wind and solar.

[Tesha]

9. Fusion actually has the potential of having a much smaller "footprint"

Unlike any of the renewable energy resources, fusion has
the potential of delivering enormous power levels with
a very low "footprint".

And unlike fission power, fusion power produces very
low levels of waste; the spent fuel *ISN'T* anything
radioactive.

If we'd really been working at it, fusion power would
probably already be on-line now, but Reagan fixed that
by radically cutting the development budget. So the
initiative moved to Europe and Japan and ITER is the
result; we're just tagging along.

Of all possible alternatives, if you want to continue
living in an energy-consuming world, fusion is almost
certainly the best alternative.

Tesha

[CabalPowered]

11. As my College physics professor said

It's what everyone else in the universe is using.

[MadHound]

15. Actually there is radioactive waste produced during fusion reaction

<http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/J_G/fusion.html>

Which leads us back to the conundrum of fission, what do you do with the radioactive waste.

However waste aside, fusion is years and decades away from being online, if ever. So my point is rather than wait for pie in sky possiblities to actually happen, why not go with what we've got, wind and solar, renewable, clean alternatives that can indeed power all of our eletrical needs, now and in the future. In fact we are so awash in wind energy that a 1991 DOE survey found that there is enough harvestable wind energy in three states, Kansas, North Dakota and Texas to supply all of our electrical needs, including factoring in growth, through the year 2030. I know, we don't want to put all of our eggs in three states, but this does illustrate how abundant wind energy is in this country.

The crisis is upon us, and while we should indeed work on future solutions, we can't afford to wait for them to pan out. So again, let's go with what we have now, clean renewable alternatives like wind and solar:shrug:

[Tesha]

19. ITER's design uses a lithium blanket so...

ITER's design uses a lithium blanket so the irradiated blanket
produces the tritium that is then burned. This means there's
a lot less steel (etc.) being irradiated than in some previous
tokomak designs.

But even if we ended up with a radioactive reactor vessel,
that's a pretty small amount of waste compared to the energy
that would have been produced during the reactor's lifetime,
and it's far, far less than would be produced as spent fuel
by a fission power reactor.

Tesha

[MadHound]

21. Still a hell of a lot more radioactive waste when compared to

A wind turbine or solar panel. And while radioactive waste isn't forever, it is the next closest thing, hundreds of thousands or millions of years, depending on the isotope. So again, the question comes down to what are we to do with the waste, even a relatively small amount?:shrug:

[Tesha]

24. But radioactive waste isn't the only kind of waste.

All the mining and refining that made the silicon, copper,
steel, aluminum, titanium, plastics, and all the other
materials that make your thousands of wind turbines and
millions of solar cells produces pollution too.

It may well be that when you consider life-cycle pollution,
the fusion reactor is demonstrably cleaner!

Tesha

[MadHound]

32. It may be, but somehow I doubt it

Especially when you consider that the materials you mentioned, silicon, copper, steel, aluminum, titanium, and most plastics are indeed recyclable.

In addition, you would also have to factor in all of the materials that go into a fusion reactor, many of which could not be recycled due to their radioactive contamination. In addition, while all of a wind turbine's parts can be made out of commercial grade materials that you can pick up at your local hardware and machine shop, many many of the parts of a fusion reactor are either highly exotic, berylium, boron rods, etc, or they are highly refined or specially alloyed materials that take quite large amounts of energy to produce.

Also, all the parts of a wind turbine will eventually break down to components. Radioactive waste you have to worry about for tens of thousands of years. What a mess to pass on to our children's children's children.

[Tesha]

34. If you think hundred-foot-plus wind turbine blades...

If you think hundred-foot-plus wind turbine blades are made
out of alloys that you can buy at Home Depot, we have no
further common place for discussion.

(Regardless of whether or not the materials are recyclable
afterwards,) If you think the original mining operations
for the materials I cited don't produce waste, then...

Tesha

[MadHound]

35. LOL, well then we might not be speaking much after this

Because the most common material in any wind turbine is aluminum:shrug:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine#Turbine_design_and_construction> Yes, those larger size blades are made out of plastic, but hey, most plastic is itself recyclable. And when it comes to aluminum, given that aluminum is the most recycled material on the planet, the material for that wind turbine was probably mined long ago.

And yet mining aluminum is nowhere near as destructive as producing boron, berylium and the other exotic elements that go into a fusion reactor, sorry.

And like I stated earlier, why should we wait for pie in the sky solutions when we already have a solution that is clean, renewable, low cost, and is ready to go now? Time is a critical element right now, our planet is radically changing friend and we don't have the time to wait for pie in the sky shit that may or may not pan out.

[mike_c]

10. why not do both...?

Fusion is decades away, if even achievable. Developing sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels will not only help in the interim, they'll continue to diversify energy acquision after fusion reactors come on line. Without vast improvements to global energy transmission grids, fusion will not supply much of the earth's population, but sustainable local solutions can.

[MadHound]

17. The only thing that I've got against fusion

Is that it does produce radioactive waste, albeit in smaller amounts than fission. Otherwise:shrug:

[Tesha]

20. "Both" is obviously the correct answer.

The only other alternative would be to bridge from the oil
age to the fusion age using fission, which would be an
unmitigated disaster.

(But I predict that's exactly what we'll do: resume massive
fission energy projects. When denied TV and cold beer, people
won't give a damn about radioactive waste.)

Tesha

[Nederland]

12. Wind and solar

...by their very nature, can never be primary energy sources.

[MadHound]

16. Why?

We have the nationwide electrical infrastructure to allow the transmission of power over a thousand miles. We have more than enough wind energy in this country to fulfill all of electrical needs. I don't see what the hold up is:shrug:

[Nederland]

23. The sun don't always shine

And the wind doesn't always blow. And yes, we do have a nationwide electrical infrastructure, but not one that can transmit all the power one region needs across thousands of miles. When you carry electricity across wires thousands of miles long your transmission losses end up being larger than the power you generated at the point of origin. Simply put, there is no escaping the need to generate 80% of the power you need in a particular area locally. As a result, solar and wind will never be more than a suppliment to more reliable energy sources like hydro, gas, coal, nuclear--and hopefully someday, fusion.

[mccoyn]

27. There are some resevoir plants.

In Ludington, MI there is a large resevoir plant. The way it works today is it pumps water into the resevoir during the night when electricity is cheap and discharges it through turbines during the day when electricity is more expensive. If solar and wind were more popular this type of plant could provide the energy storage that these systems require.

[Nederland]

30. Its not only storage

Its about location. There are many places in the US where neither wind nor solar can work. How will you get electricity to those areas? Transmission losses will kill you.

[Tesha]

33. Actually, transmission losses aren't so bad.

Here in New England, we get a lot of our power via a single
HVDC power line that comes all the way from James Bay,
Quebec, a distance of 1480 km (~920 miles). The line moves
2,000 MW, the output of a fairly large power plant.

Tesha

[MadHound]

31. Well, transmission loss across a thousand miles

Didn't seem to kill Enron, in fact it was they who made the killing, transmitting thousands upon thousands of watts from Texas to California. Thus, I don't think that across 1 thousand miles your losses would be too great.

And having a thousand miles to play with is more than enough leeway to keep people supplied with electricity. Within a thousand mile radius there is always wind blowing and/or sun shining somewhere in large enough quantities to keep the lights on when needed:shrug:

And the trouble with hydro, coal, nuclear, and yes even fusion, is that they are really starting to harm our enviroment and we have absolutely got to transition away from them. Wind and solar are more than capable of fulfilling our electrical needs, now, cleanly, cheaply and reliably. Hell, even now micro generators, wind and solar units are providing more electrical energy both domestically and world wide than nuclear plants are. The time to start this transition is now before it's too late.

[slor]

2. I guess it is good news...

but $12.8 billion seems like such a paltry sum, when you think about the money wasted in the fake war on terror.

[jerry611]

3. And they will do this how?

A fusion reaction is the same kind of reaction in the core of the sun. The energy output is enormous and would power the entire planet. But it needs temperatures of almost 27 million degrees F for the reaction to take place.

How will they be able to withstand that kind of temperature?

[Javaman]

5. millions and millions of ice cubes...nt

[bigtree]

6. If you pour the money directly into the centrifuge . . .

[Tesha]

8. "Magnetic confinement fusion"

The fusion reaction is cintained within a doghnut-shaped
magnetic bottle; the reactants never touch any physical
matter.

It's a well-demonstrated principle and only needs to be
scaled-up to commercial levels.

See:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_fusion_energy

Tesha

[AngryAmish]

14. It needs a lot more than "scaling up"

They have been working on magnetic confinement for decades. Does magnetic confinement work? It has. But with todays technology it takes more power to create the field and power the reaction than power you get out. It is nowhere near commercially viable.

I wrote a paper on fusion in high school over 20 years ago. Folks were saying it was just around the corner then. We really are no closer and I suspect we never will be.

(I am aware of the inertial confinement laser thingy out in New Mexico and that has created more energy out than put in. But now do you create electricity out of that? You can't boil water with that thing so it is a useful pure science project but not to create energy.)

[Tesha]

18. A "Q" of 1.25 has been reached.

> But with todays technology it takes more power to create
> the field and power the reaction than power you get out.

Actually, a Q of 1.25 has been reached* so that fusion reaction
was briefly delivering 25% more power than was needed merely to
sustain itself (which would have been a Q of 1.0).

It really is mostly just a question of scale-up and productization
now; all the basic principles are now in place.

ITER -> DEMO -> commercial production.

Tesha


* Obviously not in ITER which hasn't been built yet

[AngryAmish]

22. Fair enough

The thing about creating commercial electricity is that you have to have constant power. There are no commercially viable ways today to store electricity. One of the problems with solar for example is the additional cost of redundant power sources for cloudy days and night.

So unless the tokomak reaction can be held for longer and very sustained time it will not be a commercial product.

I am skeptical about this technology to create electricity. I am just glad someone else is paying for this new machine - so if it does work we can buy the product.

[Tesha]

26. Sustaining the reaction is just "engineering".

> So unless the tokomak reaction can be held for longer
> and very sustained time it will not be a commercial product.

Sustaining the reaction is just "engineering".
That's the whole point of ITER: the science is
mostly complete so now work out the engineering
problems using ITER, leading to the construction
of DEMO as a working protoype of the commercial
power reactors that will follow.

Tesha

[mccoyn]

28. There is a commercially viable way to store electricty.

Consumers Energy has been making money off from the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant for 30 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant

[mike_c]

13. the reactor will be located in Babs Bush's cold black heart....

Condi has possibilities as well, best left undiscussed until absolutely necessary.

[Beelzebud]

29. Well thats why the reactor is for research. We won't know if we don't try

[hopeisaplace]

4. I think I read an article about this in a Toronto Newspaper years ago

..if memory serves me correctly, I do believe there were countries bidding
on having this built...and if I AM remembering correctly, just outside of Toronto
was a place that was in on the bid (Unionville I think)...don't quote me or anything,
I'm just remembering off the top of my head

[maine_raptor]

7. It's about time we started this.

If done right a Fusion Reactor would be a huge boon to mankind. The "waste" would be helium and the fuel could be seawater (and not much needed either).

Last I heard sustained fusion reactions had been create in the lab, but only for a short period of time. A lot of technical hurtles to overcome, but if we can put a man on the Moon, etc.

The potential for generating a lot of energy, much more than wind, solar, hydro and other ways combined, by this method.

[Nederland]

25. Here's the sad part

Environmental groups slammed the project as "ill-judged and irresponsible," saying there was no guarantee that the expense would result in a commercially viable energy source.

"Investment in energy efficiency and renewables is the only reliable way to guarantee energy security," said Silvia Hermann, from Friends of the Earth Europe.


Instead of bad mouthing ideas that you are idealogically opposed to, why can't these people just shut up?

[Odin2005]

36. I swear they don't want us to have ANY electricty.

The moment we find a cheap way to produce energy from solar and wind they will oppose that as well, bet on it. These ideologues are an insult to us real enviromentalists.

[JochenGruber]

37. EU Conceptual Study of Commercial Fusion Power Plants

There are three equally high "mountains" that have to be crossed until fusion power plants can produce electricity:

(1) containment of the plasma and a net power producing fusion reaction,
(2) tritium technology,
(3) economics of a fusion reactor construction and operating industry.

The EU Conceptual Study of Commercial Fusion Power Plants

<http://www.efda.org/downloading/efda_reports/PPCS_overall_report_final-with_annexes.pdf>

covers the technical feasibility, safety and environmental aspects and costs of a future fusion power plant.
The study presents designs that touch problem areas 1 - 3.

Tritium and radioactive waste problems are presented as minor. The corresponding parts of the study appear insufficient to me. Here are 5 examples:

(1) The major part of the tritium inventory, the one in the chemically very instable breeding zone, is disregarded in the accident analysis. The order of magnitude of this inventory is 1 kg,
<http://www.fusion-eur.org/fusion_cd/techno.htm>
corresponding to a population dose of 10 million man Sievert.

(for comparison:
(-) 0.004 Sievert per year is the total natural background dose rate each of us is exposed to at sea level.
(-) The permanent relocation of people following an accident is recommended to avert a dose of 1 Sv in a lifetime
<http://hps.org/documents/controllable.pdf>).

(2) Many elements exposed to the neutron flux of the fusion reaction are disregarded without giving a reason, particularly the ones that lead to long lived radioisotopes.

(3) In the radioactive waste assessment so called "Clearance Levels" are used, i.e. limits for the release of radioactive elements into the biosphere recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The study uses these levels to define limits for deliberate release of fusion reactor generated radioisotopes into the biosphere. This -in my view- is not in accordance with the principles of the ICRP.

(4) The study assumes continuous distribution of the waste radioisotopes within the environment, ignoring geological/geochemical redistribution processes in the geosphere, e.g. spatial accumulation of the waste elements. Element accumulation is a common geological process.

(5) The types and quantities of the radiologically critical elements of fission and fusion reactor waste differ with respect to their geochemical behavior and the role they play in the biosphere. For example, the hydrogen isotope tritium is an essential part of life, plutonium is a poison.

Thus, fusion reactor waste could harm other parts of life and in different ways than fission reactor waste. In my view, the EU Conceptual Study follows a tradition that ignores this scientifically challenging and yet unsolved problem.

More: <http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/J_G/eufuss.html>

Jochen
<http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/J_G/JGruber.html>
<http://www.acamedia.info/sciences/J_G/fusion.html>