iceatcs
Junior Member
But they are French.
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Fusion Reactor started in UK expected to hit 100 mill deg by 2018
- Thread starter IndoAssassin
- Start date
tearsintherain
Member
Is it an absolute given that once you achieve certain temps you will generate more power than it takes to maintain that temperature, aka true fusion power, or is it a guess?
Charles Brandon
Member
I refer you back to the gif in my previous post
Gigageiger
Neo Member
Guess that's another country Korey won't be visiting.
Not sure how related this but I watched Motherboard's docuementary The Thorium Dream, and a TED talk on the subject and it seems like Thorium is the real nuclear power that we're missing out on?
Well, it is not just temperature, you need also have high ion density and contain the plasma long enough. And yes, you can still have net energy loss if you are not in the energy gain window, and it is harder to get enough energy out with smaller devices, that is why ITER is going to be so huge for its moderate 200MW power.
These spherical tokamak people are claiming they can do it with moderately sized devices, which would be nice. Russian built a similar research device in 1999, so plenty research is done already. No idea about its acceptance in a scientific community, not my topic, I work only with up to 1 MK hot plasmas.
shnurgleton
Member
R10Neymarfan
Member
It will come when "they" weaponize it. They're gonna build a supernova nuke that can wipe out the solar system first.
Depends entirely on the efficiency of the containment and the size of the reactor. Power output and containment energy requirements scale differently with respect to size, which is why ITER is so gigantic. That design of Tokamak has to be that large in order for the efficiency to be good enough for net power output. The big advantage of the spherical design is that you can get over the line at a much smaller size, and even manage without superconducting magnets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_tokamak
TBF, it is actually the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, so it isn't just the French.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
Achieved 400m degrees back in 1950 - the deuterium inside Ivy Mike starts fusing at 100m with temperatures eventually reaching 400m degrees and 100 trillion atmospheres before the burn completes (20ns) in your standard 2 stage Teller-Ulam thermonuclear weapon.
100m is not impressive. The spherical design/smaller size is the thing they're really going for. ITER is a monster and the future depends a lot on it. DEMO follows and it'll be a 2GW actual commercial plant. Fusion has a lot of issues primarily related to materials science - how to economically run a reactor when 14MeV fast neutrons will activate literally anything. They'll get there. It's an engineering challenge not a physics one at this point.
DrROBschiz
Member
the issue is they desperately need an economical small scale running prototype
they made several successful thorium reactors in the 50s but nothing commecially viable is available yet
until modern fission reactors can get past the design phase and made into economically viablr and scalable mass produced machines... its in long term limbo
modern fission has a huge window for improvement and we might see it as a stop gap between fusion if the current governments and private entities come up with a nice flagship design soon
French plasma?!
So pardon me for my ignorance, but why do they need to reach 100M Celsius? The Sun's core is at 15m and maintains a perpetual chain (as long as it has fuel of course) of hydrogen to helium fusion and even red dwarfs are able to do it with cooler temperatures. With a much higher temperature like that one, I think you would even be able to fuse heavier elements like carbon.
You need high temperatures *and* pressures. The pressures in the sun are colossal and impractical to replicate with magnetic containment. So you raise the temperature to compensate.
Plasma is contained with high magnetic fields. That's why you need all those superconductive magnets. The question is what happens when magnets fail - those graphite coated walls will not survive for long.
Good thing with fusion reactors that in the worst case you will lose a reactor, but there is basically no danger to the population nearby.
DrROBschiz
Member
wouldnt it just puff out instantly after a failure much like a lighter?
Without the input to sustain the reaction the reaction just stops right?
Without the input to sustain the reaction the reaction just stops right?
Correct. There are some pretty large forces involved with the magnets (in the order of tonnes) so depending on how the reactor fails, some of its physical parts might break themselves. The only potential for actual pollution is for radioactive parts of the reactor lining to be catapulted out of the reactor and into the environment. This can be easily guarded against and is no big deal even if a bit did manage to escape.
There are different scenarios, the plasma "ring" can easily become unstable and hit the wall before dissipating. And uncontrolled dissipation of huge amount of contained energy is always a problem.
This.
I have been hearing that fusion is right around the corner since the 90s.
I think that is when I first heard of thorium as well.
TheCochese
Banned
I initially read the title not as "Fusion,' but "Fukushima," and shit myself.
Duane Cunningham
Member
Deadpool is finally going to save the world
BlazinSkatinAxel
Member
When?
Charles Brandon
Member
The French are involved though.
RocknRola
Member
Hari Seldon
Member
"The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States."
So not the UK now lol.
Wowfunhappy
Member
Damn, I hope this pans out.
Save us all.
Save us all.
GameAddict411
Member
Who are they fucking kidding here? As someone who is studying electrical engineering the amount of current to be able create an electrical field capable to controlling and maintaining a plasma flow at that temperatures is astronomical. It will need the power of several massive fission nuclear plants to power the conductors and the end results are not going to viable. I also seriously doubt that a bunch of engineers and physicist in a tiny office in the uk will be able to do anything that impressive. Where is the multi billion funding? They need the world best engineering and physicists and resources to create to be able to make a dent in this.
DrROBschiz
Member
Doesnt matter
if we ever plan on leaving this planet we need to master some form of compact nuclear power
the ends justify the means and we can iterate on the tech as we go
You know this is based on the work already successfully done with MAST at the fusion research centre at Cullough, right?
You've made me a bit scared all of a sudden.
It's not that difficult. I mean, it's difficult, and I'm not sure a team of this caliber can pull it off, but it certainly doesn't take several nuclear reactors of energy to maintain a plasma of a million degrees. The trick is to use superconductivity, which involves running a current through a material supercooled with helium. It takes a lot of funding, but not billions of dollars. We're talking the multi-million dollar range.
DrROBschiz
Member
minimal?
fusion is working opposite of fission so as far as radiation risk there is next to nothing
the elements being used arent heavy atomically
not sure what the localize explosion risk is but it cant be that high. Without anything to ignite whatever damage would be contained at the site
Yeah.
Also, Dr. Costley rightfully points out that if the calculations hold up, we can do research on pretty small reactors. Which in turn dramatically speeds up the iteration process and brings down the cost of each stage too.
Fingers crossed, this would be pretty big.
Oops, I meant Culham
BTW, you can go on guided tours of the fusion research centre, which I *highly* recommend. JET was actually running when I went so I didn't get to see it, but we did get to poke our heads in the full-size mockup they use for testing component fit:
This guy runs experiments on MAST, which is in the vacuum chamber behind him
Well we won't know unless we open it....
BTW, you can go on guided tours of the fusion research centre, which I *highly* recommend. JET was actually running when I went so I didn't get to see it, but we did get to poke our heads in the full-size mockup they use for testing component fit:
This guy runs experiments on MAST, which is in the vacuum chamber behind him
Well we won't know unless we open it....
SuicidalSteve
Member
The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand
the_batman
Banned
if this is real, then holy shit.
curls
Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience ð¤
Well thats the result when you have an economic system based on artificial energy scarcity.
Also nuclear fusion is extremely difficult and extremely expensive compared to other commonly used energy sources.
https://youtu.be/jFZwCVd6P90Fusion is such a great evolution over fission reactors, and I believe they are meltdown free. A great step towards a carbon-free energy grid.
Nuclear fusion was weaponised in the 1950s:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike
Castle Bravo was when the physicists got it wrong:
https://youtu.be/b5tmkna-k-U
OT - I could make a joke about how they're going to achieve that temperature by throwing piles of money on a fire, but having been to Culham (with Crispy75 no less
) getting private funding for this may well show quicker results than the political pork barrel ITER is.And that's before we get to Polywell...
Watch those EU slugs come crying back now that we've got fusion power.
How we will laugh at them with their pathetic "clean energy" when we''re travelling back and forth through time and space, with unlimited energy and machine guns that fire plasma bullets.
Just like with cars and electronics: The Germans and Japanese will, copy, make it more efficient, more user friendly and cheaper.
It's what those Engineers do best
.They insisted that the reactor be croissant shaped... Maybe that explains the hold up.
7DollarHagane
Banned
They could set up a competing company that mimics the work of a legitimate company but misses key safety standards and causes some kind of horrific disaster that makes international news and ties fusion with horror.
That should kick the can down the street another 10 years.