Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion

[Uncle Paul]

Currently all energy on Earth is generated directly, or indirectly from the Sun.

Oil, coal, wind, tidal, sawgrass, wood, manpower, animal power, electric. If you trace back their source, it is all solar in origin.

For example, oil comes from decomposed plant or animal matter. They survived by eating plants that were grown only with solar.

No solar = dead planet.

 

[Skotty]

Downsizing is like a hail Mary pass when all other hope is lost. Where you've basically given up on everything else. We don't need a hail Mary pass ... yet. And I don't think we will need to if we start playing the game right.

Fusion will work in time, if we continue to support it. It's just a matter of when. In the meantime, it's a good idea to continue developing other clean sources as well. Fund them all. They aren't expensive in the grand scheme of things. The ITER fusion project is looking to cost around $20 billion over maybe a decade. Sounds like a lot, right? But how much was the bank bailout (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008)? $700 billion. Oh, so maybe $20 billion for the next step in future energy for all mankind coming in at around $2 billion a year isn't so much after all (or in another measure, the bank bailout funds could support ITER and it's continuing research for about 350 years).

 

[nwdiver]

All the energy that we use ends up being heat released to our surroundings. Cheap power = more heat = Mars 2.0. Fusion is not the solution. Downsizing is the solution.

Ah... your concern is based on thermodynamics... not economics.... well that's easy to assuage...

Here's the math explaining why no one else is concerned... it's not cheap power = more heat; it's GHG EMISSIONS = more heat.

The current anthropogenic forcing from CO2 we've already added to the atmosphere is ~1.5w/m². That may not sound like a lot but the earth has a lot of m²... ~500M km².

~1.5w/m² = 1.5MW/km² = 750TW for Earth. Over a year that's ~6.5M TWh/yr of additional thermal energy from an extra ~120ppm CO2 due to radiative forcing. By comparison the whole world uses <0.2M TWh/yr... not to mention the fact that renewables like solar, wind and hydro don't add energy... just use the energy that's already here for useful work.

So there you go... the radiative forcing of CO2 we've added... adds ~30x more thermal energy to the planet than the combined energy use of the entire world. Nothing wrong with cheap and abundant power so long as it's zero emissions and preferably solar, wind or hydro :biggrin:


And... that ~1.5w/m² is a drop in the bucket compared to the thermal energy we receive from the sun... ~1kW/m².

 

[3mp_kwh]

A nuclear plant built instead of a coal, or a natural gas plant, is different from assuming solar was the other choice. It isn't. The reality is that we are still building fossil fuel plants, both in the U.S. and abroad. If you shout down nuclear on economics that neglect 40-60 year lives, or the damage feed-in-tariff does to its economics, you ultimately invite both CO2 and higher power prices.

Nuclear, solar, wind and hydro are all cheap. All projects can be financed to provide $.03-.07 cent/kwh wholesale rates (batteries not included). Some people are just more bent on arguing within carbon-free electric generation. Then, others are happy to go a lot slower with CO2, if the chosen tech means more jobs. These trade-offs are being made. We're past the point where cost really matters, or at least I wouldn't blink at a bill that was $.02-.04/kwh higher than my own $.15-.20 all-in, delivered average.

It won't sink the world's financial resources, if these guys get their fusion reaction up to 30 seconds. One step at a time.

 

[Lloyd]

That argument is really silly. That amount of heat is negligible.

 

[stopcrazypp]

That argument is really silly. That amount of heat is negligible.

Yep. This article goes to show the difference. GHG is 100x more potent than waste heat which is why no one is even focusing on waste heat.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Waste-heat-vs-greenhouse-warming.html

 

[nwdiver]

Yep. This article goes to show the difference. GHG is 100x more potent than waste heat which is why no one is even focusing on waste heat.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Waste-heat-vs-greenhouse-warming.html

Cool; My maths weren't too far off... I assumed slightly lower radiative forcing and slightly higher global energy consumption...

Moral of the story... waste heat is irrelevant.

So... to be clear... I understand that 100% nuclear vs 100% wind/solar would have absolutely no effect on global temperatures... the amount of waste heat generated by tens of thousands of nuclear plants would still be very very very..... very small compared to GHG forcing. I just kinda threw that into my previous post as an aside...

 

[Evbwcaer]

Geothermal and tidal energy are not solar based, right?

 

[nwdiver]

Geothermal and tidal energy are not solar based, right?

right... leftover heat from Earths formation, radioactive decay and kinetic energy 'stolen' from the moon.

 

[Bangor Bob]

The reality is that we are still building fossil fuel plants, both in the U.S. and abroad.

In the US, we're not actually building very many new fossil-fuelled plants, and most of those are natural gas replacing coal. Not ideal, but better than continuing on coal.

The EIA keeps track here under Section 6.

YTD as of September, 5.9GW of new renewables ex large hydro, 4.1GW of new Natural Gas, 11.4GW of coal RETIRED, .138GW of new Nuclear (uprates?), .126GW of new storage.

In the sidebar at the link above is a graphic with new capacity planned for the next year, and retirements for the next year. Lots more coal going away, new solar and wind popping up all over the place, with a chunk of new gas as well.


In the "rest of the world" the situation isn't hugely different. We probably don't "need" fusion, although it would be nice to have. Particularly for spaceflight...

- - - Updated - - -

Yep. This article goes to show the difference. GHG is 100x more potent than waste heat which is why no one is even focusing on waste heat.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Waste-heat-vs-greenhouse-warming.html

Waste heat IS a problem at a local scale. Well, if you want to have lakes with a sport fishing industry, and diverse wildlife. Cooling water needs to discharge somewhere... (Ideally you'd find some nearby use for low-grade waste heat instead. Co-located industrial processes, district heating, thermo-electric generators, etc...)

 

[nwdiver]

Waste heat IS a problem at a local scale.

.... that's very true... one more reason why heat => steam => electricity generation needs to go away....

 

[3mp_kwh]

YTD as of September, 5.9GW of new renewables ex large hydro, 4.1GW of new Natural Gas, 11.4GW of coal RETIRED, .138GW of new Nuclear (uprates?), .126GW of new storage.

When "11.9GW" of coal retires, it takes about 60GW of solar to replace it. It helps an argument that we're not building very many when you don't represent how many renewables it takes to replace fossil.

4.1GW of natural gas is the same as about 10GW of wind. [edit - ERCOT/Texas has at least 4GW of natural gas planned, just for that state. Bernstein is predicting 7 additional bcf/d demand, by 2030, and we average 21-22 bcf/d nationally, today for the US electric sector. Also, EPA has NG growing from ~26%, to 33% of the US mix, by 2030.]

I don't think EIA has a convention for reducing GW values which assume the sun is always up, and the wind is always blowing. The resulting false confidence is chronic. I see it a lot.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Waste heat IS a problem at a local scale. Well, if you want to have lakes with a sport fishing industry, and diverse wildlife. Cooling water needs to discharge somewhere... (Ideally you'd find some nearby use for low-grade waste heat instead. Co-located industrial processes, district heating, thermo-electric generators, etc...)

... greenhouses. Just think how much cheap power and heat would help marijuana growers.

 

[nwdiver]

When "11.9GW" of coal retires, it takes about 60GW of solar to replace it. It helps an argument that we're not building very many when you don't represent how many renewables it takes to replace fossil.

That assumes those plants were operating at a high capacity factor... coal has been operating at a CF of ~60%. So 40GW of solar will generate about the same amount of energy as the coal retirements... the US is projected to have an annual solar install rate of ~60GW/yr by 2022... we're getting there :wink:

 

[Bangor Bob]

When "11.9GW" of coal retires, it takes about 60GW of solar to replace it. It helps an argument that we're not building very many when you don't represent how many renewables it takes to replace fossil.

4.1GW of natural gas is the same as about 10GW of wind. [edit - ERCOT/Texas has at least 4GW of natural gas planned, just for that state. Bernstein is predicting 7 additional bcf/d demand, by 2030, and we average 21-22 bcf/d nationally, today for the US electric sector. Also, EPA has NG growing from ~26%, to 33% of the US mix, by 2030.]

I don't think EIA has a convention for reducing GW values which assume the sun is always up, and the wind is always blowing. The resulting false confidence is chronic. I see it a lot.

Interestingly, I saw a report today estimating that worldwide PV installation for the year will be 57GW. So there's roughly 11GW of coal demand removed for at least 20 years (~50MMT/year?). A shame it's not all in the US.

I don't think the EIA reports a capacity factor for non-hydro renewables either, but they do keep track of net generation. In terms of net generation per day, in 2015 gas picked up almost all of what coal dropped, around .5 billion kWh/day. Renewables in the US are running around .8 billion kWh/day total and growing around 9%/year over the past three years. We really do need to built a metric f*%&%ton more, but the growth curves are looking good, at least. Numbers are preliminary for the moment, naturally.

 

[Cyberax]

Then there'e the whole magic hot rock => electricity problem aka thermal power... Converting sunlight into electricity is now or will soon be cheaper than converting heat into electricity; For nuclear to be cost effective it needs to find a way to go from fusion/fission => electricity... without an intermediate thermal step. Something that currently only exists on paper.

We can move some of the current world's electricity generation to solar in optimistic case. Around 20%, perhaps. But you can't get around the fact that at peak the recoverable solar power is only around 1kW per square meter of the Earth surface. And that's not considering a curious phenomena known as "nights" and "clouds".

But even if we convert all electricity generation to solar, that will still NOT be enough. Most of our primary energy use is for heating, and I mean it in a wide sense. We use fossil fuels as a source of heat for chemical processes like steel smelting, Haber-Bosch process for fertilizers and last but not least residential heating.

To illustrate this:

Total world's energy use in 2012: 155505 TWh
Total world's electricity generation in 2012: 22668 TWh

So really the only technology that can realistically displace the fossil fuels is nuclear power.

 

[nwdiver]

We can move some of the current world's electricity generation to solar in optimistic case. Around 20%, perhaps. But you can't get around the fact that at peak the recoverable solar power is only around 1kW per square meter of the Earth surface. And that's not considering a curious phenomena known as "nights" and "clouds".

But even if we convert all electricity generation to solar, that will still NOT be enough. Most of our primary energy use is for heating, and I mean it in a wide sense. We use fossil fuels as a source of heat for chemical processes like steel smelting, Haber-Bosch process for fertilizers and last but not least residential heating.

To illustrate this:

Total world's energy use in 2012: 155505 TWh
Total world's electricity generation in 2012: 22668 TWh

So really the only technology that can realistically displace the fossil fuels is nuclear power.

..... do you have any idea how much power 1kW/m² is? That's 1GW/km² .... on average every km² receives 1.6TWh/yr. So an area of <100k km² receives more solar energy annually than the world consumes. By comparison we have >150k km² of paved roads and parking lots in the US alone.

I think you were confusing power with energy... for solar you get an average of 4.5 full hours per day... that means 1kW x 4.5hrs/day x 365days/yr = 1.6MWh/yr.... from 1m². Even with the fact that we can only harvest ~20% of that with existing technology that's still WAY WAY WAAAY more energy than we need.

 

[jkn]

Hey... they're close... just a couple steps left...
...
- Find a solution to neutron embrittlement (unobtainium? Pandora here we come!)
...
- Find a sustainable fuel source (most of these fusion reactors use He3 which is incredibly rare)

I don't believe any fusion reactor is planned to use He3, because we don't have moon-base to collect it. It would be good fuel, because it does not produce neutrons. So it is 'unobtainium' you wanted.

Neutron embrittlement is a serious safety problem for fission reactor. It is not a safety issue for fusion. Except for workers maintaining it. Amount of fuel in fusion reactor is so small that even a leak is not a problem outside that building.

 

[nwdiver]

I don't believe any fusion reactor is planned to use He3, because we don't have moon-base to collect it. It would be good fuel, because it does not produce neutrons. So it is 'unobtainium' you wanted.

Neutron embrittlement is a serious safety problem for fission reactor. It is not a safety issue for fusion. Except for workers maintaining it. Amount of fuel in fusion reactor is so small that even a leak is not a problem outside that building.

The desired He3 reactions may not directly produce any neutrons but in the environment created for fusion it would be nearly impossible to prevent stray interactions from kicking out neutrons. Neutron embrittlement is one of the top problems I've read about in regards to the viability of fusion.

It's actually far less of an issue for fission reactors since they use water as a moderator. This protects critical components such as the reactor vessel from neutrons. The only thing neutrons regularly interact with is the fuel assembly which gets replaced every ~5 years or so.

 

[jkn]

Hmmm... that's an interesting perspective... care to elaborate? Making things cheaper and more abundant is how progress typically happens.

I have a feeling you'll enjoy this video...

This is a problem, but not unsolvable. At least some areas of Earth had working economy with slaves doing all work. We only need to design our slaves not to rebel.

Our tax system should be reformed immediately. Now humans pay taxes, robots don't. Taxes should be collected only when non renewable resources are taken from Earth or imported as raw materials or in products.