Fussion power station ?

[Moxi]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technol ... 1a25070872

Seems a very odd place to build this ? From my limited time working on ITER I thought that the next phase of fusion reactor experimentation required a nearby fission reactor to supply the very high power required "to switch it on" and maintain containment. I was also under the impression that we are decades away from a functioning power station that derives its heat from Fusion as not long ago we were celebrating the highest power output from the JET unit in oxford which operated for a whopping 5 seconds and generated 11 MW.

I presume this is STEP which is the next phase of figuring out how we extract meaningful power from Fussion so not yet a real power station and as I said - a really strange place to set it up midway between Retford and Gainsborough at West Burton - interesting fact- My dad worked there on the coal fired units when it was under the CEGB.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have kept the unit closer to the rest of the fusion research around Oxford so that all the "brains" don't have to relocate ?

Moxi

[dan_b]

It's bull. All of it.

[smegal]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technol ... 1a25070872

Seems a very odd place to build this ? From my limited time working on ITER I thought that the next phase of fusion reactor experimentation required a nearby fission reactor to supply the very high power required "to switch it on" and maintain containment. I was also under the impression that we are decades away from a functioning power station that derives its heat from Fusion as not long ago we were celebrating the highest power output from the JET unit in oxford which operated for a whopping 5 seconds and generated 11 MW.

I presume this is STEP which is the next phase of figuring out how we extract meaningful power from Fussion so not yet a real power station and as I said - a really strange place to set it up midway between Retford and Gainsborough at West Burton - interesting fact- My dad worked there on the coal fired units when it was under the CEGB.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have kept the unit closer to the rest of the fusion research around Oxford so that all the "brains" don't have to relocate ?

Moxi

This is an interesting development. I wasn't sure fusion was anywhere near ready for earmarking sites. Either something has developed or "they" are trying to send a message to the O&G industry that they're on their way out.

I wonder if a deal has been struck with EDF to persuade them to keep the coal power station running over winter (assuming it is still running).

I guess they'll need a robust grid connection which a power station location may is ale to provide. The adjacent CCGT power station may also be able to provide the start up oomph.

[Swwils]

It's "all in" on ITER at the moment.

Smaller stuff probably won't make it for various reasons. Low key hoping one of them does make it though, there is a chance.

We need all we can get.

[Paul_F]

£220 million "committed" to STEP so far. ITER has cost £20 billion to date. Do your sums and decide how credible this is!

[Moxi]

Piffling was the term that came to my mind probably not even enough to build anything but the office block

Moxi

[dan_b]

And lest we forget, ITER won't produce "commercial power" either. This from Wikipedia is really useful.

-----------
ITER's thermonuclear fusion reactor will use over 300MW of electrical power to cause the plasma to absorb 50 MW of thermal power, creating 500 MW of heat from fusion for periods of 400 to 600 seconds. This would mean a ten-fold gain of plasma heating power (Q), as measured by heating input to thermal output, or Q ≥ 10.

As of 2021, the record for energy production using nuclear fusion is held by the National Ignition Facility reactor, which achieved a Q of 0.70 in August 2021.

Beyond just heating the plasma, the total electricity consumed by the reactor and facilities will range from 110 MW up to 620 MW peak for 30-second periods during plasma operation.

As a research reactor, the heat energy generated will not be converted to electricity, but simply vented.

Regardless of the final cost, ITER has already been described as the most expensive science experiment of all time, the most complicated engineering project in human history, and one of the most ambitious human collaborations since the development of the International Space Station (€100 billion or $150 billion budget) and the Large Hadron Collider (€7.5 billion budget).

ITER's planned successor, the EUROfusion-led DEMO, is expected to be one of the first fusion reactors to produce electricity in an experimental environment.

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[Oldgreybeard]

Looks like the "over unity" bit has been reached: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63950962

[dan_b]

Well yes, and no. The last line of the report is telling.

"although the experiment got more energy out than the laser put in, this did not include the energy needed to make the lasers work - which was far greater that the amount of energy the hydrogen produced."

[Mart]

It's nice that we may (or may not) have moved a bit closer to viable fusion, but will it be able to compete economically with RE in, say 20yrs time if it's developed to a commercial scale?

Not knocking it, but it doesn't just have to work now (ERoEI), it also has to be competitive, which gets harder every day, v's the big fusion powerstation in the sky providing 'free' wind and solar energy, which we are harvesting at ever lower costs.