Fussion power station ?

[Oldgreybeard]

OGB,

I would have thought "renewable energy and sustainability discussions" is not bad ??

Desp

I agree, but, as ever, the devil is in the detail, and what does that very broad form of words really mean?

Not being in any way critical, but does sustainability mean burning down all our forests to stay warm, leaving nothing for our descendants?

Does it mean ignoring energy savings if we can maximise profits from exploiting offers from energy suppliers, regardless of environmental impact?

Does it mean ignoring technological developments that may enable us to minimise the impact we have on our planet?

Does it mean maximising our comfort today and ignoring the survival of our progeny?

Not trying to be awkward, or in anyway offensive, but I, and some others that have been in contact with me by PM over recent weeks, have raised similar questions about whether we should all, perhaps, aim to tread a bit lighter on this wonderful planet or ours, use the very minimum of resources from it, and try to ensure we do the least harm we can to everyone, including all those less fortunate than ourselves, who are less able to put the environment before their day to day survival?

[Joeboy]

Other than of course 'Insulate, insulate, insulate'.

... after draught-proofing!
A

Oh the holes I've found! Such a simple fix though.

[Moxi]

I suppose my view of fusion is why spend billions chasing it when we already have a massive reactor parked 1AU away or around 93million miles for those viewing in imperial

Why not spend al that lovely money on harvesting, storing and improving collection methods for what we have already been provided free of charge?

As for the forum - it seems to work well and more or less self regulates - we all know when somethings amiss and its usually sorted with little fuss and drama and it definitely feels like a more inclusive place than st elswhere to me.

Moxi

[nowty]

I sort of understand the theory of the fusion reactors, with the toroidal plasma bubble held together by magnetic fields and the reaction initiated by high powered lasers.

But,

1) How does the hydrogen fuel get fed into it for a continuous reaction ?

2) How the feck do you extract the heat out to heat the water to run a steam turbine ?

I've never seen anything which explains this.

[dan_b]

I would say that a purpose of the forum (or a consequence? is education - we all enjoy sharing information and content about a whole range of technologies and concepts to do with renewables, and environmental issues - and from those threads we all become more informed so that when we then have conversations with others (that awkward Uncle, or the Bloke Down the Pub), we can actually hold a position and debate based on knowledge and passion, rather than rhetoric and bloviation. And that certainly covers treading less heavily on the environment in general.

[Oldgreybeard]

I sort of understand the theory of the fusion reactors, with the toroidal plasma bubble held together by magnetic fields and the reaction initiated by high powered lasers.

But,

1) How does the hydrogen fuel get fed into it for a continuous reaction ?

2) How the feck do you extract the heat out to heat the water to run a steam turbine ?

I've never seen anything which explains this.

There have been several suggestions as to how to solve the fuelling problem, but it does seem to be one of the big challenges that needs to be overcome. I think most of the efforts over the past 60 years or so have been on just trying to get fusion to happen and remain under tight control, as happens within the sun.

Getting the heat out is just a matter of collecting it from the radiated heat hitting the containment vessel, I believe.

Whilst maximising our use of energy from the sun is absolutely the right thing to do, we need a lot of energy when the sun isn't shining, and storing energy has a pretty big environmental impact, whichever technology we use. There does seem to be a sound case for our own form of controlled fusion being a pretty clean way to generate power when the sun isn't shining, so for that reason alone I think it is worthwhile, certainly more worthwhile than digging new coal mines, cutting down forests or drilling holes in the ground to suck out even more polluting fossil fuels.

We are clever apes, that have used technology from the first time one of our ancestors discovered they could shape a stick into a useful tool, so it's in our genetic make up to seek new ways to make our lives better.

[AE-NMidlands]

I sort of understand the theory of the fusion reactors, with the toroidal plasma bubble held together by magnetic fields and the reaction initiated by high powered lasers.

But,

1) How does the hydrogen fuel get fed into it for a continuous reaction ?

2) How the feck do you extract the heat out to heat the water to run a steam turbine ?

I've never seen anything which explains this.

I was relieved to hear this point put on R4 this morning as a counter to all the ludicrous drooling over the safe-power-too-cheap-to-meter stuff. 30 or 40 years away was the prediction and the point was specifically made that there is no obvious way of getting power (or heat) out of neutrons yet.

[Moxi]

OGB,

Sadly we are clever apes but we are not so clever as to be able to all work toward a common purpose yet.

As you say when the sun don't shine then we need an awful lot of storage BUT if we could all live together helpfully and peacefully then the issue of the earths rotation and sunshine is simply a problem of sufficient geographical coverage for solar arrays and an earth girdling distribution grid.

The fact remains that we have a very useful working fusion reactor in the backyard and if we spent a fraction of the energy and investment in utilising that instead of building our own Earth based fusion reactor- lets face it we've been at this for 60 plus years now and still not close- then maybe the earth would be a fairer place for all peoples and we wouldn't be so far into in the eco pickle that we find ourselves ?

Moxi

[Oldgreybeard]

OGB,

Sadly we are clever apes but we are not so clever as to be able to all work toward a common purpose yet.

As you say when the sun don't shine then we need an awful lot of storage BUT if we could all live together helpfully and peacefully then the issue of the earths rotation and sunshine is simply a problem of sufficient geographical coverage for solar arrays and an earth girdling distribution grid.

The fact remains that we have a very useful working fusion reactor in the backyard and if we spent a fraction of the energy and investment in utilising that instead of building our own Earth based fusion reactor- lets face it we've been at this for 60 plus years now and still not close- then maybe the earth would be a fairer place for all peoples and we wouldn't be so far into in the eco pickle that we find ourselves ?

Moxi

Very true, hard to achieve though, and the earth-girdling distribution grid would have a massive environmental impact, with the technology we have available today. Not discrediting it in any way, but large tracts of land would have to be cleared and made available for power distribution and conversion plant, plus large areas of land and seabed would be disturbed and damaged by the cables needed to distribute such large amounts of power.

I don't have a clue as to whether the impact of this would be greater or lesser than the impact of future fusion plants, but might hazard a guess that the impact might not be that different between the two.

My real worry, though, is that we keep proving to ourselves that we just cannot live together in harmony with other tribes. We try hard, form collectives and unions to try and help us to cooperate peacefully with each other, but these always seem to fail, time and time again. We are right now seeing the consequences of (principally) one belligerent state causing a global impact on energy security. That one rogue state will most probably be indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions around the world from the impact on energy and food supplies from it's actions over coming years.

Sadly I have little faith that all the different human tribes will ever come together and work in harmony, and I'm generally a very optimistic person, that likes to assume the best.

I think the best we can do for now is seek out the best compromises. Perhaps when it isn't practical for any rogue state to hold others to hostage over energy supplies cooperation may become more feasible.

[dan_b]

Amusing side-fact on this laser inertial confinement fusion programme.

The lasers used for it is the world's largest collection of the world's most powerful laser beams. 192 individual lasers in fact.
The size of the laser beam facility is the size of a large football stadium.

Approx 500 MJ of energy was used to generate 2MJ of laser light, which released 3MJ of energy from the short-lived fusion reaction.
167x more energy was spent than recovered in this experiment.

ITER is an experimental reactor using a tokomak and is designed to release 10x more energy than is put into the system. But that energy will not be captured to generate electricity. Only once ITER proves that it's possible to sustain fusion in a tokomak will they then go on to build the DEMO reactor, which will be aiming for a 25x energy release factor and they will then capture that heat to generate electricity.