A post by Maynard
An international deal has been signed to build the world’s first fusion reactor in France. They’re figuring it might come on line by 2045. Fusion could in theory become a source of limitless, clean energy, replacing our dwindling stocks of nonrenewable fossil fuels.
The idea of international cooperation on a fusion plant has been coalescing since 1985, when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed on a plan.
The current atomic plants are fission plants, meaning they break down heavy atoms (such as fissionable uranium) into smaller atoms. Fission plants have limited horizons, due to a finite supply of fuel and concerns about radioactive waste. (It’s also theoretically possible to build a different type of fission plant, a “breeder reactor”, that “breeds” new fuel as it consumes the original fuel. This would get a lot more mileage out of the existing atomic stock, but there are technical issues that have to be solved in order to make the breeders viable.)
A large-scale fusion plant would fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. There is an unlimited supply of hydrogen fuel, and the byproducts would be benign.
Fusion powers the sun and hydrogen bombs. The problem with building a commercial fusion plant is the need to contain a continuous hydrogen bomb. You can see why this is a daunting, and perhaps impossible, task.
It sure would be good to start building these things. We could save the planet and stop shoveling money to the oil states. But can it be done, and can we figure out how to do it? (There’s a slogan that’s been popular among physicists for a very long time: “Fusion is about 30 years away. And always will be.”)
(And no, this Drudge-linked story about a kid who built a fusion device is not the same thing. Whatever this contraption does, it’s not a source of energy.)
I’ve heard the slogan slightly differently “Fusion is the power of the future…and always will be.”
A slight nitpick: The byproducts of fusion power are not benign.
Tritium is continually released but the amount is small and the half life is just 12 years.
A bigger concern is the reactor vessel which becomes radioactive due to neutron bombardment. However, due to the short half-life involved after 50 years it could be classified as low-level waste. After 300 years radioactivity will be similar to coal ash. Much better than fission but there are still issues with dismantling old plants.
The biggest problem has always been containment and sustaining the reaction. Essentially you are trying to bottle the sun. The temperatures involved are a million times hotter than the melting point of any solid (including diamond).
I thought your readers would be interested in looking at these energy technologies:
Aneutronic Fusion: Here I am not talking about the big science ITER project taking thirty years, but the several small alternative plasma fusion efforts.
There are three companies pursuing hydrogen-boron plasma toroid fusion, Paul Koloc, Prometheus II, Eric Lerner, Focus Fusion and Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems
Vincent Page (a technology officer at GE!!) gave a presentation at the 05 6th symposium on current trends in international fusion research , which high lights the need to fully fund three different approaches to P-B11 fusion
He quotes costs and time to development of P-B11 Fusion as tens of million $, and years verses the many decades and ten Billion plus $ projected for ITER and other “Big” science efforts.
And that Kid did a Farnsworth Fusor, yes and old idea, but GOOGLE is entertaining its rebirth:
Should Google go nuclear
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606
If anyone could make the Fusor work it probably would be Google.
Also:
The Navy Heats up “Cold Fusion” with Use of CR-39 Detectors in LENR Experiment:
Extraordinary Evidence – “Cold Fusion”
The field of low energy nuclear reactions, historically known as cold fusion, has never had simple physical evidence of the claimed nuclear processes to physically place in the hands of doubters.
Until now.
Scientists at the U.S. Navy’s San Diego SPAWAR Systems Center have produced something unique in the 17-year history of the scientific drama historically known as cold fusion: simple, portable, highly repeatable, unambiguous, and permanent physical evidence of nuclear events using detectors that have a long track record of reliability and acceptance among nuclear physicists.
Using a unique experimental method called co-deposition, combined with the application of external electric and magnetic fields, and recording the results with standard nuclear-industry detectors, researchers have produced what may be the most convincing evidence yet in the pursuit of proof of low energy nuclear reactions.
New Energy Times, issue #19
“Extraordinary Evidence”
http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee
Regards,
Erich
Erich J. Knight
[email protected]
Actually, oil renews naturally, with time. The world’s oil supply will never run out. That has been proven several times recently. The oil shale in North America has more than twice the oil of Saudi Arabia, and renews naturally. New technology available now has made the oil there more easy to extract, hence economically viable.
To Craig C:
Oil does renew naturally, but I think it’s safe to say we’re using it up faster than it’s regenerating. I learned recently that “oil comes from dinosaurs” is a myth. It actually comes from organic material (plants, microscopic animals, etc.) that settles on the bottom of the sea, and is compressed under layers of sediment over millions of years. The shale we’re finding is the result of ancient seabeds being uplifted or eroded away by geological forces over millions of years.
Response to the article:
I have a minor quibble with the notion that “there is an infinite supply of hydrogen”. Not that this isn’t true, but it implies that getting at it is easy. This is not necessarily true. Currently we’re getting most of our hydrogen (of good enough purity to be used as fuel) from fossil fuels, like oil and natural gas. The reason being that these materials are chock full of hydrogen atoms, and the process of getting that hydrogen is (I guess) relatively cheap. The only other method I know of for extracting hydrogen is through electrolysis of water, but this requires a lot of power. In fact, you end up expending more energy splitting the hydrogen from the oxygen than the potential energy you get from the hydrogen.
It’s true that hydrogen is everywhere. The problem is getting it in a pure enough state (separating it from other atoms) that you can use it.
Hydrogen is a nice energy source. The problem is there are a lot of people with misconceptions about its potential. People familiar with it understand the process of getting energy from it, and the waste product (water). We like that. What I consistently find lacking in hydrogen energy advocates is any knowledge about how hydrogen is obtained to form the energy source in the first place. When I came to understand it myself I felt like I was the victim of a bait and switch scheme.
Here are the best prospects for H2 production:
Nano-Solar, http://www.hydrogensolar.com/index.html
Bio Reactors,
http://www.nanologix.net/
And the method with the broadest benefits:
The integrated energy strategy offered by Terra Preta Soil technology may provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.
I feel we should push for this Terra Preta Soils CO2 sequestration strategy as not only a global warming remedy for the first world, but to solve fertilization and transport issues for the third world. This information needs to be shared with all the state programs.
The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade in place:
These are processes where you can have your Bio-fuel and fertility too.
‘Terra Preta’ soils I feel has great possibilities to revolutionize sustainable agriculture into a major CO2 sequestration strategy. I thought, I first read about these soils in ” Botany of Desire ” or “Guns,Germs,&Steel” but I could not find reference to them. I finely found the reference in “1491”, but I did not realize their potential .
Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7103/full/442624a.html
Here’s the Cornell page for an over view:
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehm…r_home.htm
This Earth Science Forum thread on these soil contains further links ( I post everything I find on Amazon Dark Soils, ADS here):
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html
The Georgia Inst. of Technology page:
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/dday.pdf
There is an ecology going on in these soils that is not completely understood, and if replicated and applied at scale would have multiple benefits for farmers and environmentalist.
Terra Preta creates a terrestrial carbon reef at a microscopic level. These nanoscale structures provide safe haven to the microbes and fungus that facilitate fertile soil creation, while sequestering carbon for many hundred if not thousands of years. The combination of these two forms of sequestration would also increase the growth rate and natural sequestration effort of growing plants.
Also, Terra Preta was on the Agenda at this years world Soil Science Conference !
http://crops.confex.com/crops/wc2006/te…P16274.HTM
Here is a great article that high lights this pyrolysis process , ( http://www.eprida.com/hydro/ ) which could use existing infrastructure to provide Charcoal sustainable Agriculture , Syn-Fuels, and a variation of this process would also work as well for H2 , Charcoal-Fertilizer, while sequestering CO2 from Coal fired plants to build soils at large scales , be sure to read the “See an initial analysis NEW” link of this technology to clean up Coal fired power plants.
Soil erosion, energy scarcity, excess greenhouse gas all answered through regenerative carbon management http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2006/0106/charcoal.shtml
If pre Columbian Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep over 20% of the Amazon basin it seems that our energy and agricultural industries could also product them at scale.
Harnessing the work of this vast number of microbes and fungi changes the whole equation of EROEI for food and Bio fuels. I see this as the only sustainable agricultural strategy if we no longer have cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer.
We need this super community of wee beasties to work in concert with us by populating them into their proper Soil horizon Carbon Condos.