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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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$13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light
#4346174 - 06/28/05 07:33 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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(From MSNBC)
"MSNBC News Services Updated: 8:50 a.m. ET June 28, 2005
MOSCOW - Six partners, the United States among them, have chosen France as the site for a $13 billion experimental nuclear fusion reactor that, if successful, would open the door to cleaner and abundant energy, the partners announced Tuesday.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, is intended to show that nuclear fusion, which harnesses the same energy that heats the sun to generate electricity, can wean the world off pollution-producing fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion also produces no greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists tie to global warming, and only low levels of radioactive waste.
The project is funded by Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and the European Union, but the six parties had been divided over where to put the test reactor, which would fuse atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures inside a giant electromagnetic ring."
COMMENT: This could be a real boon to everyone if they can make this work....
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Le_Canard]
#4346276 - 06/28/05 09:12 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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This could be a real boon to everyone if they can make this work....
"If" being the key word there...
I think this is a good step forward, though. The reactor is supposed to put out 500MW of juice, which is actually REALLY good for a fusion reactor (most of the ones I've read about actually consume more power than they can put out).
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: trendal]
#4346316 - 06/28/05 09:30 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Oh to be sure, they've never gotten one to produce more power than they consume, but hopefully, it's an engineering problem that can soon be overcome.....
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oneducktwoducks
Registered: 12/13/02
Posts: 2,321
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light *DELETED* [Re: Le_Canard]
#4348051 - 06/28/05 07:56 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Post deleted by oneducktwoducks
Reason for deletion: .
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: oneducktwoducks]
#4348225 - 06/28/05 08:56 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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I believe you and Trendal are right. Hopefully, this group can figure out how to make it sustainable and produce more power...
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downforpot
Stranger
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Le_Canard]
#4348663 - 06/28/05 10:31 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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From what I heard the current fusion reactor give off a lot of nuclear waste and is very inefficient. I'm sure they will, we're humans, we figure out everything with time.
-------------------- http://www.myspace.com/4th25 "And I don't care if he was handcuffed Then shot in his head All I know is dead bodies Can't fuck with me again"
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pshawny
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Le_Canard]
#4348768 - 06/28/05 10:56 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Kinda like Dr. Octavius was trying to do in Spiderman 2 ?
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Le_Canard]
#4349695 - 06/29/05 06:15 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yeah I remember a couple years ago reading that they had managed to get a reaction going that produced more energy than it consumed, but only for about 11 secondss.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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tak
geo's henchman
Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: trendal]
#4349872 - 06/29/05 08:35 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Wow. I was just going to say, they are spending more than 13 million dllars fixing hte potholes in my street, and i dont know what the fuck they could possibly build for that. Then i read 13 Billion. That is a bunch of money, wish i had that much.
-------------------- The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: tak]
#4350010 - 06/29/05 09:47 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Heh! I could make good use of just a couple million of that....
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: trendal]
#4354394 - 06/30/05 05:07 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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> most of the ones I've read about actually consume more power than they can put out
Most? Try all... that is the problem with fusion power... we haven't been able to maintain a controlled reaction long enough to do anything useful with it.
> Yeah I remember a couple years ago reading that they had managed to get a reaction going that produced more energy than it consumed, but only for about 11 secondss.
The problem isn't producing more energy than consumed... at least not directly... as you point out, the problem is controlling the reaction long enough to use the excess energy that is produced before the thing destroys itself or bleeds out too much energy to maintain the reaction.
> Then i read 13 Billion. That is a bunch of money, wish i had that much.
Yes, 13 billion is a lot of money... how much has Bush wasted on his person war with Saddam? Of course the loss of life there is nothing compared to the money he wasted. With the fusion reactor, it is a very large gamble... 13 billion versus the end of both nuclear pollution and fossil fuel pollution with more or less unlimited free energy. If they can make it work, it will change the way the world forever and will probably be the single most important technological innovation ever, surpassing even the computer. As you said, a lot of money, but the potential payoff is enormous. Imagine a world with free electricity that comes from a pollution free source... a lot of people will loose a lot of might very quickly and the rest of us will benefit greatly.
Does anybody know how much pollution a fusion reactor will produce? You don't have the typical fission byproducts with fusion, but you still have a huge release of high energy neutrons... many in the 20 million electron volt range, if I remember my nuclear physics correctly... Wow... hadn't though of this, but a fusion reactor is going to be awesome for breeding deuterium, and more importantly, tritium which is extremely expensive and rare. If tritium were readily available, cold fusion could also become a reality.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Diploid
Cuban
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Seuss]
#4354481 - 06/30/05 06:39 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Does anybody know how much pollution a fusion reactor will produce?
The pollution from a fusion reactor is primarily caused by the very high neutron flux inside the reaction chamber proper. The nucleus of each atom in the reaction chamber wall receives a direct neutron hit several times a year. These accumulate to damage the material by forming bubbles of hydrogen and helium ions. Eventually the radioactive reaction chamber walls have to be replaced.
The good news is that unlike the tens of thousands of years half-life of spent fission reactor fuel, the fusion reactor chamber materials have a half-life on the order of only tens of years, making them relatively easy to dispose of safely.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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vampirism
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Seuss]
#4354586 - 06/30/05 07:51 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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maybe that'll be the only thing that happens in 2012 :p
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Randolph_Carter
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Diploid]
#4355560 - 06/30/05 01:49 PM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Does anybody know how much pollution a fusion reactor will produce?
The pollution from a fusion reactor is primarily caused by the very high neutron flux inside the reaction chamber proper. The nucleus of each atom in the reaction chamber wall receives a direct neutron hit several times a year. These accumulate to damage the material by forming bubbles of hydrogen and helium ions. Eventually the radioactive reaction chamber walls have to be replaced.
Isn't the entire Tokamak reactor concept built around using a controlled toroidal magnetic field to contain the majority of the reactants?
And, to further Suess' point on hydrogen isotope breeding, wouldn't most of the contamination problems you're describing be diverted by having a sheild of (perhaps highly pressurized?) water between the magnetic sheath and the the physical containment structure? Or, fuck it (considering we want as solid a barrier as we can get....) Metallic hydrogen? Seems to me that the radiation and waste management in a controlled fusion reaction would be pretty easy to deal with...
What design is this planning on using, anyways?
-------------------- "..all those molecules thrashing their kinky little tails, hot for destiny and the street." Gibson Nuke baby seals for Jesus! (This has been a +1 production.)
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: $13 billion nuclear fusion site gets green light [Re: Randolph_Carter]
#4358240 - 07/01/05 02:13 AM (18 years, 8 months ago) |
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Isn't the entire Tokamak reactor concept built around using a controlled toroidal magnetic field to contain the majority of the reactants?
There are two leading schools of thought on how best to contain the reaction plasma in a fusion reactor: magnetic and inertial. However, these techniques address only the containment of the plasma not the leftover neutron that result each time a 2H and 3H nucleus fuses into 4He.
Neutrons, having no net electric charge, are not appreciably affected by magnetic fields.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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