The Strange History of Fusion
and the Science of Wishful Thinking
by Charles Seife
Posted on 05/20/2016 3:58:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
No energy technology is more tantalizing than fusion, but no energy technology has proved more disappointing. So how has a fusion company in Southern California raised nearly half a billion dollars from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Paul Allen? Does it actually see a way to build a reactor that could generate vast amounts of clean power, even while other fusion projects have perpetually remained 20 years away from reality?
In search of the answers, I visited the headquarters of Tri Alpha Energy in the spring. The coastal fog was lifting from the rolling hills in Foothill Ranch as I stepped inside the building, which houses both Tri Alpha’s offices and its technology lab. A locomotive-sized plasma generator sat surrounded by a dense tangle of scaffolding, sensors, gauges, magnets, instruments, cables, and pipes....
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
How cool is that?
There are several new efforts to build fusion reactors now ongoing. The joke is that it is always twenty years away, but there seems to be real traction these days. The same with advanced nuclear power.
Lockheed Martin said they were close to fusion reactors about 18 months ago. I am still waiting for any more news from them. Maybe they will announce something after the election.
It looks cool anyway.
I’m not buying it. I’m not saying they aren’t really trying, but they will not succeed. Best thing now is thorium fission reactors. The problem should move back to theoretical physics. They are trying to build 22 century tech with 20 century concepts. At least IMHO.
Paul Allen’s got money to throw away, but Goldman Sachs?
Maybe they get tax write-offs or gov’t financing.
Yep.
Check out the runtime and maintenance for the unit.
.
Scientists could discover a reactor that takes raw sweage, produces unlimited energy with the only exhaust being pure drinking water. Liberals would still complain.
Thorium doesn’t fission in the manner U235, U233, and Pu239 does. Through a multi-step breeding process with a few intermediate products, Th232 can be converted to U233.
U233 goes boom just fine, and has been tested at a previous time. It’s less of a hassle to make Pu239 in the correct purity.
If the U233 produced from Th232 is salted with U232, a potent Gamma emitter, it is considered denatured. It’s easy to make the U233 contaminated with U232, thus hazardous to process, by sloppy procedures in the breeding process from Thorium.
There is perhaps not quite four times as much Thorium available as Uranium, but probably 95% of the material could be converted to energy producing fuel in a breeding reactor system.
Uranium 238, about 99% of all available, can be converted to Pu239 and added into the mix as reactor fuel. There in the fuel cooling pools 96% of the initial energy remains as unburned U235, the Pu239 produced in reactor operation, and the U238 blended to reach fuel grade.
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
Converting to Thorium reactors would be cheaper, faster, and safer. You can build a Thorium reactor for individual homes, too.
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