Can nuclear fusion power the race to net zero?

Energy Monitor ^ | 1/31/2022 | Oliver Gordon

[fireman15]

“The old joke is that nuclear fusion is 30 years away and always will be,” quips Greg De Temmerman, managing director of Paris-based energy think tank Zenon Research. In fact, the joke has become so hackneyed over the decades it has been banned by editors at the Economist. “But more seriously, many things are happening right now in the field,” De Temmerman adds.

Jokes aside, they are. Earlier this month, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor eclipsed previous records by sustaining a high plasma temperature for minutes (1,056 seconds). It reached two milestones: a one-million-ampere current and a 1,000-second duration 100-million-degree temperature (that is five times hotter than the sun). Back in August 2021, the National Ignition Facility at the US’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory also heralded a breakthrough using a different approach: it deployed powerful lasers to start a fusion reaction that generated 1.3 megajoules (MJ). That is only about 3% of the energy contained in 1kg of crude oil, but it was another milestone. Meanwhile, private nuclear fusion projects have been booming in recent years.

Nuclear fusion has long been considered the energy of the future: a supposedly infinite source of power that does not produce CO2 emissions. However, after decades of research, it is still to deliver on its potential. How much closer do these new breakthroughs bring us? What role could nuclear fusion play in the world’s race to hit net zero by 2050?

[Kevmo]

So... breeder reactors. Expensive. Perhaps not so expensive? Doubtful, or even the Chinese would be doing it. If we were to count breeder reactors into all the processing of all the nuke waste in America, it would still be very expensive, wherein natural gas and coal end up being cheaper.

[Go_Raiders]

You need to take into account the cost of doing nothing about nuclear waste or the idiotic idea of storing it for thousands of years. - https://earth.stanford.edu/news/steep-costs-nuclear-waste-us#gs.p34hpj

And molten salt reactors are not overly expensive - https://www.thmsr.com/en/costs/

Funny you should mention China - https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/china-unveil-worlds-first-waterless-molten-salt-re/ and

It’s gaining traction globally - https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/17-countries-cooperating-on-molten-salt.html

India is a believer - https://southasianvoices.org/indias-venture-into-molten-salt-reactors/

Not bad considering the emotional baggage fission at large carries from the completely asinine light water reactor failures. GE Hitachi and Westinghouse soiled the cradle beyond belief.

[Kevmo]

You need to take into account the cost of doing nothing about nuclear waste
***Sounds incredibly dangerous. Is that what you are proposing?

or the idiotic idea of storing it for thousands of years. -
***It needs to be dealt with for the entire time it is dangerously radioactive, which can be thousands of years. There’s such a gigantic, YUGE duhh factor to this which seems to escape your notice.

And molten salt reactors are not overly expensive - https://www.thmsr.com/en/costs/
***Then build the things. Feel free to remove the guvmint subsidy of liability insurance while you count the cost. Once the cost of waste disposal is taken into account on top of that, you end up with yet another extremely expensive energy source. But at least it’s Carbon FREE!!! yippeee. When a coal plant goes kaflooey, maybe a few hundred workers die. When a nuke plant goes kaflooey [which has happened] there can be thousands of CIVILIANS dead as well as massive cleanup costs.

Funny you should mention China -
***You think China CARES about the cleanup costs of Nuke?

It’s gaining traction globally -
***Good. As long as they count the cost, I’m okay with it. But they aint really counting the cost.

India is a believer -
***Much of the LENR results are coming from India lately.

Not bad considering the emotional baggage fission at large carries from the completely asinine light water reactor failures. GE Hitachi and Westinghouse soiled the cradle beyond belief.
***Then you DO acknowledge that at least the water reactor fission stuff is basically a failure. Got it. There are intersections of failure with other fission technologies, such as waste disposal and accident liability insurance.

[Go_Raiders]

You open with a straw man, weak sauce. I am proposing burning waste as fuel, that was the whole point of my responses to you.

It doesn’t have to be stored for thousands of years if it is burned as fuel, which, again, is my entire point. You seem to be the one with a huge “DUH” coming out of your keyboard.

Please explain to the class how a molten salt reactor goes “kaflooey” or admit you have no idea how intrinsically safe reactor designs are feasible and inexpensive.

You brought up China, claiming they weren’t pursuing molten salt. Now you are spewing some childish incoherency when I point out you are mistaken.

And of course you make zero technical counterclaims and provide zero links to back up your infantile responses about “intersections” and “insurance”.

I’m done with you.

[Kevmo]

You open with a straw man, weak sauce.
***WHere is the strawman argument, sauceman?

I am proposing burning waste as fuel, that was the whole point of my responses to you.
***It would have made sense for you to actually SAY that was your “whole point”. It is an expensive but intriguing solution. Once the cost of it is counted, Fission becomes far more expensive than coal or NatGas or even solar with batteries.

It doesn’t have to be stored for thousands of years if it is burned as fuel,
***You still have to clean up the reactor after it’s decomissioned.

which, again, is my entire point.
***And yet, you wandered time and again from your “entire” point.

You seem to be the one with a huge “DUH” coming out of your keyboard.
***Yes, My DUHHH comment is aimed towards people like YOU who can’t seem to comprehend some very simple salients.

Please explain to the class
***Now hold on a moment. You said at the bottom that you were done with me. But here you want me to explain sumthin or other.

how a molten salt reactor goes “kaflooey”
***You’re trying to keep elements apart that WANT to be together. Mankind is error prone and cheapskatey. So eventually the safety protocols get bypassed, the mistakes get made and ya got elements going together due to their attraction, which creates a meltdown. It HAS happened with water reactors, it CAN happen with salt reactors but I grant that it is less likely. How MUCH less likely? I would leave that to the insurance companies who fund the liability due to accidents — notably not a single one of them in the 1950s would back the nuke industry until the guvmint stepped in providing subsidies. Once you remove those subsidies [or count the cost of them ultimately], then fission power becomes extremely expensive.

or admit you have no idea how intrinsically safe reactor designs are feasible
***If it is “intrinsically safe” then it’s automatically feasible. The problem is that fission itself is NOT instrinsically safe, and also that you STILL have to decommission the reactor at the end of its days.

and inexpensive.
***If it were as “intrinsically safe” and inexpensive as you claim, there’d be hundreds of them in operation in the USA. But they are neither intrinsically safe nor inexpensive.

You brought up China, claiming they weren’t pursuing molten salt.
***I did? Where?

Now you are spewing some childish incoherency when I point out you are mistaken.
***China doesn’t care about its citizens, doesn’t care about pollution, only really cares about how cheap the solution is and doesn’t want to luze face over implementation AFAICT. Why don’t you just kiss off with this path of insulting? Your interest is in causing invective rather than openly discussing a technology, that’s why.

And of course you make zero technical counterclaims
***I make as many counterclaims as you make claims. This is a fusion thread, not a molten salt fission thread.

and provide zero links to back up your infantile responses about “intersections” and “insurance”.
***I have done so in the past and guys like you ignore them. The insurance angle is well known in the industry.

I’m done with you.
***Except that you WEREN’T done with me. Tell the class how and why that was the case. Go on.

[Kevmo]

Okay, so here’s where I “brought up China”.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4037775/posts?page=81#81

So... breeder reactors. Expensive. Perhaps not so expensive? Doubtful, or even the Chinese would be doing it. If we were to count breeder reactors into all the processing of all the nuke waste in America, it would still be very expensive, wherein natural gas and coal end up being cheaper.
***And the response was that China is building the FIRST molten salt reactor. The VERY FIRST. Not dozens nor hundreds, but the very first one. Chinese are NOT building them. They are building ONE. Breeder reactors are expensive. And THIS ONE is NOT even a Breeder Reactor.

[Kevmo]

Please explain to the class how a molten salt reactor
***... is a Breeder Reactor. And how the example you brought up, which is that China is building ONE of them, is the evidence that counters my assertion that breeder reactors are very expensive & if you counted that cost, fission would be a very expensive power generation approach.

[Kevmo]

How is it that these guys who are so vocal about being pro-fission on fusion threads are absent on fission threads like this one?

New Photos And Footage Show Radioactive Ruins Of Fukushima Nuclear Plant
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4038557/posts

[bert]

It is my belief that nuclear fusion is not energy salvation

Future needs will be supplied by large numbers of small nuclear power producing devices.

[Kevmo]

How small? Dr. Swartz at MIT ran his NANOR for several months. He connected a small Stirling Cycle motor to it.
http://coldfusion3.com/blog/major-lenr-demonstrations-held

[bert]

How small?

I don’t know. Small is not mega sized with all sorts of potential problems resulting from size.

A kid down the block had a job tending the reactor on a submarine. That is one version of small.
.

[Kevmo]

LENR fits your requirement of ‘small’, going all the way down to cells that are the size of a D cell battery and hopefully scalable to the MegaWatt range. That’s the true capability, scalability such that we can have a nuke to power our car and a nuke to power our home with very very little radiation to deal with. Decentralized power as small as the gasoline engine with 5000X the energy density of gasoline.

[bert]

For the record, I worked about 10 years constructing TVA nuclear power plants. I saw the same door to a turbine room replaced five times as a result of constantly changing requirements. TVA developed and began implementation of “smaller” installations that was scrapped.

I recently learned something of note. In recovery from surgery, from her recliner, my wife is traveling the world via You Tube train videos.

The scope of European trains was mostly unknown to me. Railway terminals are huge and very active.

The European trains are all electric. The trains are truly ubiquitous and accommodate different voltages in different countries even.

The need to power them is huge. The green climate change, renewable energy fad simply will not allow the railroads as they presently exist.

When push comes to railroad shove in Europe it seems that small nuclear production will somehow do the job

When thinking of a clean electric high speed train in California, I just laugh.

[Mr. K]

I often wonder why they don’t use small nuke generators like in nuke subs and aircraft carriers.

You could bury them underground for safety.

These huge beasts are the dangerous ones. And they run them so close to critical mass to extract the most power. The drop-off in power is exponential with distance. So, you just accept the drop-off and make them so that critical mass is impossible.

[Mr. K]

I’m putting all my money into thorium reactors.

Anyone know where I can get some? Heck I’ll build my own.

[jaydubya2]

Thanks, that video makes me reconsider my opinion on practical
fusion generation!

[fireman15]

At current rates of use, we have hundreds of years of known exploitable coal reserves in this country, the largest in the world. Those who believe in the global warming scam are convinced that if we use coal and the massive amount of other known hydrocarbon reserves also currently available that it will harm the planet. But the evidence is not convincing and is typically unadulterated propaganda.

I am not sure about the future of small nuclear fission devices. I worked for many years as a Hazmat team leader. Some of our chief concerns were “dirty bombs” where a small amount of nuclear material from hazardous waste, or ingredients from industrial or medical facilities is included in a conventional explosive device.

This could be a very effective terrorist threat. Even though there are other means which would likely produce more casualties, rightly or wrongly people are very afraid of being exposed to radioactive contamination. I am afraid that with the level of evil in the world today and the creative minds behind it that a proliferation of small nuclear power producing devices could have negative repercussions.

I do not know what energy sources will eventually replace hydrocarbons sometime in the distant future. I believe that if allowed to flourish, human creativity will solve future energy issues before they reach a crisis stage. But I am very worried about government interference resulting from ignorance, fear, greed and power-hungry politicians stifling good solutions in favor of nonsense that will enrichen them and their cronies.