Posted on 03/09/2006 5:54:12 PM PST by blam
No future for fusion power, says top scientist
19:00 09 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
David L Chandler
Nuclear fusion will never be a practical source of electrical power, argues a prominent scientist in the journal Science.
Even nuclear fusion’s staunchest advocates admit a power-producing fusion plant is still decades away at best, despite forty years of hard work and well over $20 billion spent on the research. But the new paper, personally backed by the journal’s editor, issues a strong challenge to the entire fusion programme, arguing that the whole massive endeavour is never likely to lead to anything practical or useful.
"The history of this dream is as discouraging as it is expensive," wrote William Parkins, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project during the second world war, who later became the chief scientist at US engineering firm Rockwell International.
Sadly, Parkins passed away while his lengthy paper, which makes its case on engineering grounds, was being edited. But Donald Kennedy, Science's editor considered the paper important enough to run the piece posthumously, in a condensed form, and to stand behind its conclusions personally.
Plasma blanket
The case that Parkins laid out, Kennedy says, shows that "there are some really, really difficult engineering problems that have not been overcome" despite decades of effort, and that some of them may be intractable.
The issues include the potentially prohibitive costs of building, and the difficulties of repairing and maintaining the reaction vessel. This massive "blanket" of lithium and rare metals – that must surround the fusion-generating plasma in order to absorb its emitted neutrons – will degrade and become radioactive over time, requiring regular dismantling and replacement.
Advocates of the technology insist it is too soon to give up, and that great progress has been made. "I was less convinced 30 years ago [that fusion could become practical] but we have made incredible progress," Miklos Porkolab, director of the Plasma Fusion Center at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told New Scientist. "The science is going to work," he said, "and the rest is economics."
Price of oil
But Porkolab concedes that a functioning power-producing fusion reactor is probably 50 years off, and that is too far in the future for any reasonable conclusions to be drawn on its economic viability. "It depends on what the price of oil is going to be 50 years from now," he says.
The issue may be especially relevant for US policymakers, says Kennedy, because after years of refusing to participate in the international consortium to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the US is about to join it again.
But Kennedy does not go quite as far as Parkins in rejecting the arguments for fusion research projects. While it is unlikely ever to provide practical power, he told New Scientist that "there may be some very good physics going on there". He adds and that science will benefit even if the electricity power grid does not.
Journal reference: Science (vol 311, p 1380)
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, in 1899.
Yeah, I know it's just a myth that he said that, but it still pops into my mind.
Saying that something can't be done isn't very helpful. We have no shortage of those types of people.
Yah, I'm pretty sure that everything that can be invented already has been. We should just stop trying any new ideas.
Never is a mighty long time.
(steely)
I've been saying this for years. The science and the engineering just isn't there. Twenty billion down the drain could have been used for a lot of more sensible projects. It may be possible to return to it, but at the moment more gigantic projects with no real outcome are not the way to go.
Meantime, very little has been done to advance the state of nuclear fission power plants, which offer the only major solution to our energy problems in sight. Biofuel and other technologies can help around the edges, but only nuclear fission can tackle the main problem for the foreseeable future.
Pure politics. Cowardly politicians have been afraid to touch nuclear ever since The China Syndrome and the green fanatics demonized it.
The case that Parkins laid out, Kennedy says, shows that "there are some really, really difficult engineering problems that have not been overcome" despite decades of effort, and that some of them may be intractable.Gee, by definition something that after 40 years of effort and $20 billion in resources has not be resolved is intractable. This is either the epitome of optimist, or somebody who should refrain from writing press releases. If this guy thinks this may be intractable, I'd hate to see what he believes to be a real challenge.
I'm sensing that what's happening is the realization that all conventional means have been tried, and what's needed is a brand-new approach. What that breakthrough will be, I have no idea
I am amazed that we have only spent 20 billion to date on fusion. Peanuts. Chicken feed.
I suspect that we will see a version of it in our lifetimes.
As a sometimes contrarian, this ("No Future For Fusion Power, Says Top Scientist") sounds like a positive omen!
But can we imagine what the islamic world would look like without oil?
Heh, heh...me too!
This is better known as "Clarke's Law."
There are a couple of famous vaiations on it
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
- Murphy's reformulation of Clarke's lawAny sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a rigged demostration.
- programmer's restatement of Murphy's reformulation of Clarke's law
This is a pretty good indicator that we'll have practical fusion power within 10 years.
Sandia's "Z Machine" produces temperatures hotter than stars.
(steely)
Gillette and Ford are saddened.
See latest Discover Mag's "Anythig Into Oil". then Google Thermal conversion process
I wonder if this is like Scientology? Just a racket to absorb cash.
I cite as my authority in the matter perhaps the greatest scientist who ever lived, Dr. Atomic - "It's my antigravity vehicle - NASA proved it's impossible and the Air Force has had one for years." It may not be fair to compare an underground comic with Science magazine, but then Science will improve with time, I'm sure.
I can never find that lost sock in my dryer.
The gave $20 billion to guy named Porkolab???
Somebody has a WEIRD sense of humor.
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