General Fusion Power Discussion

I might be behind this but how fusion reactor can convert those potentially massive amount of energy it produces into something we can work with like electricity ?. Is it using yet another rankine cycle (steam turbine etc) or can we directly "farm" electricity from the reactor ?
 
stealthflanker said:
I might be behind this but how fusion reactor can convert those potentially massive amount of energy it produces into something we can work with like electricity ?. Is it using yet another rankine cycle (steam turbine etc) or can we directly "farm" electricity from the reactor ?
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Boil water.
 
Arjen said:

Magnetohydrodynamic generator - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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That would probably be more reliable. But...

"MHD generators have not been employed for large scale mass energy conversion because other techniques with comparable efficiency have a lower lifecycle investment cost. Advances in natural gas turbines achieved similar thermal efficiencies at lower costs, by having the turbine's exhaust drive a Rankine cycle steam plant. To get more electricity from coal, it is cheaper to simply add more low-temperature steam-generating capacity."
 
First get the fusion thing sorted, then, possibly, do MHD. If you *really* want to.
 
Arjen said:
First get the fusion thing sorted, then, possibly, do MHD. If you *really* want to.
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That would seem to be the logical final state. Anytime you can get away from moving parts it's a win.
 
IMHO, as it stands, the laser-pulse thing is just a 'better spark-plug / igniter' for a very different system.

Okay, sufficiently scaled, the pulse thing could become a stand-alone power system, akin to the mega-diesels that propel VLCCs, 13kTEU box-ships etc etc. But, unless they can get the laser system's 'footprint' down by a vast factor, they have a problem.....

Overall, the fusion field seems akin to the early days of 'steam', albeit a lot more civil. IIRC, those protagonists spent a lot of time, money and ingenuity trying to out-wit each other's essential patents. Okay, it drove design evolution, but thwarted 'combined' designs for many, many years...

IMHO, current roadblock is the sheer lead-time required to fund and craft the mega-tech required to escape power-law constraints.

Even the Chinese have apparently accepted the cruel reality that fusion scoffs at peroptimistic plans. IIRC, they reckoned they'd have fusion ready for when their 'Grand Aqueduct' schemes needed power for the mega-pumps. Now, looks like they'll be building linear solar / wind farms along the banks. Cheaper by the dozen, a boon to locals, but...

Upside, the sheer capacity of such mega-aqueducts makes them a good fit to weather-varying power delivery...
 
The NIF is a very different system to the reactor Lockheed's working on. If their project is still active, that is. I haven't heard anything from them since 2017.
 
From May of last year:
A German start-up has secured initial funding to develop a revolutionary fusion energy machine that it hopes can provide a future source of abundant, emissions-free power.

Proxima Fusion, incorporated in January, aims to build a complex device known as a stellarator and is the latest company to join the emerging fusion industry’s effort to generate electricity by fusing atoms.

Although the amount of funding is small at only €7mn, it is significant as Proxima is the first fusion company to spin out of Germany’s revered Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

The institute is the home of the world’s most advanced existing stellarator in Greifswald, in eastern Germany, built by government-funded scientists over the past 27 years using supercomputers and advanced engineering.

Little known outside the world of plasma physics, a stellarator is an alternative to the better known tokamak device, pioneered by Soviet scientists in the 1950s.

Both use huge magnets to suspend a floating mass of hydrogen plasma as it is heated to extreme temperatures so the atomic nuclei fuse releasing energy.
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The stellarator was conceived by the American physicist Lyman Spitzer in 1951 but largely abandoned after tokamak breakthroughs in the 1960s appeared to offer an easier route to fusion. Germany was one of a small number of countries that persevered with stellarator research, starting work on the Wendelstein 7-X at the Max Planck Institute in 1996, at a total cost to date of €1.3bn.
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Our scientists will achieve the cure of all diseases, the regeneration of any part of the human body, they will manufacture food using artificial photosynthesis, they will develop artificial gravity generators, FTL engines, time machines... but fifty years from now there will still be the New York Times and someone will republish the article on nuclear fusion.:confused:
 
sferrin said:
That would probably be more reliable. But...

"MHD generators have not been employed for large scale mass energy conversion because other techniques with comparable efficiency have a lower lifecycle investment cost. Advances in natural gas turbines achieved similar thermal efficiencies at lower costs, by having the turbine's exhaust drive a Rankine cycle steam plant. To get more electricity from coal, it is cheaper to simply add more low-temperature steam-generating capacity."
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The difference is that you already need massive electromagnetic coils to contain the plasma in a fusion system. Start that plasma moving and now it induces voltages in your containment coils.
 
More on the subject
phys.org

For heating plasma in fusion devices, researchers unravel how electrons respond to neutral beam injection

Heating a plasma for fusion research requires megawatts of power. One approach that research tokamaks use to achieve the necessary power input is neutral beam injection (NBI). With NBI, fast neutral particles are generated in a device called a beam source and then injected into the plasma.
phys.org phys.org
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-plasma-fusion-devices-unravel-electrons.html

On weapons
 
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In a move straight out of a Bond film, China seems to be building a massive laser-fired nuclear facility in Mianyang, a major science and research city in Sichuan province.

Recently-released satellite imagery appears to show a research compound containing four large laser bays organized around one "target chamber," along with a handful of auxiliary buildings.

Reuters reports that analysts with CNA Corp — a research group funded by the US Department of Navy — who viewed the images say the target chamber will likely channel the power of the four laser bays to fuse hydrogen atoms together in the nuclear process known as fusion.
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futurism.com

Satellite Images Show China Building What Appears to Be a Huge Fusion Facility

New images seem to show a laser-fired nuclear fusion facility may be under development in southwestern China.
futurism.com futurism.com
 
Justo Miranda said:
Our scientists will achieve the cure of all diseases, the regeneration of any part of the human body, they will manufacture food using artificial photosynthesis, they will develop artificial gravity generators, FTL engines, time machines... but fifty years from now there will still be the New York Times and someone will republish the article on nuclear fusion.:confused:
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...because commercial fusion will still be fifty years away
 
Arjen said:
Drop the 'artificial', and grow food.
Lapsed biologist speaking.
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The lapsed biologist knows that there is not enough arable soil to feed the entire population without the use of powerful insecticides, synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified plants. The future is laboratory photosynthesis and that will take us to space instead of hydroponic crops.
 
Justo Miranda said:
The lapsed biologist knows that there is not enough arable soil to feed the entire population without the use of powerful insecticides, synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified plants. The future is laboratory photosynthesis and that will take us to space instead of hydroponic crops.
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You do know that the US alone grows enough food to feed the entire globe, right?
 
Scott Kenny said:
You do know that the US alone grows enough food to feed the entire globe, right?
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He also had enough weapons to defend the South Vietnamese, the anti-Taliban Afghans, the pro-Shah Iranians... I'm sorry but my stomach can't depend on broken promises.

I usually eat three times a day... I hope I have not violated any European Union regulations with such a disrespectful statement.;)
 
Shh…that’s where SLS money really went—the one launched a couple of years ago was just odds and ends. We threw that one together in an afternoon.
 
martinbayer said:
Greed.
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While that is a small part of it, there's no small amount of "we can't get food from where it's being grown to where it's needed before it rots" happening.

Of course, there was also the unintended consequences. [Location] suffers famine, US sends massive supplies of grain FOR FREE. Local farmers go out of business because no-one will buy local grain when they can get US famine relief for free. Famine continues because there are now NO FARMERS AT ALL.
 
martinbayer said:
Then why are people still starving around the globe?
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Because the social and political unrest in such areas did not allow for efficient food production and/or distribution. The relief services are forced to work with local authorities, which often hoard the aid for their own benefits (for example, to attract more supporters) and/or preventing the food from being delivered to those they view as dangerous or disloyal.

Most exemplary case is the international efforts to help North Korea in 90s, when the country was stuck by "ideal storm". The collapse of USSR deprived North Korea of cheap fuel for logistic and agriculture, and then a heavy rain season not only caused massive crops failure, but also flooded many coal mines, thus making energy crisis even worse. The international relief efforts faced two unique problems:

* While central government in Pyongyang was probably the most cooperative as it ever was, the low-level administrators were fearful that they would be accused of "dishonoring the nation in front of foreigners" or something like that, so they were uncooperative and often refused to receive aid, declaring that there is no famine at all.

* The Southern Korea government actively hampered the relief efforts out of conviction that North Korea regime is critically unstable, and famine would cause it to collapse soon - while relief may stabilize the regime. So they done everything they could to hamper international efforts, essentially dooming hundreds of thousands of North Koreans to death (and thus leaving a big scar on North-South relations, because North neither forgive nor forget that callous attitude)
 
martinbayer said:
Then why are people still starving around the globe?
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Most, if not all, recent famine is driven by local and international politics. See, for example, the Irish Famine (politics in London and some rather heartless "free market" ideologues) and Biafra (starve the rebels).
 

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