ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly(bbc.co.uk)
bbc.co.uk
ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53573294
449 comments
I think fusion is cool, but I also think it distracts from more important and promising approaches to clean power. No one has ever demonstrated a self-sustaining, net positive fusion reaction. It will probably take >30 years to make this technology cheap , safe and reliable and another >20 years to deploy it at scale. We don't have 50 years to wait on clean energy, we need it today. We should be focusing our attention on renewables, like solar, which are rapidly dropping in cost, and good 'ol nuclear power, which is already proven to be safe and reliable, instead of crossing our fingers and waiting for some magical tech to save us. We already have the tech, we just need to get serious about deploying it. I bet a concerted roll-out of nuclear + solar could cut US emissions due to electricity generation by at least 30% over the next 20 years.
EDIT: I see this is getting some downvotes. I want to reiterate that I support fusion research, I am just saying that I don't believe fusion is the quickest or most realistic approach to reducing emissions.
EDIT: I see this is getting some downvotes. I want to reiterate that I support fusion research, I am just saying that I don't believe fusion is the quickest or most realistic approach to reducing emissions.
At this point I've got a lot more hope in the MIT/Commonwealth Fusion Systems approach with REBCO magnets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KuAx1COEk
At this point it looks like ITER is hampered by it's relatively old supeconductor technology (ultra low temp/moderate field strength traditional magnets vs high temp/high field REBCO magnets).
At this point it looks like ITER is hampered by it's relatively old supeconductor technology (ultra low temp/moderate field strength traditional magnets vs high temp/high field REBCO magnets).
18b doesn't seem like a huge amount of money these days with the economic stimulus funds being announced around covid-19.
It is hard for me to conceive of the steps required in these projects that add up to years - just in assembly.
Is it due to precision requirements being difficult to achieve? Supply chain delays for custom parts? Lots of experimental runs that require dis-assembly and tuning?
Is it due to precision requirements being difficult to achieve? Supply chain delays for custom parts? Lots of experimental runs that require dis-assembly and tuning?
I'm surprised that we're still chasing moon shots in strong force fusion, while weak fusion, which has actually been demonstrated already, gets little attention. Chemically assisted/low energy nuclear reactions have been proven to produce clean energy and useful transmutation. This process can be used to turn radioactive waste into inert material. For example, technetium-99 is a particularly pernicious by-product of nuclear fission. It has a half-life of ~200,000 years and is very mobile in the atmosphere, making it difficult and expensive to handle. In a CANR reactor, this nuclear waste is converted into the safe, and valuable, palladium-106, and the by-product is clean heat. Given the double benefit of clean fuel and nuclear waste recycling, I think this should be a bigger priority than strong-force fusion.
http://nautil.us/issue/86/energy/einsteins-lost-hypothesis
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24216601?seq=1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012815...
http://nautil.us/issue/86/energy/einsteins-lost-hypothesis
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24216601?seq=1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012815...
From Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p6jrlbUOuuOCHnhR9fcsvnQJl4d...
"Most of the power (~100 MW on ITER) released in SOL flows in an extremely narrow channel ~1 mm"
wow
"Most of the power (~100 MW on ITER) released in SOL flows in an extremely narrow channel ~1 mm"
wow
Sorry I'm a layman at best on the subject, buts whats the difference between this project and, for example, W7-X?
Some years ago, likely around 2010, I had the priviledge to visit Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (it was called UKAEA Culham back then). During my visit, we were shown around various experiments and after a long evening, we had the opportunity to attend a Q&A with the staff. The question everyone wanted to know the answer to was When will it be ready? The scientists and everyone else involved honestly thought 10 years would be more than enough time for the technology to mature and find its way into everyday lives.
Commercial fusion energry, always 5-10 years away.
Commercial fusion energry, always 5-10 years away.
I have such mixed feelings about ITER. I hope we learn the things we want to from it, and that what we learn is good news. But ITER is very far from being a demonstration of a practical power plant -- it's a science experiment first and foremost. (Well, it has really been an experiment in international government cooperation...)
I'm concerned that fusion research could have an 'AI winter' if there are any problems with ITER. (Similar to what has happened to inertial fusion in the failure of NIF to achieve ignition.) On the bright side, I think Commonwealth's SPARC experiment has a chance of beating ITER to hit 'scientific' break-even (Q>1) -- although ITER should top out around Q=10-20, where SPARC is aiming for Q~4. (Q~20 is needed for a power plant.)
The issue of 'disruptions' (rapid unscheduled disassembly of the plasma) has not been solved. ITER's construction was premised on the idea that we need it to be solved, so therefore it will get solved. The situation is very similar to that of self-driving cars -- avoiding 90% of disruptions seems pretty doable, but a percent or so happen without warning.(https://fusion4freedom.com/pdfs/Disruption-Risk-poster-Wurde...)
I hope that people don't get the wrong idea about fusion from ITER. Fusion reactors don't scale down well, but they also don't have to be quite as large, slow, and expensive as ITER. Tokamaks only use about 10% of the available magnetic field pressure, which means about 100x less power density than is theoretically possible, for a given magnetic field strength. Also, ITER is limited by its superconductors to about 5T. REBCO superconductors could potentially triple that, which would increase power density 81 times. So, there is a ton of headroom to improve performance -- dealing with the outflux of power becomes the major issue, actually.
Ultimately, fusion is a long way from market still. It's hard to innovate rapidly with devices that cost billions and have life-cycles of decades. Private enterprises are pushing down on those numbers, though -- that's where I'm pinning my hopes. Given that renewables are approaching grid parity, it looks like the goalposts will start receding before fusion even achieves net power production.
I'm concerned that fusion research could have an 'AI winter' if there are any problems with ITER. (Similar to what has happened to inertial fusion in the failure of NIF to achieve ignition.) On the bright side, I think Commonwealth's SPARC experiment has a chance of beating ITER to hit 'scientific' break-even (Q>1) -- although ITER should top out around Q=10-20, where SPARC is aiming for Q~4. (Q~20 is needed for a power plant.)
The issue of 'disruptions' (rapid unscheduled disassembly of the plasma) has not been solved. ITER's construction was premised on the idea that we need it to be solved, so therefore it will get solved. The situation is very similar to that of self-driving cars -- avoiding 90% of disruptions seems pretty doable, but a percent or so happen without warning.(https://fusion4freedom.com/pdfs/Disruption-Risk-poster-Wurde...)
I hope that people don't get the wrong idea about fusion from ITER. Fusion reactors don't scale down well, but they also don't have to be quite as large, slow, and expensive as ITER. Tokamaks only use about 10% of the available magnetic field pressure, which means about 100x less power density than is theoretically possible, for a given magnetic field strength. Also, ITER is limited by its superconductors to about 5T. REBCO superconductors could potentially triple that, which would increase power density 81 times. So, there is a ton of headroom to improve performance -- dealing with the outflux of power becomes the major issue, actually.
Ultimately, fusion is a long way from market still. It's hard to innovate rapidly with devices that cost billions and have life-cycles of decades. Private enterprises are pushing down on those numbers, though -- that's where I'm pinning my hopes. Given that renewables are approaching grid parity, it looks like the goalposts will start receding before fusion even achieves net power production.
Dumb question here, but how is the actual power transmitted to the grid? I get we are trying to have some sustained reaction with plasma inside a magnetic field... but that just makes heat, not electricity.
Other reactor types have water to heat up and make steam but where does this happen in a Fusion reactor? It seems as though there is no obvious "place" for there to be water to turn into steam.
Again, sorry for dumb question.
Other reactor types have water to heat up and make steam but where does this happen in a Fusion reactor? It seems as though there is no obvious "place" for there to be water to turn into steam.
Again, sorry for dumb question.
Finally! I have been following this for over 20 years and thought it would never happen.
What does HN crowd think of companies like hb11 or lppfusion which try to construct much smaller but still powerful (lpp plans for 5MW, relatively small, reactor. They also want to use a different fuel that produces very little neutrons, thus very low radiocativity. And moreover they do not need thermal part as electricity is generated by directly collecting alpha particles (and some Xrays IIRC). It _feels_ to me like ITER is inheritance from old times - trying to build the reactor the way we always did (i.e. thermal; and also using the "easiest" to ignite fuel - but that produces a lot of radiocativity compared to hB11 fuel). As someone pointed out here in comments, there are already better magnets than those used in ITER even now. Don't get me wrong, it would be sooo cool if ITER succeeded and started fusion energy generation, but it is just taking too long.
https://www.hb11.energy/our-story https://lppfusion.com/technology/fusion-energy-generator/FTA : "Iter is a collaboration between China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US. All members share in the cost of construction."
Who contributes how much ? Because at face value this sounds like real international (that is, beyond little war games) cooperation. Sort of "mankind" project.
Who contributes how much ? Because at face value this sounds like real international (that is, beyond little war games) cooperation. Sort of "mankind" project.
ITER won't be commercially viable. After ITER comes DEMO, which is itself a decades-long project. DEMO won't demonstrate electricity generation until 2048: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station#Ti...
In my mind, that means we need to see deployment of Gen 4 fission reactors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor) commercially, to bridge the gaps between a decline in coal-fired plants and the potential of renewables.
In my mind, that means we need to see deployment of Gen 4 fission reactors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor) commercially, to bridge the gaps between a decline in coal-fired plants and the potential of renewables.
Looking at stories like this, you need to realize how far out of the running this technology is.
The power density of ITER (gross fusion power of the reactor divided by the volume of the reactor, not just the volume of the plasma) is 50 kW/m^3. This is horribly low, about 1/400th the power density of a PWR reactor vessel.
The power/$ is also horribly bad. The cost is going to have to come down by two orders of magnitude to start being competitive.
Fusion is an example of sunk cost thinking. The only reason we're working on it is because we had been. A clean sheet energy strategy would put very little resources into fusion.
The power density of ITER (gross fusion power of the reactor divided by the volume of the reactor, not just the volume of the plasma) is 50 kW/m^3. This is horribly low, about 1/400th the power density of a PWR reactor vessel.
The power/$ is also horribly bad. The cost is going to have to come down by two orders of magnitude to start being competitive.
Fusion is an example of sunk cost thinking. The only reason we're working on it is because we had been. A clean sheet energy strategy would put very little resources into fusion.
What downsides are there to fusion power, assuming it's commercially viable in a couple of decades? What negative externalities are there that could make it prohibitive?
Fossil fuel has pollution etc, solar takes up lots of space and is apparently also ugly, wind energy is ugly and makes noise (according to NIMBYs).
What argument could a NIMBY person have against fusion power, besides the big building in their back yard?
What argument could a NIMBY person have against fusion power, besides the big building in their back yard?
Can someone explain to me the advantages of fusion over fission? Except for the radioactive wastes and the enthusiasm of journalists I don't get it
To have a sense of scale, it would be super cool if someone could make a photo montage with some aerial pictures from https://www.iter.org/album/Media/4%20-%20Aerial and some other big known structures.
Maybe one of the Tesla Giga factory on top of the same picture (correctly scaled of course) ?
Maybe one of the Tesla Giga factory on top of the same picture (correctly scaled of course) ?
I thought Lawrence Livermore laboratory does some cutting edge experiments on fusion and I read articles about how they are hoping to get some breakthrough. Is this new thing supposed to actually help take the tech forward or achieve something we havent achieved so far?
“We hope to see first plasma in five years. That will only be a short plasma - lasting a few milliseconds” this is a quote from original article.I was wondering why `few milliseconds` can make such a huge impact?What does this `few milliseconds` plasma mean?
Those magnets are huge.
I wonder if, though possibly solving the problem of clean energy, it will also create other problems, say, something like "geomagnetic field pollution".
I wonder if, though possibly solving the problem of clean energy, it will also create other problems, say, something like "geomagnetic field pollution".
Is there a good single compendium of ongoing fusion projects?
Is Iter aiming for breakeven or net plus energy?
ITER is nothing more than a money sink to underfund innovative research in fusion power.
Big Oil ️ ITER.
Big Oil ️ ITER.
So many fusion sceptics in the comments that it sounds like a congregation of anti-vaxxers. Funding for fusion has been ridiculously low for decades and it's exactly because of sceptics with myopathy like the ones present here.
Countries could've been pumping trillions into fusion and other clean energy, together, for years, but we'd rather vote for politicians willing to bomb the oil out of a poorer nation than think more than a decade or more ahead. Now that climate change is finally becoming more of a reality, the myopathic sceptics are turning into temporal sceptics "but we won't have enough time". People like them create the issues we have and every time a solution is proposed, they'll cast doubt.
I'm glad things are moving along at all. I say stop oil, petrol, gas subsidies in every country, and get out of countries you all shouldn't be sticking your noses in. Invest in something that will actually let your grandchildren inhabit a planet with less friction and a much smaller threat to their way of life (climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, etc.). Stop being so selfish.
Countries could've been pumping trillions into fusion and other clean energy, together, for years, but we'd rather vote for politicians willing to bomb the oil out of a poorer nation than think more than a decade or more ahead. Now that climate change is finally becoming more of a reality, the myopathic sceptics are turning into temporal sceptics "but we won't have enough time". People like them create the issues we have and every time a solution is proposed, they'll cast doubt.
I'm glad things are moving along at all. I say stop oil, petrol, gas subsidies in every country, and get out of countries you all shouldn't be sticking your noses in. Invest in something that will actually let your grandchildren inhabit a planet with less friction and a much smaller threat to their way of life (climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, etc.). Stop being so selfish.
However, I looked up the article on "fusion power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power) and it says "but to date, no design has produced more fusion power output than the electrical power input, defeating the purpose."
Can anyone help explain what I am missing, or what is not explained well? My common-person impression is if a laboratory experiment cannot even produce desired outcomes, what makes people think that an engineered, faulty-prone system will? The way I see it is that researchers produce the proof-of-concept, and engineering will attempt to reproduce that at scale. Isn't this preemptive? Or, from the article, it seems that it is necessary to build this thing in order to get any conclusive research results.