No ignition at the U.S. National Ignition Facility, home to the world’s largest laser.
When it comes to nuclear reactions, you've got your fission and your fusion. Both garner energy from mass, according to Einstein’s famous E=mc2, but in a different way. Fission -- the process at work in an atomic bomb or a nuclear power plant -- gets the energy by splitting a relatively heavy atom* (heavier than iron) into lighter atoms and particles. Fusion, by contrast, combines two atoms lighter than iron into a larger atom and a whole lot of energy.
Most commonly, for example on the sun and in a so-called thermonuclear bomb, hydrogen** serves as the feedstock for the fusion reaction.
And in our world, fusion is the real deal. The fusion reactions on the sun provide virtually all of the energy that drives our world -- photosynthesis, weather, pretty much life as we know it. And with the exception of just four elements -- hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium -- all of the elements in our world are byproducts of stars and their fusion-filled lives.
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The size of three football fields, the National Ignition Facility houses 192 laser beams and "is capable of directing nearly two million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses to the target chamber center." |
If there were a choice between fission and fusion, it'd be a no-brainer. Fusion is the holy grail of humanity's quest for energy security.
Two downsides to fission: it requires fuels like uranium and plutonium that are in finite supply and it produces radioactive waste. Fusion produces zero waste and requires only hydrogen -- the most abundant element in the universe.
Talk about a game changer. Scientists have been thinking about how to bring this game changer into the energy game for decades. (See fusion/fission timeline.) As far back as 1946, two British scientists -- Sir George Paget Thomson and Moses Blackman -- filed the first patent for a fusion power plant.
But there have been a couple of hold-ups. To get a fusion reaction started, you need to slam the hydrogen atoms together really, really hard and that requires a lot of energy. (In a hydrogen bomb, the fusion reaction gets ignited by an atomic bomb, using fission. Not exactly the preferred method for your local fusion power plant.)
Even trickier is controlling the fusion reaction. It's one thing to make a fusion bomb, it's a lot harder to get the reaction going and keep it under control in a way that the amount of energy extracted is larger than that expended to initiate and manage the reaction.
Over the almost 70-year pursuit of the fusionary holy grail, it's been fairly common for scientists working on the problem to say that they're about 30 years away from achieving a power plant based on fusion. (See here and here.) The problem has been that while time has marched on, the 30-year horizon has remained fixed. Suffice to say it has proven to be a very tough problem.
The Big Fusion TenCurrently there are about 10 major projects underway around the world trying to get a net-energy producing reaction. Several basic approaches are being tried to compress and heat the fuel to get ignition: lasers, magnets, X-rays and sound waves.
In recent years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) project at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has generally been viewed as the most promising: "Completed in March 2009, the $3.5 billion machine is the size of three football fields and has 192 laser beams. The now-operational facility is capable of directing nearly two million joules of ultraviolet laser energy in billionth-of-a-second pulses to the target chamber center."
With the facility's lasers up and running and breaking temperature records, hopes were running high for NIF over the past year or two. Bold statements and predictions peppered in its literature (pdf) also made a breakthrough look promising, such as “NIF will be the first fusion facility to demonstrate ignition and self-sustaining burn, as required for a power station,” “Demonstration of net energy gain from fusion fuel (On target, by end of 2012)," and (my favorite) “LIFE was the holy cow game changer.” NIF also indicated (pdf) that the timeline for the first commercial fusion power plant had shrunk -- instead of 30 years, it was now a mere 20 years away.
In February 2012, Mike Dunne, the director for energy laser fusion, explained the progress in some detail and included a qualified time line: "Overall our anticipation is that the prospects of getting to energy break-even look like roundabout six to 18 months away... It's impossible to predict in detail exactly what will happen and what the surprises will or won't be. But it feels around that time scale."
In March the journal Nature reported "Laser fusion nears crucial milestone," and quoted Lawrence Livermore National Lab director Ed Moses saying that, as far as the lab's efforts on ignition were concerned: "We have all the capability to make it happen in fiscal year 2012."
But by July 19, 2012, the fusion bubble was burst. An external review (pdf) of NIF by the National Nuclear Security Administration presented a mixed bag of praise -- "NIF has demonstrated an 'unprecedented level of quality and accomplishment'" -- and circumspection -- "considerable hurdles must be overcome to reach ignition ... [G]iven the unknowns with the present ...approach, the probability of ignition before the end of December is extremely low."
Bad TimingJust so happens that LIFE's funding was to run out at the end of this fiscal year, which fell on September 30. Perhaps that's why the fusion researchers were so publicly sanguine about having results by the end of 2012. So now the scientists hand off this energy holy grail to the politicians, transforming, at least for the time being, a scientific quest into a political football, or, you might say fusing the scientific and the political. What should Congress do? Scrap the project or double down? Just another spending issue poised on the fiscal cliff our folks on the Hill will have to wrestle with.
End Notes
* A common fuel is the uranium isotope, U-235.
** Isotopes of hydrogen -- deuterium and tritium -- are typically used.
Crossposted with TheGreenGrok | Follow us on Facebook
Image Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheGreenGrok
U-233 Ignited PACER Fusion.
There is a tested, practical, fission ignited fusion technology devised by America's most skillful and experienced nuclear designers at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Labs that produces net energy at Gigawatt levels and requires no technical breakthroughs to build. That technology is called PACER fusion, and in the Lawrence Livermore implementation, it is a molten salt U-233/Thorium assisted fusion technology that burns abundantly available nuclear fuels that can be extracted from sea water while producing only non-radioactive helium as nuclear waste. PACER is complementary technology to today’s fission reactor technology. PACER would help breed fission reactor fuels and transmute LWR SNF/waste at a more rapid rate and at lower cost than any proposed alternative.
PACER does not require any significant additional technical development to work and could just be built safely today and make power rather than waiting until the next century.
More info: http://www.yottawatts.net
LOL
no proliferation risk there, huh!
PACER fusion reactors actually have the lowest inventory of sensitive nuclear material of any reactor type of the same power/size rating.
Fissile Requirements required to start production of energy at this 1 GWe level for PACER, LFTR, LWR, IFR and the cost to provide the fissile startup material-
IFR - 18000 kilograms (costs $1.8 billion)
LWR - 5000 kilograms (cost $600 million)
LFTR - 800 kilograms (costs $24 million)
PACER - 2.5 kilograms (cost $75 thousand)
The cost of fissile can be a significant part of the cost of starting up a nuclear reactor. The Russians are the current low cost suppliers of fissile materials at about $30,000 per kilogram HEU.
Using nuclear fission to create the conditions of nuclear fusion is practical and works (first time - every time). America can produce power from fusion within 3 years by using PACER fusion which is just as real D-T fusion as the fusion produced from a Tokomak or a NIF Laser Fusion facility, you just need to use a tiny amount of fissile material to ignite the plasma.
Sometimes wikipedia does contain material to give everyone a good laugh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(fusion)
"Two downsides to fission: it requires fuels like uranium and plutonium that are in finite supply and it produces radioactive waste. ".
Two downsides to fission {solid fuel LWR reactors}: {is} it requires {expensive enrichment processes to make solid} fuels {{from}} uranium and plutonium that are in finite supply and it {only burns 6% of the solid fuel} produc{ing hot contaminated} radioactive {{spent fuel requiring 10,000 years of Yucca Mountain type storage. The LWR patent holder, Dr. Alvin Weinberg, warned about it's safety issues in 1952 and began 20 years of research on Molten Salt Reactors {MSR} using the Thorium/Uranium fuelcycle. The Thorium Molten Salt Breeder Reactor resolves these two downsides of fission by using a liquid fueled reactor that burns 98% no Yucca Mountain needed}}.
December second 1942 under west bleachers of Stagg Field downtown Chicago the first human made nuclear chain reaction occurred in what is known as the "Chicago Pile 1 - The Manhattan Project" engineered by the Enrico Fermi led 50 member team including Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg.
http://www.ne.anl.gov/cp1-anniversary/
molten salt reactor generate large volumes of medium level waste that is deadly for the same million years and in higher volume. The reprocessing tech they need has never been demonstrated.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/952238/dont_believe_the_spin_on_thorium_being_a_greener_nuclear_option.html
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/thorium2009factsheet.pdf Not the answer, and waste still need million year storage.
http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/downloads/American_Scientist_Hargraves.pdf
And here is an article on the MANY technical problems yet to be solved to build a LFTR
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/15/568428/-MSR-LFTR-Developmental-Issues
Since so many nuclear weapons have already been built and are being decommissioned, one might assume that Makhijani and Boyd would welcome a technology like LFTR that could safely consume these sensitive materials in an economically-advantageous way, beating swords into plowshares and using material that was once fashioned as a weapon as a material that can provide light and energy to billions. Enriched uranium or plutonium can’t simply be “thrown away”. LFTR puts these materials to productive use as they are destroyed in the reactor and uranium-233 is generated."
http://energyfromthorium.com/ieer-rebuttal/
U-235 and U-239 turned into U-233?
Even without worrying about security, physics and economics, we appear to be having an issue with arithmetic. As Father Ted might have put it: the amount destroyed to start the reaction is very small, and the prospect of making it into reality is very far away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
"To solve the current problems of excess fissile and destruction of long-lived actinide wastes, politically difficult and technically demanding funding, design, and deployment of the above triad solutions; MOX Fabrication Facility, Reprocessing Facility, and Larger Scale IFR, must be achieved simultaneously. The MSR however, represents a complete solution. It can be initially fueled with HEU and Pu in roughly the proportions obtained from dismantled weapons (perhaps 2/3 HEU & 1/3 239Pu), and the small, annual fissile additions, to maintain operation of a MSR, could be met by additions of any fissile material from any source; excess weapons fissile, spent fuel, or even IFR bred "dirty" fuels. Should fissile fuels become scarce in the future, the MSR can flexibly adapt to any fuel as dictated by economics and availability. If necessary, a well designed MSR can, with the addition of only chemical processing to the existing physical plant, become a net breeder of 233U fuel 25. However, should economics and future developments prefer the use of fissile fuels produced outside a MSR (such as IFR, Hybrid fusion breeders, Accelerator-based Breeders, etc.), the MSR has unparalleled flexibility to efficiently utilize those fuels without modification to the basic physical plant or design, nor interruption in operation."
http://www.moltensalt.org/references/static/home.earthlink.net/bhoglund/multiMissionMSR.html
http://www.moltensalt.org/references/static/home.earthlink.net/bhoglund/uri_MSR_WPu.html
Francesco Celani recently ran a cold fusion demonstration for a total of 55 hours at a National Instruments conference. http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2012/08/07/lenr-gets-major-boost-from-national-instruments/ This is not surprising to those of us following LENR News. This is because there has been another LENR experiment running since January at MIT. http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/05/07/mit-devices-outputs-14-times-input-power-faces-funding-cut-130221/
Also, 3rd party tests of Andrea Rossi's LENR device were released September 8th of 2012, concluding the effect is real. It simply creates more energy going out than in, safely. When you ramp this up, feeding other LENR devices by the first one, then again... you have unlimited energy. Tesla's dream.
Let's sing along with "The Impossible Dream" and help make it a "Possible Dream".
I wanted to post this here too, but was cut off....
There are a group of scientists working to create Celani's LENR demonstration as a kit so they could send it to Universities all over the world. (http://www.quantumheat.org/index.php/replicate/2012-10-05-17-13-39) Similar to what they did at the Pirelli High School in Italy, where the students demonstrated a cold fusion reaction.
Science needs repeatable proof, we will have that soon. Not everyone in this field is letting the lag behind peer reviews and University testing hold them back. They seen it first hand, years ago, and ran with it. They have been perfecting their devices, controlling the reaction, creating stable heat up up to to 1200 C. About 6 companies are racing to take it to market. In fact there is a shipping container sized 1 MegaWatt LENR Cold Fusion steam/heat plant for sale right now at ecat.com. In September 2012 this device received European SGS certification, paving the way for adoption in Europe.
I'm excited about what we can do with cheap, clean, and limitless energy.
And.... Tesla! DRINK!
Cold Fusion Italy - who are Andrea Rossi, Sergio Focardi and Francesco Piantelli
Italian inventor Andrea Rossi was experimenting with heating hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make alternative sources of fuel when he stumbled upon an energy source. Noticing the device he’d been working with was creating energy, Rossi began to realize there might be a possible energy source from his invention.
Around the same time, Sergio Focardi was working with nickel-hydrogen reactors. When paired up, the two were able to combine their work to come up with a way to create an alternative source of energy. The two men have invented the Energy Catalyzer, a device that can emit up to 15,000 watts using only 400 watts of input. This device is said to run at approximately one cent per kilowatt hour, while traditional energy sources run at around ten cents per kilowatt hour.
Francesco Piantelli, founder of Nichenergy, gives the appearance of competing with Rossi and Focardi. Nichenergy’s method of achieving energy output also uses nickel to achieve a reaction, but his method relies more on nickel preparation—layering the particles to achieve a reaction.
Piantelli’s earlier units reported two to four times energy gain, but new units are underway. According to reports, these new units will have two hundred times energy gained. These units are expected to be completed in the next couple of months.
Piantelli’s catalyst, with the preparation of the nicke uses a catalyst to turn nickel into copper, creating energy.
Same deal, different accent.
The good news is, Keshe is VUJA-DE this has never happened to earth before!
Nano particles made soda bottles is great news.
However, turning inertial confinement into a practical power source is extremely unlikely, while the issues with electromagnetic confinement are very serious, at least there is a plausible way to extract the energy produced by such a system.
Polywell or a similar approach is the only possible practical fusions systems.
FY 2012 Work
August 15, 2012, The Navy is funding EMC2 an additional $5.3 million over next 2 years to work on the problem of pumping electrons into the Polywell. Big new pulsed power supply to support the electron guns (100+A, 10kV). WB-8 has been operating at 0.8 Tesla. There was a review done of the work and the recommendations were to continue and expand the effort.[45]- wiki polywell.
It might be able to use the aneutronic (no neutron, but really very low neutron)
I hope you didn't bet the farm on it.
Due to their common features, fission reactors and fusion reactor designs today produce similar inventories of neutron induced activity (i.e. disregarding fission products) together with a given amount of energy.
Fusion is seen in stars up to element iron.
The impracticality of artificial fusion limits its use to low-A (H, D, T, He) materials.
in 30 years solar, wind and waste will be probably less than 1 cent per KWH.
They are clean, safe, 24/7 forever, carbon negative and cheaper than nukes, clean coal oil wars or fracked water already.
15 hz explosions at 1 GW will shake the reactor to pieces. No one has made a inner lithium blanket, and we sure don't want to waste lithium in reactors, we need it for batteries.
Many parts of the reactor will become highly radioactive from the high neutron flux. These will have to be replaced on a regular basis, and will be deadly radioactive for 100's of thousands of years, just like medium level nukes wastes.
This country owes a debt of gratititude for our development of nuclear technology.
A free world thanks us. Now we must turn these swords into plowshares once again.
You take liberties with "will shake" without proof. Suggest "could or can" without having to show through simulation or experiment.
The inner wall could be bombarded by a neutron flux, true, however the way the magnetic flux lines line up, they should avoid it.
How do you come up with 100s of thousands of years? The materials are already found in nature that way. Did you know that uranium spontaneously fissions as part of nature and those fission products interact with the rock and surrounding earth as a matter of routine before we dig it out of the ground.
Look up Oklo.
million year nuke wastes from fusion.
Due
to their common features, fission reactors and fusion reactor designs
today produce similar inventories of
neutron induced activity (i.e. disregarding fission products)
together with a given amount of energy.
1. The available real estate on the earth is limited, a finite number
2. The human population continues to grow at an exponential rate
3. Power demand follows human population for developed countries
4. Developing countries have the higest population density
5. Developing countries will be the biggest energy users within 50 years
6. Wind and solar are not going to cut it for 1-5.
Developingcountries like India and China are pursuing and building out both.
And in every decade past, scientists could always say "No, we really mean it this time."
I look forward to a world that can retire fossil fuels and fission and rely on clean, sustaintable fusion energy... but I'm not counting on it being here 30 years from now. Nor should anyone else.
Fusion would take 50-100 years to implement if we are on the right track. Nanotechnology has to catch up so that new self healing nanomaterials could be invented.
http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2012/docs/G_Borovikov.pdf
Sometimes it seems to be interchangeable with "polite" or "considerate".
But sometimes it seems to be interchangeable with "nutsy" or "crazy".
And sometimes it seems to mean "anything I don't like".
Just wonderin'.