Scientists have done some amazing things but not all of them have practical application, at least yet. Fusion is a great example.
Live Science reports the World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor is Finally Completed.
The International Fusion Energy Project (ITER) fusion reactor, consisting of 19 massive coils looped into multiple toroidal magnets, was originally slated to begin its first full test in 2020. Now scientists say it will fire in 2039 at the earliest.
ITER contains the world’s most powerful magnet, making it capable of producing a magnetic field 280,000 times as strong as the one shielding Earth.
The reactor’s impressive design comes with an equally hefty price-tag. Originally slated to cost around $5 billion and fire up in 2020, it has now suffered multiple delays and its budget swelled beyond $22 billion, with an additional $5 billion proposed to cover additional costs. These unforeseen expenses and delays are behind the most recent, 15-year delay.
Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.
But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. The most common design for fusion reactors, the tokamak, works by superheating plasma (one of the four states of matter, consisting of positive ions and negatively charged free electrons) before trapping it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber with powerful magnetic fields.
Impressive But …
Assuming the reactor originally scheduled for 2020 is finally operable by 2039, I will be impressed.
Heck, I am impressed at what we have already scientifically achieved. But I wonder what is the practical application of this.
Keeping the turbulent and superheated coils of plasma in place long enough for nuclear fusion to happen, however, has been challenging. Soviet scientist Natan Yavlinsky designed the first tokamak in 1958, but no one has since managed to create a reactor that is able to put out more energy than it takes in.
One of the main stumbling blocks is handling a plasma that’s hot enough to fuse. Fusion reactors require very high temperatures (many times hotter than the sun) because they have to operate at much lower pressures than is found inside the cores of stars.
The core of the actual sun, for example, reaches temperatures of around 27 million Fahrenheit (15 million Celsius) but has pressures roughly equal to 340 billion times the air pressure at sea level on Earth.
Cooking plasma to these temperatures is the relatively easy part, but finding a way to corral it so that it doesn’t burn through the reactor or derail the fusion reaction is technically tricky. This is usually done either with lasers or magnetic fields.
Question and Answer on Temperatures
How a reactor could produce temperatures of 27 million degrees without the operation melting is likely a puzzle to anyone who has been thinking clearly.
The article provides an answer. But what is the cost and how long can the reaction be sustained without a meltdown? Are there any other issues?
For those questions, let’s turn to a 2022 article. also from Live Science.
A Step Closer to a New Source of Power
Please consider A Step Closer to a New Source of Power
In the new experiments, the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham near Oxford, England, produced blazingly hot plasmas that released a record-setting 59 megajoules of energy — about the same amount of energy unleashed by the explosion of 31 pounds (14 kilograms) of TNT.
Nuclear fusion — the same reaction that occurs in the heart of stars — merges atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei. Nuclear physicists have long sought to produce nuclear fusion in reactors on Earth because it generates far more energy than burning fossil fuels does. For example, a pineapple-size amount of hydrogen atoms offers as much energy as 10,000 tons (9,000 metric tons) of coal, according to a statement from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.
“It took us years to prepare these experiments. And in the end we have managed to confirm our predictions and models,” Athina Kappatou, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany, told Live Science. “That’s good news on the way to ITER.”
JET, which began operating in 1983, now uses the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel. Whereas a normal hydrogen atom has no neutrons in its core, a deuterium atom has one neutron and a tritium atom has two. Currently, it is the only power plant in the world capable of operating with deuterium-tritium fuel — although ITER will also use it when it comes online.
However, deuterium-tritium fusion poses a number of challenges. For example, deuterium-tritium fusion can generate dangerous amounts of high-energy neutrons, each moving at about 116 million mph (187 million km/h), or 17.3% the speed of light — so fast they could reach the moon in under 8 seconds. As such, special shielding is needed in these experiments.
For the new experiments, the previous carbon lining in the JET reactor was replaced between 2009 and 2011 with a mixture of beryllium and tungsten, which will also be installed in ITER. This new metallic wall is more resistant to the stresses of nuclear fusion than carbon, and also clings onto less hydrogen than carbon does, explained Kappatou, who prepared, coordinated and led key parts of the recent experiments at JET.
Another challenge with deuterium-tritium fusion experiments is the fact that tritium is radioactive, and so it requires special handling. However, JET was capable of handling tritium back in 1997, Kappatou noted.
Also, whereas deuterium is abundantly available in seawater, tritium is extremely rare. For now, tritium is produced in nuclear fission reactors, although future fusion power plants will be able to emit neutrons to generate their own tritium fuel.
In January, scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California revealed that their laser-powered nuclear fusion experiment generated 1.3 megajoules of energy for 100 trillionths of a second — a sign the fusion reaction generated more energy from nuclear activity than went into it from the outside.
The copper electromagnets that JET used could only operate for about 5 seconds due to the heat from the experiments. “JET simply wasn’t designed to deliver more,” Kappatou said. In contrast, ITER will use cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets that are designed to operate indefinitely, the researchers noted.
Questions Beget Questions
These are amazing achievements. But we must do much better than sustain a reaction for a world-breaking 100 trillionths of a second.
Something in this story is missing, like why does it take at least 15 years to do a test of something that is already built?
Also, the proposed process seems so much like a perpetual motion machine.
The reactor will use fusion to produce the deuterium-tritium that it needs to produce the fusion and also the energy to cryogenically cool the magnets the system needs to protect itself from itself, otherwise the whole thing melts down at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
It that’s not the basic proposal, then someone please explain the proposal to me. If that is the proposal, additional questions surface.
Assuming the theory works to perfection, how long can the process be sustained? How much of the energy produced is needed to protect the system from the heat produced?
Tests of ITER were scheduled for 2020 but have been rescheduled for 2039 with no explanation why.
However, I am pleased to report we have made progress on target dates. By that I mean targets that forever always seemed just a few years away are now a more reasonable 15 years minimum away, and that’s only for a test.
Fusion will not save the planet anytime soon, if ever.
A Rebuttal
One person commented that I don’t understanding how science works. False. I know full well how science works.
Do I expect useful ideas out of this whether or not it solves our alleged existential threat?
Yes I do. But that has little to do with the point I was making.
We have a test in 2039 and alleged existential threat underway that supposedly is too late to fix by 2050.
Today, we have practical, believable, information that fusion will not be the holy grail that many hoped for. That fact does not imply I think nothing useful will come out of this.
The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture
Meanwhile, let’s discuss where we are staring with The Futility of Wind and Solar Power in One Easy to Understand Picture
Morocco is the ideal place for both wind power and solar power. It is sunny and windy. But how do we get energy from Morocco to where it’s needed? At what cost?
Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome
More importantly, please consider Sorry Green Energy Fans, Net Zero Is a Very Unlikely Outcome
Let’s discuss the Kyoto Protocol climate objectives and dozens of reasons why a net zero by the 2050 target has virtually no chance.
If you disagree, or even if you don’t, please read the above article and tell me what we are supposed to do, how we are going to do it, and who will bear the costs.
Realistically, what should we expect other than total failure of existing goals?
I suggest we are better off pursuing that line of thought than focusing on the mythical unobtanium.
I was accused of not understanding how science works. False. I know full well how science works.
Do I expect useful ideas out of this whether or not it solves our alleged existential threat?
Yes I do. But that has little to do with the point I was making.
We have a test in 2039 and alleged existential threat underway that supposedly is too late to fix by 2050.
Today, we have practical, believable, information that fusion will not be the holy grail that many hoped for. That fact does not imply I think nothing useful will come out of this.
I was hasty in my judgement so please excuse me. I do not expect fusion to come soon but it will come. The basic principles are known so it’s just engineering now but that will take time. We have generous enough supplies of other sources of energy to get us through till we see fusion so I am not worried about civilization falling for lack of energy. I am rather curious to see if AI can help us out in finding this. It would be a very good test of its utility, better than augmenting the quality of TikTok videos would.
While we wait there is always this to plug the gap hahaha https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181119-why-flammable-ice-could-be-the-future-of-energy
“It’s just engineering now”? Way to minimize the most complex technical problem humanity has ever tried to solve!
You may know “Science” but don’t understand the Physics. Temperature has a definition that involves the kinetic energy of particles, including positive and negative ions. The temperature of a plasma is calculated a little differently than air. Also, the temperature can be very localized and very short. Hence, the tokamak which both energizes, levitates, and contains the plasma from the walls. The duration is extremely short because the fuel is spent very quickly. Sustained reactions are simply not possible because the fuel and necessary conditions for fusion cannot be maintained except in stars. One of the major technical problems is “sustainment”. Fuel targets will need to be made and fired one by one. But the hope is for the first fire to assist the second and so on. You can find all this on Wikipedia. As you write they have gotten more energy out than put in. A very important milestone indeed. But creating and controlling the conditions at the center of the Sun on Earth is extremely challenging. However, it’s very much worth pursuing. It could make energy more widely available and reduce friction between countries for sources of power. Although access to the technology wouldn’t be ubiquitous of course. There’s always a catch somewhere. But consider it took 100 years to prove some of Einstein’s postulates simply because the technology had to be developed. 100 years in the history of man is but a blip in time. We are spending $billions like water on other science projects like particle accelerators and astronomical telescopes that probably won’t return anything to deal with our environmental problems unless we find dark energy in our backyard. We could probably better use that money and talent to solve more pressing issues.
“As you write they have gotten more energy out than put in.” from what I’ve been able to tell this is not correct and is an intentionally misleading result. It is based on calculating the output energy of the fusion reaction against the energy of the laser beam. Note that this means strictly the laser beam itself not the electrical energy that is used to generate that laser beam which is significantly greater. In practical engineering terms this thing is a net energy loser by a significant degree.
Precisely. The laser beam must heat the plasma and maintain that heat until the fusion reaction occurs. Just getting to that point requires a vast expenditure of energy. Once the reaction occurs, the heat and light released may be more that the amount put in to cause the reaction at that moment, but how does one put that heat to use?
Why, to boil water, of course!
Yes, the super-futuristic energy solution still involves good ol’ mechanical energy just like James Watt and his steam engine in 1776: Boil water, turn turbine, generate electricity. “Mr. Fusion” from “Back to the Future” is sadly not in the cards here.
As for the machinery itself, the tokamak has always suffered degradation due to neutron bombardment. Fusing plasma releases neutrons, which cannot be contained by the magnets but do weaken the structure. There’s absolutely nothing that can be done to solve this problem. I wonder why they’re pushing it forward? Princeton shut down their’s because they got tired of constantly replacing the internals after every few test runs.
The only “worthwhile” fusion energy source would be aneutronic fusion, where heavy elements are fused and the resulting energy is released in the form of x-rays which can be directly converted to electric current, while also releasing no neutrons whatsoever. Problem is, fusing heavy elements like boron* involves temperatures in the billions of degrees, a thousand times higher than the ITER tokamak. (*someone further down mentions this as being -B11 fusion)
A z-pinch device could conceivably accomplish this, but it would take power equal to a bolt of lightning to make it happen (just like in “Back to the Future”), and repeatedly to generate a constant flow of electricity. As we like to say,
“Not happening, son.”
I’ve done alot of fusion research, it was my job for a number of years. I’m not clear on the ‘more energy out that in’ the news says about this experiment. Lasers are only about 7% efficient, so that means off the bat youre looking at needing 15X the “real” energy in to break even. Add to that, ‘mining’ duterium/tritium, turning it into ice (it’s basically impossible to compress a liquid uniformly, to get the density needed to ignite an economical amount of fusion), the energy needed to build and run the apparatus. etc etc. Bottom line, you need to get about 70X the total energy out than the amount of energy (lasers) hitting the DT ice pellet for fusion energy to be possible.
The bright side is that the physics is better understood and computers to run simulations (for design) are infinitely more powerful than even a few years ago. Bad side: big experiments, like the National Ignition Facility in the US and probably ITER have been built before the loose ends were tied down. The NIF was pushed thru by the Dept of Energy even though there was basic physics research (I worked on it so I know) that indicated it was probably DOA, things simply were not close to be optimized. The Secretary of DOE at the time, who had a Nobel Prize in plasma (fusion) physics was aware of the basic-physics shortcoming of the NIF design and chose to push ahead anyway. You tax dollars at work.
Economical energy from physics is possible, but at current levels of funding it’s 25 years down the road, at least. A few coins found under the cushions of the federal budget would cut that in half.
Dear Mr. Shedlock,
Has anyone ever theorized how a fusion reactor will generate useful power ?
The point being, how will the hot stuff actually turn something practical like a turbine wheel ? Or is there some wire that leads all the electrons to their appointed rounds. Doug78 mentioned it’s just an Engineering problem. I personally have heard that reply for over 50 years now. Times up.
After that, who will maintain the machinery ? AI robots : )
Fusion power is the power of the future, and always will be. ( I’ve heard that for over 50 years, too )
They said that about flying cars, self-driving cars, robots, and computers smarter than people. Guess what, they’re all here…
so your answer is no. no one, and even you, has a clue how that fusion reaction could possibly be harnessed to do something useful.
heat transfer is an Engineering problem. Lil’Mr. how do you get the heat past all those magnets and or lasers outside to turn a turbine ? ? ?
as far as i know, no one has said squat about that Engineering problem for well over 50 years.
let me know when you find out, really.
I believe all forms of nuclear power have purposely been stalled by owners of so-called fossil fuels. Deflation gore’s the Uber wealthy while inflation benefits them. Poor folks do better under lowered cost regimes. Rich cannot inflate enough without regulation. The example is simple, look at healthcare and education costs for the past 50 years and compare it to your phone / pc. Every attempt at leveling the economy is met with regulation, lockdowns, and cold war 2.0. Odd that this isn’t better understood and shared by the MSM.
I liked $1 per dozen eggs pre-Covid better than the rape of the public which is currently ongoing. And it is going to get worse in the years ahead.
Oh please. A grand conspiracy of this order and no one has any evidence.
Ridiculous
Yes. Your blog is popular with quite a few cult conspiracy kooks. Many of whom are anti-science. Which is unfortunate.
Regardless, I want to compliment you on showing some respect for science and scientists. Scientists do amazing work, most of which proves to be incredibly helpful in advancing humanity. The problem that most scientists have is securing funding for their efforts, as the payoff is often too far down the road to justify their work.
In the past, they were often funded by royalty. Then by governments. And today, sometimes by the very wealthy (Musk, Bezos, Gates, Branson, etc).
We owe most modern advances to the scientists and their funders.
Sequencing human DNA, Semi-conductors, computers, the internet, the telephone, steam engine, light bulb, space travel, nuclear power, etc etc. The list is ongoing and endless.
Thank you scientists.
Speaking as an experienced and old engineer, I agree you understand how science works. More importantly, you are very logical and ask good engineering and scientific questions. Further, you examine the data and how it’s collected and analyzed by those who secretly seek to deceive, and expose them. Thank you! You’ve saved us all a lot of work.
“But how do we get energy from Morocco to where it’s needed? At what cost?”
There are essentially two ways:
I don’t know how the cost calculations would work for those options, compared to having solar panels or wind turbines closer to where the electricity is needed.
“ITER contains the world’s most powerful magnet, making it capable of producing a magnetic field 280,000 times as strong as the one shielding Earth” … What effect will this artificial magnetic field have on the earth’s core and natural protective magnetic field? Sounds like an experiment that could hasten the magnetic polar shift. Maybe this intense magnetic field would direct high solar radiation to hit parts of the world that normally wouldn’t be hit, (resulting in high cancer rates)?
I read a few years ago that the amount of tritium required to start up a reactor like this was more than what existed in the world. There are only a few nuclear reactors that are harvesting tritium (TVA being one of them). This might be a case of focusing on building the shiny reactor without investing in the capacity to produce adequate tritium. Feels like large organization planning failure?
FWIW, a single space shuttle load of tritium, which is found in significant quantities in the lunar soil, would run the US for an entire year. Difficult, but not science fiction. Also, while tritium on earth is rather rare it’s not that scarce.
Fusion? I understand the process, but will some physicist/ environmental scientist please explain how we avoid “climate change” with this? After all, we are producing NEW energy in our atmosphere. Or has someone calculated that it somehow results in a net loss because of some offset? I look forward to the pandering answers on both sides…..
CO2 and methane trap heat in the atmosphere. If you produce energy without creating those gases you have pretty much zero effect on the climate.
Fusion?
“Net energy gain” is an intentionally misleading claim by the ITER people. It is based on calculating the energy of the laser beam vs the fusion energy released by the pellet. What it does NOT include is the electrical energy required to generate the beam in the first place. By that measure it is a net energy loss by a significant amount. The scientists are pulling the wool over people’s eyes to maintain support for this project by claiming something that that can be said to be technically true but that does not actually mean what people assume that it means. Science groupies are often the easiest people to fool because of their high and mighty, elitist self conception – look at all the physics lecturers going bonkers in this site telling people to stay in their lane for instance…
I was with a small group of engineers which actually created electrical energy extraction from the “zero-point” field. After generator unit #3 was built, out of the clear blue Uncle Sam intruded. Told us “great job guys” but the end result was that our generators NEVER saw the light of day. All this talk about fusion, etc is freshly emitted bovine excrement, still steaming, upon the pasture. Control is the real key and keeping everyone on the planet under control is the real goal. Don’t be deceived! Spending billions of dollars only is wasting money to keep people diverted and controlled.
what sort of principle(s) was this thing based on? Is there any literature that you can cite in the public domain that was a precursor or prior art that formed the basis of your research?
Diverted and controlled from what? Are you saying there is something else we are not dealing with? Zero Point energy is kind of like Cold Fusion, they ain’t nothing there.
I know the feeling. DOE did the same thing to our project. Damn fools. Even aside from fusion what we did with laser research connected with fusion was worth many times the funding we got, which was chump change.
The fusion we are trying to do isn’t what powers the Sun. If we did the proton- proton reaction the reaction rate is very slow and requires much, much harder conditions to achieve.
We are trying to do easier fusion reactions. Nether the Tokamak nor the laser implosion methods will do proton – Boron 11 fusion which largely produces no neutrons, just 3 alpha particles which are charged which makes them easy to handle.The laser ignition method comes from attempts to build thermonuclear weapons without a fission first stage. Very unlikely to ever be a civilian power producing reactor.
Time to give up on Tokamaks for that too. ITER is a nice plaything for plasma physics people and a way for the EU to pour money down the rathole of its expensive welfare schemes.
The several alternate fusion schemes have a pathway to p – B11 fusion.
Shouldn’t we be building thorium reactors while waiting for all this brilliance to pay off?
We should have been building breeder reactors decades ago but they got canned after the three mile island incident. They would have significantly slowed down the rate of radioactive active waste production.
This project has been frustratingly slow.
So, what is the levelized cost/KWh ?
I am waiting for these gadgets to proliferate all over the landscape…
And all it will do is heat water.
Always there is that dream find the engine that can power the world and everything will work out.
Fusion may be possible but for now it is not feasible. Nor does a power grid exist which could transfer all that electrical energy Fusion may generate to power the world.
There already is an engine that powers the world. It is called the Internal Combustion Engine. Is there something else available that can replace the functionality that ICE engines do at the current time? No there is not.
There are however higher efficiency engines based upon better combustion engineering currently in development. Doing more with what already exists is certainly a goal that is achievable in the here and now. Is it a perfect solution to fit all Buzzwords of the modern era? No.
Is it a realistic solution that can act as the bridge until something better comes along? Yes
Is it a place to invest into? Seems to be a ground floor opportunity knocking at the door while everyone else is out looking for a wiz bang solution to repower the World.
Because they made the mistake of building it in France, which has all kinds of rules to slow down workers and work that changes the status quo. This is also a joint country build, so lots of friction there.
Good story here:
Private fusion companies make promises to keep the investors’ money coming in. The promises are EMPTY.
Another problem is that tritium does not occur in nature like deuterium and must be produced – and it won’t be cheap. The latest figures about net energy production is a farce its not accounting foer the total energy needed to power the machine. Like alot of modern ‘science’ the current fusion program is nothing but a welfare system for PhDs.
Speaking for US researchers and even the DOE seat warmers, they’re well aware of how much energy in it would take to make fusion economical. Journalists evidently are not.
Hilarious!!! And in 15 yrs they’ll say it will be ready in 25 yrs… hahaha
The thing is …
If they could create this perpetual motion machine… that would be a total disaster:
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-cheap-clean-energy
There are also other fusion approaches than IEC (Inertial Electrostatic Confinement) which may yet work. Not funded at high levels though.
More than 20 years ago Doc Bussard said that 16 billion had been spent on Tokamaks and we know they are no damn good. I still like his Inertial Electrostatic Confinement idea which needs maybe a few hundred million to validate or give up on.
Unfortunately we have spent 50 years NOT funding at a high rate and developing much better fission reactors and a full fuel cycle including reprocessing. Thorium has huge promise also with much smaller hazardous waste quantities.
Given enough cheap energy hydrocarbon fuels can be synthesized from CO2 and water so oil (or lack thereof) will never be a problem. A much better solution than electric cars and even aircraft (one of the more stupid ideas ever thought of).
Mish, the ITER reactor isn’t perpetual motion. The fusion fuel gets used up. Some more Tritium may be made by neutron capture but you need the Deuterium also.
With fission fast breeders you can make fuel also by converting non fissionables to fissionables. Still not perpetual motion.
Some things are just not possible … in fact most things… try growing a pineapple in Resolute Bay…
And FYI … if we had near free energy … guess what would happen?
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-cheap-clean-energy
Fusion is easy. Our Sun does it every day using just gravity to cram those atoms into each other. We can split atoms releasing the energy that was used to slam them together (gravity). However, it is hard to reverse that process. Get Gravity.
As an engineer myself, I like these articles, so thank you Mish.
Yes, this is a worthy cause (maybe not in France, I’d hate to have France achieve positive net output and have all that “free” energy). The pursuit of raw science should be a government funded endeavor for the benefit of all. Kinda reminds me of when the (R)s de-funded NASA and general research because it wasn’t profitable. We just need to get past the grift that’s ever so present in contractors.
For those down thread, the radiation released by fusion is FAR different than from fission – ie, NOTHING like the same thing. The most dangerous atomic byproducts of fission are from the splitting of those heavy U and Pu atoms. Those atoms simply aren’t present, so there’s little to no radioactive isotopes that we know as harmful from fusion (acknowledging the immediate exposure radiation while the fusion reaction is active).
Ha! Perhaps the UN should focus on building a fusion power reactor instead of wasting its resources feeding the always poor who refuse to use birth control and therefore, keep creating yet more poor people who will always need food handouts?
In a poor society, children are your only pension plan. Such poor people would call your views elitist, complete with deadly consequences. Not to worry though, Your culture and society is dying out so they won’t be contributing to the problem.
Well, then they should stop being poor, which is where they will stay if they insist on having 8-12 kids that they can’ feed or raise. What kind of a pension plan is that?
Reason and forces of earth’s disintegration (Nuclear energy) …. Bertha Dudde 3950
❤️ Mark 12:30-31
I am not aware of any technology developed under the modern R&D era that took longer than 40 years from conception/prototype to market availability that was commercially successful.
Airplane – 1903/~1910
Radio – 1890s/1920
TV – 1920s/late 1940s
Transistor – 1947/mid 1950s
Jet plane – early 1940s/mid 1950s
Even nuclear fission was conceived in the late 1930s. A fission reactor was demonstrated by the early 1940s. The first “commercial” reactors were built in the mid-1950s but they were heavily subsidized.
This suggests that if a technology cannot demonstrate market success within 40 years, it is probably too complex to succeed in the marketplace.
Magnetic confinement fusion development started in the 1950s; laser inertial confinement fusion in the 1970s. Neither are anywhere near commercial deployment.
Any time you have neutrons, you are going to have problems with shielding, material damage and radioactive waste.
I’m not saying that fusion is impossible, just that the current approaches are not likely to lead to a commercially viable power plant. The current approaches might be viable for niche applications such as powering spacecraft.
December 1942, first nuclear reactor.
March 1953, S1W submarine reactor prototype starts up.
May 1953, S1W completes a continuous 100 hour performance test.
“On the morning of 17 January 1955, at 11 am EST, Nautilus‘ first Commanding Officer, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, “Underway on nuclear power.”
Thats what a successful program looks like.
There are all kinds of fusion development projects going on and start-up companies funded by VC’s. Microsoft has a contact with one company to deliver a working fusion power plant to power a data center by I believe 2028.
That company will violate their contract with Microsoft because they will be nowhere near a working fusion power plant. It’s a bunch of nonsense
I’ve long said that we should put together a Manhattan Project style effort for the development of fusion power. Fund it with $100 billion/year. I bet we would have a working plant in 5 years.
I bet we wouldn’t. We’re nowhere near workable nuclear fusion.
Shale oil has been mined worldwide since 1837. In the US, since 1909.
However, the process of “fracking” for shale oil did not begin until the 1970s. It was rarely successful until 2006. Then it took off from 2006 to today.
Today, the process continues to improve to the point where the US produces more oil than at anytime in the past (13.3 mbpd), with fewer and fewer drilled holes. (200 fewer rigs working today than 2 years ago, yet more production).
Worked in the fusion “industry” for many years, here’s some additional context: ITER was set in motion in 1985. Supposedly it will fire its first shot in 2039, but if we extrapolate and account for the anticipated delays, it won’t happen until 2059. The first shot will likely break the machine (crack the enormous vacuum chamber), and release tritium all over the facility. That will then cause another $10 billion to be consumed, and 15 years to fix it. ITER is only supposed to prove a concept, then there is an even bigger boondoggle in the works called “DEMO”, which is supposed to actually deliver power to the grid (perhaps in the year 2100). The cost per kWhr of electricity from these devices will be around $1million, i.e. totally prohibitive. The whole thing is a complete farce.
You have pissed all over the green grooopies parade in downtown DelusiSTAN!!!
What’s needed (I speak from professional experience like you do) is funding for basic physics/fusion research. Not vanity projects like NIF and ITER. We just aren’t there yet.
😉
I could care less because i’ll either be dead or walking around in circles and falling down stairs.
I’m more focused on what happens between now and then.
Kinda like trees we lost and the wife is already talking about replacements. I’m like those trees took decades to get that big forget it i’m not planting a damn thing. She’s like you’re so depressing. I mean I guess if you benefit from some sort of psychology that you now have a tree that will grow and be beautiful some day, even though you’ll never see it, you will be happy. I think she just wants to see me do something.
There are some private projects investing in fussion. May be one of them win, and the ITER will fail.
Folks don’t seem to understand the true meaning of “net zero.”
It means that net-net there is no money left anywhere.
Net – Zero Humans aka extinction
“Fusion will not save the planet anytime soon, if ever.” We have 100-200 years to begin using fusion as a source of power for humans. By that time, our use of oil/coal/natgas will be on the downswing, since the millions of years of ‘free storage’ by plants of the sun’s power, turned into oil, will have been used up in just a few years over a timespan from 1860 through 2200? AD.
Oil stores a lot of energy in a small volume, more energy than any other non-nuclear material. Without any of that black sticky stuff, we’ll be back to just this side of the stone age. We can’t grow all the food we need using horses to pull a plow; you won’t be able to live 30 miles from your job & still commute; we can’t generate electricity at night in calm weather for re-charging our cars. And if you live near a hydroelectric dam, be grateful that your new neighbors haven’t blown it up because you won’t share with them.
The rallying cry for the U.S. presidency in 2148 AD: “FUSE or die”. I know, I’m an optimist. Not for fusion, but that the U.S. still elects our presidents.
The US “selects” their presidents.
The “elects” is only smoke and mirrors.
Nailed it!
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/what-if/
nuclear fission will save us – uranium is abundant
I am surprised you don’t know what the practical applications of fusion power would be. ITER is run by a consortium of something like twenty different countries with the object of exploring the feasibility of producing a self-sustaining fusion reaction. It is expensive but if you are expecting to get fusion power without putting in the means to research it then you are seriously deluded. There are a few other avenues being researched in several different countries because if you can get it to work, the payoff would be several magnitudes of that gained by the civilization’s move to fossil fuels.
“why does it take at least 15 years to do a test of something that is already built?”
Because as new techniques and materials become available they do upgrades obviously hoping that they become closer to the goal.
“How a reactor could produce temperatures of 27 million degrees without the operation melting is likely a puzzle to anyone who has been thinking clearly.”
The particle temperature is in a vacuum and in a magnetic bottle so the hot particles never touche a surface that it could melt.
“Tests of ITER were scheduled for 2020 but have been rescheduled for 2039 with no explanation why.”
They have explained why they have changed the schedule in each report to the shareholders each time they put it off. This is not building a bridge where everyone knows how to do it. This is building something that has never been done using techniques never used before to explore the possibility of harnessing fusion that we know exists and that we have already created but in an uncontrolled fashion.
Let’s look at the cost of ITER to the US taxpayer since it started in 2008. The US part is $3.9 billion dollars since the beginning which amounts to about 12 dollars per American citizen or about 75 cents per year. For that enormous per capita sum you get the possibility of having in the future electricity produced by fusion power as well as valuable research that will be applied to alternative methods for fusion power. I am sure that some would see this as an extreme waste and a person financial sacrifice but why I cannot fathom.
Of course, if you think ICE cars are the epitome of human progress then you would certainly not want to see very cheap safe electricity with basically unlimited fuel come in and ruin everything.
There is a mindset that believes what is in use now is good enough so it is not worth the cost to invest in something that could turn out to be better in the future. It is the bean-counter mentality that only looks at what is and can’t conceive of what could be.
Fusion is nothing more than a technology that would generate the same electricity that we get from any other turbine, or from solar cells. There are no applications for the output that are one bit different than for any other type of electricity generation. The hype about fusion power being any different than any other is errant horseshit. It’s just electricity, no different than any other electricity.
Fusion can produce more power per gram than any other power source in the Universe except maybe Black Holes. Do a little physics and you will understand.
The output is still the same old electricity. No need for a smug physics lecture, just common sense. LOL
Well Jake. Electricity doesn’t grow on trees so it has to come from somewhere. To get output you need input and to get the most output you use the source that contains the most energy.
>>>>>you use the source that contains the most energy.>>>>>
No. You use the energy source that gives the most return on investment for your existing circumstances.
Well, there’s all that inexhaustible quantum vacuum energy to be tapped.
That is only an unproven theory at the moment. Fusion is real and we know how to make bombs using it and it works!
Why not set up bombs and capture the energy?
Fusion bombs give off their energy all at once. ITER and other research projects are trying to find ways to make energy come out little by little.
That’s what they are trying to do, only with very small bombs, one at a time.
It doesn’t matter if it needs more energy than it releases or is too expensive.
Nailed it!
Of course it matters but to get to the point where it is net positive energy, you kind of have to do experiments to get there.
The big win for fusion is that its environmental footprint will be orders of magnitude smaller than any other source of electricity. Fusion fuel is 10x more energy dense even than nuclear fission fuel, and the waste burden is also smaller.
BTW, most people don’t even realize that far more radioactivity is dumped into the environment by coal burning than by nuclear fission, even including Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island…
The answer to pollution is dilution. LOL
Look, if fusion works for generating electricity, fine. But I don’t think it will.
Based on your posts here, it doesn’t seem evident that you have the expertise to make the statement “But I don’t think it will.”!
I am wondering what your expertise is that it enables you to make the claim that it is blindingly obvious that fusion will have a favorable risk/reward in the event that it can be managed at scale.
Or even just that it can be managed at scale I mean the people operating Iter don’t know. They believe they see a path but they don’t know how to manage it at scale. But you say it is obvious.
I don’t believe that the ITER will be the solution. There are other fusion approaches with better prospects.
Here’s a story with some other approaches:
ITER’s ballooning cost and glacial schedule are both 90-99% due to it being “a consortium of something like 20 different countries”.
No one wanted to pay the huge up-front cost, so they agreed to split the cost and divide up the work. That “divided command” approach to a grand-challenge engineering problem has led to most of the delays and overruns. It took years just to get the international agreement together on where to build the thing.
Then, everyone wanted to “own a piece of the technology”, so instead of everyone sending money to the host nation to make it all, each nation was assigned parts to provide. But now you have an integration nightmare, because the parts provided by one nation sometimes (and too often!) don’t fit with those provided by another.
Now consider the inevitable errors and snafus. In a community project, errors get made but no one is really going to get blamed. So no one takes responsibility, and defects and other problems slip through the cracks. Only after installation was it learned that some components aren’t going to meet the real requirements of the device.
Between things that don’t fit and things that aren’t quite right, there’s been a lot of disassembly, repair/replace work, and then reaassembly. But this isn’t an airplane or even a basic nuclear fission reactor. It’s a giant donut shaped vacuum vessel that is threaded through 19 times by those cryogenically cooled massive electromagnetic coils. Taking the whole thing apart and reassembling it takes years!
In the 1990s the magnetic fusion approach was decades ahead of the laser-driven “inertial confinement” approach. Now the laser approach has caught up. Either way it’s still a long time before commercialization.
But if anyone actually wanted commercialization, they would put more serious resources and more effective approaches into the problem. Energy is around 5-10% of global GDP and energy R&D is a significant fraction of that, but very little of that money goes into fusion energy. $22 billion is a lot for ITER, but that’s been spread over 20-30 years. $1 billion/year is utterly inadequate to transform world energy – just ask the green energy folks about that.
With real money, it’d be possible for the lead players to build 5 or 10 national ITERs, try some important design variations, and learn from each other. At this point, those 5 national designs, with compact engineering teams rather than a world consensus council, could even be built before 2039, when The One Reactor to Rule Them All finally turns on (or doesn’t, depending on how many additional delays occur in the next 15 years…).
Actually it is 32 different countries and of course all countries would have access to the results and technology. Could it have been better done? Most certainly. It is an unwieldy structure but at the time the only way to get the money was to have a lot of people on board because the torus design was the most promising but also the most expensive. Today we have much more money going into fusion research and contrary to before, much of it is private equity. Some are scams of course but many other paths are being explored and hopefully one will work out but the research done at ITER will have been important in finding the keys. As I pointed out, the cost is absurdly small compared to the potential payback.
“why does it take at least 15 years to do a test of something that is already built?”
Because if it was tested now, and the results were not sufficiently favorable, the money would dry up. You need to understand how Big Science works.
Big Science can be almost as efficient as having a war in terms of destroying money.
I know how big science works. Sometimes it is hard to shut down a project that doesn’t produce. Sometimes they say we just need something bigger and sometimes like this one, it is not producing but is on the borderline. It could work or not but it is not clear enough for the shareholders to pull the plug. As I pointed out, the cost you are paying for it is miniscule and that is true for all the other shareholders.
That 78 cents you mention as the cost is for seeing if the approach is even worthwhile. If established as having slightly more promising results, many, many more billions will have to be spent over more years to see if even works for humans. Not to produce a meaningful result. Just to see if we can get one.
Yes, but like Mish said there could be many innovative solutions for others problems. Materials Science for one needs investment.
It is similar to the teacher’s unions when the kids test scores are poor.
The foregone conclusion is that the teachers need more money.
There’s an idea. Stop doing science altogether. Then we’ll never invent the weapons that will kill us all. We’ll call it the Buffet Way. “Never invest in anything technological.” All that does is create an engineering arms race that wastes a lot of money investing in research. I recommend we abort all of our technological progress and return to the Stone Age immediately! We’ll probably soon be there anyway when we fire off all of nukes…
Yep. Lisa is one of the truly exceptional dumb f*cks here. She also ”thinks” that she is funny. On Mish’s previous site, I had her blocked, so I wouldn’t have to waste my time seeing the garbage she wrote.
“Heck, I am impressed at what we have already scientifically achieved. But I wonder what is the practical application of this.”
This shows (at least to me) that you really don’t get how science really works. There does not have an immediate practical application. Going after huge problems with what looks like insuperable odds is what advances science. Out of this there will be incredible advances on material science, superconductivity, physics and many more. The same thing you could have said about sending astronauts to the Moon: “what is the practical application of this.”. Well the scientific advances to get people to the Moon and back are still paying off today. And yes to do this, you need (the horror) government money. All great achievements have been financed by the government or its at the time facsimile. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-commercial-tokamak-nuclear-fusion
As for what happens when the containment field fails this is the only thing that I have found:
No risk of meltdown: A Fukushima-type nuclear accident is not possible in a tokamak fusion device. It is difficult enough to reach and maintain the precise conditions necessary for fusion—if any disturbance occurs, the plasma cools within seconds and the reaction stops. The quantity of fuel present in the vessel at any one time is enough for a few seconds only and there is no risk of a chain reaction.
Fusion reactor totally different than fission reactors.
Now at the end of the day while trying to make Tokamak work we may discover other type of geometries that work better and that is perfectly fine. Science advances on the shoulder of failures.
Some examples:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/5-big-ideas-for-making-fusion-power-a-reality
I know damn well how science works.
We have a test in 2039 and supposedly an existential threat underway that supposedly is too late to fix by 2050.
Today, we have practical, believable, information that fusion will not be the holy grail that many hoped for. No more no less.
Do I expect useful ideas out of this whether or not it solves the alleged existential threat?
Yes I do. But that has little to do with the point I was making.
It’s interesting what has been done so far but the question is why “science” automatically gets to stick a snout into taxpayer pockets with evidence provided that success is a long way off. Good productive ideas don’t need funding at the barrel of a gun. Guess we can hang on to petroleum stocks a bit longer.
Geothermal is now becoming inexpensive using horizontal drilling and fracking. It is not subject to sun or wind. Just uses the heat stored in the earth which is available virtually forever.
Geothermal is actually nuclear power. Once thought to be from radioactive decay of elements left over from earth’s formation, there is speculation that there may be some due to fission.
The Earth’s core may have sufficient Gravitational Containment and Gravitation Compression to facilitate fission
No it doesn’t. You need a mass of about 80 times Jupiter’s to get fission and only if that mass is largely composed of hydrogen.
Good to know. Further illuminates the impossibility of man made fission.
Ah, a Jupiter-sized mass of hydrogen for fission…
Oh, wait…
Yes, let’s drill 4000 miles into the hot, steel melting mantle. We’ll use drill bits made of… ah… umm.. unobtainium!!!
Drill into Yellowstone!
A mere $22 Billion over years and years
We just spent TEN TIMES that in under 2 years to vaporize human beings and blow up huge holes in the ground. Ok well we spent it to put clownworld money into MIC shareholder pockets with the tiny tithes it costs to pay off ebil politicians in our evil and thoroughly corrupt government in our now failing empire.
NetZero == Mass Murder
Every person who tries to implement it or who supports it is a mass murderer.
A visual representation of the fusion process at the NIF facility…
How NIF Works | National Ignition Facility & Photon Science (llnl.gov)
ITER is built in Cadarache, France, which probably partly account for high construction costs.
A good discussion about the topic is in the following Youtube.
Covers some of the challenges.
Former fusion scientist on why we won’t have fusion power by 2040:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurplDfPi3U
Mastering a fusion reaction is what kept the Nazis from developing a nuclear weapon. They were going for the gold when they needed the silver.
So let’s say that in 2039 this machine produces more power than it takes to run (and took to build, within say 10 years).
Does anyone think it will produce $22B worth of power? This is the question that needed to be asked before it was built.
Rest assured, if we’re still functioning in a normal-ish society in 2039, there will be other technologies that make this achievement (should it even be reached!) unnecessary, and academic at best.
Good fraction of World GDP is energy production — $22B is negligible.
Example: world oil production is 100M barrels/day at ~$80/b so $8B per day of value.
And for my downvotes, maybe Elon has will turn his attention to it … for Mars if nothing else. As noted, containment is difficult … need for zero G environment (either space of using anti-gravity, magnets, etc). Gov’t investment becomes a jobs programs rather than productive research.
PS – Mishtalk picks some eclectic topics.
If it works (and I don’t think it will — see my other posts here for why) it will be the same as every other new thing. The first one will be hideously expensive, but that won’t matter by itself. The rubber will hit the road when they build the subsequent ones. I do not think it will happen, but the cost of the first one will be irrelevant if the technology performs. Which, again, I don’t think it will.
That’s how progress works.
Almost exactly 21 years ago, I rode the QE2 ocean liner from New York to England. Popped for first class, and met a nuclear engineer in one of the lounges. I asked him about fusion, and he told me that a much bigger problem than getting more energy out than you put in is containing the reaction.
All the world’s steel and all the world’s concrete won’t do it for more than a few weeks, he said, and that steel and concrete will be so radioactive than there will be no protective gear that will allow it to be collected. It was a detailed conversation. I believed him then and still do. Containment is the show stopper.
Well he was entitle to his opinions (and so are you). Keep in mind had you read what Mish posted you would have learn that the fusion material is contained by a magnetic field. Also keep in mind that in case the magnetic field fails and contaminates the physical containment would remain radioactive for about 100 years which is wayyyyyy less than today’s nuclear reactor waste
I do not believe in magnetic containment, or plasma containment. I would love to be wrong, but I don’t think I will be. Containment is THE show stopper.
Gravitational containment is the only thing that works, which is why the Almighty created stars to contain fusion reactions.
How did they do it in Star Trek?
DiLithium Crystals.
That’s what we need!!!! How can we make this happen?
Where is Scotty – surely he can do it!!!
The magnetic confinement will not stop neutrons which are electrically neutral. Neutrons actually change the nucleus of atoms transmuting them into a different element, more often than not a radioactive element.
That can only work in DelusiSTAN … not here in RealitySTAN
Neutrons don’t care about magnetic fields. Those that escape will convert what they hit into radioactive isotopes. More importantly the neutrons will damage the crystal structure of the materials of construction. This will weaken them, and likely embrittle them too.
This is part of what I was told about containment.
So I write a long, thoughtful, detailed comment. I see that I made a single typo. I fix it, and then it becomes spam. God damn it, I gotta say that the software on this site just stinks.
Children playing with matches.
If anything has a chance of killing the planet Earth this would probably be it.
Hopefully they have a strong DEI policy like Boeing to make sure everything gets put together correctly.
Lol
Where is this contraption?
I had the same question. Did we miss something?
France.
No offense Mish but you’re WAY out of your depth here. Fusion is definitely hard, though, you’re right about that.
Fusion simply will not happen, or so I think. Really, even if they solve the EROEI issue (energy return on energy invested), I have seen NO progress on containment. If you think plasma is containment at scale, you are wrong. It simply isn’t, and if anyone has cracked that part of the equation I have not seen it.
I am a native (no longer resident) of the American Midwest, where pragmatism is close to religion and is baked into my lizard brain. So I am in favor of whatever works, both mechanical and cost wise. If there is an angle I have not examined and they make it woirk, I can easily be persuaded. But I have not seen it.
Every few years, I see some announcement on the EROEI front. I stifle the urge to laugh, and dive back into the deep end of the pool. Thus far, all I see is grantsmanship.
We won two World Wars with Midwestern Pragmatism. We will loose the third one without it if we don’t abide.
These experiments reactors do achieve fusion but the energy from the reactions is smaller than what is required to initiate the reactions. And that is before converting the thermal energy to electricity through a steam cycle AND using some of the energy to maintain the plasma as well as run plant equipment.
Correct. After about 70 years, they have still not achieved positive EROEI even on a micro scale. As it was explained to me 21 years ago, that issue pales by comparison to containment at commercial scale. I would love for both of these to be solved, but every time I have taken a close look (every few years) I have seen no evidence that either of those problems are any closer to being solved than they were two decades ago.
I grew up in Ohio Jake.