Nuclear Fusion Coming Soon (Again)

[D4N]

Testing the failure modes of any power station is critical, even a wind turbine will explode with the potential to kill anyone nearby if it over speeds and fails to shut down. A fission reactor really ups the anti though as it can cause wide spread devastation.

The problem is that the systems are incredibly complicated and things can be overlooked.

Then there are hidden faults, such as a piece of standby equipment that doesn't raise an alarm when it fails while not in service.

It is also a problem if someone does maintenance without understanding the full implications of what they are doing. For example isolating a power supply to repair a non essential piece of equipment not realising that this is also a backup supply for an essential piece of equipment. If the main supply then fails it's disaster time.

Nuclear fission isn't just an accident waiting to happen it's one that's happened multiple times already.

An alternative would be warmly welcomed (except by the oil majors who probably have dozens of plans for functional fusion reactors they are keeping locked up).

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[Superdavo]

On the subject of reactor failure, I wonder how bad a meltdown (is it's called that) of a fusion reactor would be, compared with fission. I'd guess that it would be a bit more explosive, but perhaps not leave behind the same radioactive waste?

David

[Ruud]

A fusion reactor has only a small amount of gas inside. I don't think that contains enough heat to even melt the vessel.

Once the gas escapes from its magnetic confinement, the fusion stops, the heat production stops and the reactor begins to cool down.

It takes an active effort to maintain the fusion process anyway. No meltdowns.

[DaveS]

It looks promising. Of course the variants on IEC fusion don't need to heat the plasma, since the velocity of the accelerated ions does the job that thermal energy does much less efficiantly.

The "other fuel" that the artical mentions is, of course the ¹¹B /¹H aneutronic fusion-fision reaction which produces only helium nuclei which need only be deccelerated through an electric field to extract energy.

The big problem with this is the insane temperature that would be needed in a thermal regieme. This can be more easily effected by IEC fusion.

And as has been suggested would make a brilliant interplanetary (Or even intersteller) drive

[Ptarmigan]

Weren't the same magnetics bottles tried before? I remember so,

Yes, Zeta, see earlier,

ah! you were being rhetorical !

My  [ ] inclusion to wikip :

" In 1947, Cockcroft arranged a meeting of several Harwell physicists to study Thomson's work [ on magnetic containment and pinch effect ], including Harwell's director of theoretical physics, Klaus Fuchs. Thomson's concepts received a chilly reception, especially from Fuchs. "

And we all remember ( ? ) Fuchs and who he was working for who then went on to develop the tokamak.

[laser_jock99]

Nuclear waste should be concreted into blocks and dumped into the deep ocean subduction trenches.

[Zakalwe]

I'd like to see how they are going to get 100Megawatts of heat out of a vessel the size of a truck.

[JamesF]

Someone said of the debt situation that the western(-ised) world finds itself in at the moment that it was tantamount to "stealing from one's grandchildren".  I struggle not to feel the same about power generation by nuclear fission.  It's not just the people in whose back yard you dispose of the waste.  It's their grandchildren's.  And their grandchildren's.  And a hell of a lot more generations beyond that.  I accept that our current (hah!) hunger for power pretty much mandates power generation by fission unless we can rein ourselves in far more than is realistically likely, but the idea of leaving a problem behind for hundreds of generations is something that really doesn't sit easily with me.

James

[Ptarmigan]

Nuclear waste should be concreted into blocks and dumped into the deep ocean subduction trenches.

To reappear a 'short' time later, or should I say a few half-lives later, in volcanic plumes, vents, whatever, that usually surround those regions of Olly's back yard

Not to mention the geysers* and roman baths, other ground waters :)

* I do love the various pronunciations of this

[JamesF]

It's not quite so easy to tow the entire site of a decommissioned reactor off to a subduction zone and sink it, either

James

[Ptarmigan]

Someone said of the debt situation that the western(-ised) world finds itself in at the moment that it was tantamount to "stealing from one's grandchildren".  I struggle not to feel the same about power generation by nuclear fission.  It's not just the people in whose back yard you dispose of the waste.  It's their grandchildren's.  And their grandchildren's. 

I return to my previous statement that the waste that has been generated since the '40s & '50s is easily contained in insignificant quantities in small tanks.

More : the waste that was generated in those inefficient and hastily constructed machines ( cos of the cold war and haste etc) was considerably more than is now being generated by new facilities. The legacy waste far far exceeds new waste and is contaminating the present debate.

The big problem with my use of the word 'significant' revolves around the use of 'future generations'.

Assumption 1 -

they will be as competent, or more with hope and good reason,  than us = no problem

2  -  they will be less competent because of some catalysmic regression to the stone age a la John(s) Wyndham/Christopher = big problem if one thinks that a resultant stone age technology could break in to a steel and concrete sarcophagus.

The dangerous bit is if we bury the waste in geological difficult terrain,

better to keep it , those teensey weensy bits, where we can manage it  ( which we can not do with all the billions of tons of carbon until we invent artificial trees )

[Ptarmigan]

It's not quite so easy to tow the entire site of a decommissioned reactor off to a subduction zone and sink it, either

True !

But to be fair, tisnt the entire site that would need to be

You can extract the worst bits to a geological inactive place ( not a subduction zone ! ) or run it up a space elevator and shoot it off into the sun !!

Or you can encase the whole lot in steel and concrete with a "Keep out" notice. If we persist with the "Wyndham" scenario one would hope that they can still read ??

[JamesF]

run it up a space elevator and shoot it off into the sun !!

This is something that had crossed my mind.  I couldn't decide what might actually happen to the material though.  My best (for values of best that might not be very good at all) current guess is that it would melt/burn and then perhaps be blown back out into the solar system by the solar wind?

James

[JamesF]

We will of course need to keep some nuclear material about in case Bruce Willis has to save us from an impending meteorite impact.

James

[Ptarmigan]

Larf !

I was about to ref you to BrianCox and his magnum opus on the solar wind aka rejuvenating a failing sun

( all will remember his consultancy ? )

then you disolve me to fits with Bruce !

I think the best way will be to run it all up ( or down ? )  a half built space elevator (aka tether) then when it gets to the top (or bottom?), cut it and do a David , , ,

Oh I forgot to say, hope I still have edit time :

"it would melt/burn and then perhaps be blown back out"

not as bad as the sun already throws this way ?? I wonder ?

[Zakalwe]

 or run it up a space elevator and shoot it off into the sun !!

Going to be waiting a while for that scheme to take off...

Costs to Low Earth Orbit averaging at something like $17,000 per Kg. To get it into an orbit that would intersect the Sun would cost a magnitude (or ten!) more. So we can rule that out, even if we had the heavy lifter capability (which we don't).

By 2030 the UK will have 260,000 cubic metres of intermediate level waste and about 3,000 cubic metres of high level waste. That's a whole lot of launches!

[laser_jock99]

To reappear a 'short' time later,

Would take a few (tens of) million years to re-appear through geological processes by which time it would be dilluted to backgruond levels. We would just be returning these atoms back to the rocks whence they came from.

Be aware that the Earth is one BIG radiactive rock! http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n9/abs/ngeo1205.html

[D4N]

Well a lot of the waste is recycled, no need to fire all of it into the sun

The Americans have spent a fair amount of money designing future proof hazardous waste containment. Basically burying it deep underground, sealing it in and leaving warning signs designed to last for as long as the waste will be hazardous. Hieroglyphics and the like so they can be understood with no basis of modern language.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[Ptarmigan]

Be aware

Yes, I know !

I was trying to keep it a bit light for fear of being moderated

"Hieroglyphics"

yep, if they, our heirs and whatsits are as incompetent as the victorians then

yup

I conceed

yelp

I submit

but heck they wont need rosetta stones, they will have punched tapes and terrabyte drives , , , will they not , , , demonic laughter , , ,

[Alien 13]

I look forward to another Nuclear age i have allways thought of waste as another future resource that we dont have the tecnology to use yet.

Alan

[Ptarmigan]

Would take a few (tens of) million years to re-appear through geological processes

Yes. If the right subduction zone was chosen

but given our competence to choose the right to fly with a fever, should we be palying tombola ?

I think we should keep our nuclear waste up here where our more capable children can look after it ! ?

Hmmm, I think I have just destroyed my argument to manage nuclear waste,

corollary is that we have no more competance to mange fossil fuel waste,

we ARE DOOMED, DOOMED !

especially so because of the decrease recently in the price of oil because of USA on stream frak (and shale)  oil etc ( who rememembres Sheik Yamani and the '70s now  - - even more demonic laughter ! )

[Dave In Vermont]

When I first read about this the other day, I envisioned Fleishman & Pons tripping over a cord and falling into a bathtub holding a running fan...

I remember, back in the late 1960's, a professor from CalTec was visiting. He was extolling the virtues of nuclear energy and how we would all soon be driving cars with reactors in them. I asked him if a collision with another car might not cause a critical-mass and subsequent nuclear explosion. He had no comment.

Thus far, regards nuclear power, the Japanese are the only folks to have built a breeder-reactor using plutonium 239. The cooling system used molten sodium metal. And this they built to generate electricity. How smart was that?

Clear Skies & Get Out the Lead Suit.....

Dave

[Ptarmigan]

When I first read about this the other day, I envisioned Fleishman & Pons tripping over a cord and falling into a bathtub holding a running fan...

I remember, back in the late 1960's, a professor from CalTec was visiting. He was extolling the virtues of nuclear energy and how we would all soon be driving cars with reactors in them. I asked him if a collision with another car might not cause a critical-mass and subsequent nuclear explosion. He had no comment.

Thus far, regards nuclear power, the Japanese are the only folks to have built a breeder-reactor using plutonium 239. The cooling system used molten sodium metal. And this they built to generate electricity. How smart was that?

Clear Skies & Get Out the Lead Suit.....

Dave

nice one but sadly, no

a critical mess but not a mass.

a bit of a fizz , a tweak of the devil and a heck of a clean-up depending on what you thought the average '60s car was capable of without a containment !

Errr, Dounray, north independent republic of scotland as Nicola would wish (is that too politic ?!)

did sodium and breeders years ago. Not long after Chapel Cross was opened to the public and was promulgated on posters therein.

(was soon withdrawn and not mentioned for a long time after )

[Ptarmigan]

Oh ! now I am not normally one for coonspracy theories but there is a sad lack of WikiP entries on Dounreay
"Upper Dounreay formed part of the battlefield of the Sandside Chase in 1437."
who cares !?
Ah ! "Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment was established in 1955 primarily to pursue the UK Government policy of developing fast breeder reactor (FBR) technology. "
 erewigo , :-
"The third and final UKAEA-operated reactor to be built on the Dounreay site was the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR). PFR was a pool-type fast breeder reactor, cooled by liquid sodium "
Gosh 60y on I still remember somefink !
 

PS

dont ask me about the submarine fleet of that era, agin I know noffink !

there are hints in the Dounreay entries.

[DaveS]

* scratches head*

How did a thread on IEC FUSION reactors turn into something about containing FISSION waste?

A fusion reactor does not contain enough material to go bang, neither is the fuel of any use at all to terrorists, you cannot make any kind of fusion bomb with the DT mix (You need lithiun deuteride for that), even the tritium is in very small supply and wouldn't be stored in any great quantity (It's made on site from a lithium blanket around the fusion vessel). The waste is just plain helium. The vessel and suroundings will become redioactive from the neutron bombardment, but that's known technology.

Should we ever gat as far as proton - boron fusion then there's not even radioactive material from the reactor, since the reaction doesn't prooduce any neutrons, the only form of radiation that can make anything else radioactive.