Nuclear Fusion Coming Soon (Again)

[Ptarmigan]

* scratches head*

How did a thread on IEC FUSION reactors turn into

not so much turn , , ran straight into it by post #3 already !

Scratch my head also whilst you are about it please

I think it is called democracy.

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Oh dear, I dont think that attempt at humour will go down well either ?  sigh.

[DaveS]

Well, the polywell idea has been going a while, I think it was invented / developed by Robert Bussard, yes, *that* R Bussard. Whether you take that as a plus or minus is up to you. There was I rmember reading quite a lot of development work on it until money ran out.

I do hope Skunkworks can make this work. Whether the chap in the video's hope of being able to give it to the whole world pans out is another matter, and discussion probably illegel in this forum, so I won't say any more.

A fusion powered interplanetary ship would be quite something.

[ollypenrice]

I actually live very near to all this fusion reactor technology. (Cadarache.) Hmmmm....

Olly

[Kropster]

A fusion reactor that fits on the back of a truck? With all the cooling gear required for those superconducting magnets?

What remarkably efficient power extraction system can cope with 100MW in that volume?... sounds like the receipe for a bomb!

Believe it when it happens. The Reuters article is very short on technology details.

[Superdavo]

There seem to be a few news articles today that are pointing out the lack of info, but I suppose they'll want to keep the details under wraps for now. Let's hope it's that, rather than it being them not knowing how to do it!

EDIT woohoo! 600th post! :-D

David

[DaveS]

The Aerospace Weekly article is a bit more informative, plus there's a video by, I assume, the team leader.

[Kropster]

It could be the research team just putting out a speculative flyer in the hope of getting funds to continue the project.

The ITER and Laser fusion teams are probably not quaking in their boots just yet.

[DaveS]

So what is the fuel that fusion reactors run on?

Yeah, that's right,

MONEY!

[Kropster]

There seem to be a few news articles today that are pointing out the lack of info, but I suppose they'll want to keep the details under wraps for now. Let's hope it's that, rather than it being them not knowing how to do it!

EDIT woohoo! 600th post! :-D

David

I'd go with the 'not knowing how to do it' bit!

[Ruud]

It's bluff to me until proven otherwise.

I so hope I'm wrong.

[DaveS]

Where IEC fusion and its variants score over the other methods is that it doesn't rely on heating the mixture, since what is required isn't temperature as such but kinetic energy. It's much better to achieve this by accelerating the nuclei through an electrostatic field than relying on the tail end of a Boltzmann distribution.

I hope this method does take off since it looks to be easily scaleable down to local power levels, rather that the two other method which need huge installations.

[Kropster]

I thought it was the temperature that gave the atoms the kinetic energy the need to fuse.

If you accelerate them, won't they all be heading in the same direction and not colliding?

[DaveS]

No, because you apply a radial field, they accelerate from the periphery into the centre, where, hopefully they'll fuse. Any that don't fuse and head back out are returned by the same field.

[Kropster]

Sounds easy enough. Why doesn't it work?

[mijijim]

Hi

   Nuclear Fusion sounds a bit dodgy, I will stick with the Skunk.

                                        mijijim

[DaveS]

It does work. If all you want to do is fuse some deuterium and produce a flux of neutrons all (!) you need is a good vacuum chamber / pump, a high (25-35 kV @ 25 mA) voltage power supply and a supply of deuterium. Heck 14 yr old schoolboys (With help from their teachers) have done it.

If you want usable power out then that's a whole different ball game, which is why we don't yet have fusion reactors powering the grid.

[Kropster]

If you want usable power out then that's a whole different ball game, which is why we don't yet have fusion reactors powering the grid.

So the problem is just making the step from a device which consumes power to one which generates power?

Should be a stroll in the park!

[perfrej]

Don't have time to read the whole thread on the phone, but an interesting development in ship based fission reactors is taking place in Russia. The reactors used in the ice breakers show up in newer versions all the time, each generation feeding on the slightly refined waste of the previous.

Point is, if reactor development was allowed in the west, then perhaps we would not have much waste to store.

I wouldn't be surprised if fifteen years from now they swear about how stupid we were casting all that perfectly good fuel in expensive and difficult to remove glass, burying deep in the caves.

All the best,

Per

[Peter Drew]

Good time to get shares in nuclear waste then.