A massive nuclear fusion experiment just hit a major milestone, potentially putting us a little closer to a future of limitless clean energy.
If we could harness the heat from nuclear fusion here on Earth, we could use it to generate electricity on-demand without worrying about carbon emissions, nuclear waste, or running out of fuel
I don’t want to detract from this exciting milestone. Fusion is an absolute requirement for the complete end of our reliance on fossil fuels and there are no problems significant enough to warrant the end to fusion experiments. However, this statement is definitely not true with tokamak reactors. They typically use deuterium and tritium for fuel, which are limited resources. Fusion reactions are far more difficult with other light elemental isotopes. These reactors also use beryllium as shielding, which is a carcinogen. When the shielding needs to be replaced, it actually is radioactive.
Those are entirely accurate facts, but those downsides are absolutely dwarfed by the upsides to the technology’s potential. It’s like getting your own spaceship, then pointing out that it lacks cup holders.
I agree, fusion reactors will absolutely revolutionize everything, and even if we can’t do better than tokamak reactors, these problems are still pretty mild. I just expect more from scientific journalism
Fusion is a very long term goal and I’m sure they are careful to not tarnish its image. But yes sadly the first commercial fusion reactors probably won’t be sustainable but once they are a reality investment into the technology will be much greater and hopefully cleaner fuels will become a reality.
I remember about 15 years ago I did a school report on fusion power. I remember there was another model than the tokamak that was more complex to set up but had other advantages going for it. Think it was called the stellaradiator or something. Has it been a developmental dead end?
Stellarator
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StellaratorAh yeah that’s the one. Thanks
has it been a developmental dead end?
Nope, there are several companies & universities working on it.
W7x is the latest stellarator to come online, but there’s a new Princeton University startup called Thea doing all the complex geometry and control problems of a stellarator in software.
It’s a neat and elegant idea, engineering-wise. And no matter whose strategy works out, we all win in terms of understanding plasma physics, and possibly unlocking the secrets of the universe.
it may be that the author knew that if that was included their work would be used by your ben shapiro types to proclaim that fusion reactors create substances that are both carcinogenic AND radioactive!!! and can site their article. not saying thats the case, but I could understand such reasoning
I think you are severely overstating the level of knowledge of most journalists. Most science reporting to the public goes like this: journalist hears something, contacts a single scientist in the field, or is contacted by a single scientist. They talk to that person for a few minutes, then write their article. That’s being generous, many simply copy press releases and add their own interpretation.
There are only a handful of decent scientific reporting agencies targeting the public that actually do a good job.
I really appreciate this. It’s important to be aware of all the facts
Deuterium is pretty common, and tritium can be produced by lithium irradiation. They are finite resources, but still much larger than pretty much any existing resource.
It is true that fusion equipment suffers from neutron radiation, however this is a potential for breeding tritium.
Like I said elsewhere, the problems I pointed out are relatively mild in comparison to all the good from fusion energy. However, there’s only approximately 25kg of tritium in the entire world. ITER is expected to use a majority of this world-wide supply. The mass manufacturing of tritium also presents another problem you pointed out with the supply: a super rare isotope needs rare earth metals to manufacture, one that is already in extremely high demand. I love this research and I want to succeed in any way possible. But we have to face reality and the material problems the science has to overcome.
Also, can they be built without fossil fuels ?
weaning off fossil fuels completely is going to be a long complicated process. for now we will need to use fossil fuels to build greener infrastructure.
Possibly. Industrial processes are very energy intense.
For example, melting steel takes a certain amount of energy per mass to liquify, and since you’re trying to liquify it, you need that energy quickly, otherwise it’ll just get warm but stay solid. Nuclear could do it, maybe even wind if all other energy sinks (e.g. houses, apartments, etc) aren’t using too much of that renewable energy when the melt is occurring.
We do our best, but once the process starts, it must be completed no matter where the energy is coming from, otherwise it was just a waste of time and money.
What’s new ? this :
Stepping stone: At 52 feet tall, the JT-60SA is now the biggest tokamak to reach first plasma anywhere in the world — but it likely won’t be for long.
I’d be surprised if they don’t start setting performance records soon. First plasma was a few weeks ago.
Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave!
Well I’m sorry. I’m not Tonny Stark
I’ve read the article and I’m still not clear what the breakthrough is.
They still need to figure out how to harness that plasma, right now its creating plasma but sadly this is the easy part. Extracting energy from that contained plasma will be 100x harder than creating it in the first place. If only we had some other type of reactor that was far simpler and could be up in running and producing electricity for the masses in a relatively short time span…
Taken these smart people and have them work on MOLTEN SALT REACTORS FFS
Ah, I’m glad to see the thorium / MSR bros are still spewing their nonsense after all those years.
And how long have fusion dipshits been spouting their crap? 1938 was the first attempt. Look how far we’ve got so far? There was a working MSR(E) that produced 10MW through out the 1960’s but we are the crackpots. Gotcha…
Oh wow, 10MW, fantastic. Our energy issues are solved!
It was an experiment that was only a part reactor hence the (E) on MSR. They still had to build the “blanket” portion of the reactor.
Also the inventor of the light water reactor which is primarily used across the world and even influenced the CANDU reactors was designed by Alven Wineberg, the same person who designed the MSRE and was in favor or MSRs in general
So then there’s clearly nothing stopping the world from a broad adoption!
Just the fact that the US govt couldn’t make bombs with MSR’s so they cut all funding and this causes people to think the technology doesn’t work when in reality it would destroy current monopolies because it does work and is crazy cheap. Would also allow for these to be built almost anywhere because it doesn’t need water to operate like Light water reactors
Ah, yes, the whole world of the United States of America! o7
I’ll still call you a crackpot, buddy 😊
So you’d argue that fission is a better way to go rather than fusion? I see China has built, but hasn’t activated, a molten salt reactor. Why aren’t they more popular?
Basically, because of where all the thorium is. India would have a near stranglehold on the economy, and they’re already heading into Saudi Arabia part 2 territory.
Yes ignore the fact that fusion has been under development since early 2000’s by how many countries? But point out 1 country working off of partial plans from the 1960’s. Yep that means its a total failure…
If there was as much money put into MSR as fissiob the world would be using them as the defacto reactors seriously what a stupid argument
So I’m not saying one is better then the other because I don’t think I’m informed enough to make that call. I’m just curious about what your opinion is. I honestly just want to see progress made in energy generally.
No, I’ll step in here. MSRs are a boondoggle. I’ll put in a more detailed comment above.
MSRs are a boondoggle, a waste of effort.
What are the claimed benefits? Simplified piping, abundant fuel, self limiting power, etc.
Trivial engineering counterpoints:
- Piping remains extremely complex, the activated thorium becomes U235 eventually, irradiating the hell out of the entire system. How do you change a valve when it gets damaged? You have other valves, and bypasses, and check valves, and…
Piping is simpler. - Abundant fuel… we keep extracting from the Earth, and cutting huge ugly gashes in her. Let’s not.
- Self-limiting power… Some materials are very, very corrosive by themselves. Want to make them nastier? Add energy to them in the form of heat. MSRs use Sodium or Fluorine salts, both of which strongly react with water in the atmosphere, if not the air itself in an exothermic manner. And they do so with a bang, under the right conditions. So yeah, self limiting. But at a very risky cost.
- materials: prior reason also effects material selection. Inconel is expensive, and very damn hard to machine, even with our modern carbide tooling. Materials keep coming along, and maybe that’ll reduce cost. But just like fusion, it’s a maybe.
MSRs: nah.
Extracting energy from fusion: some systems can be solid state. Depending on the process and the inputs, it’s possible to directly extract electrical energy from neutrons crossing a charged grid, and dump that power (after some filtering and such) right into the national electrical grid, no steam needed.
Need to find a working fusion reactor? Look up.
Need to find a working fusion reactor? Look up.
Oh me so smart. Did we creatbthe sun? Seriously bad argument. Best solar panels are only 30% efficient.
Also things that are worth it are hard, and expensive. Look at the average cost of a Light or heavy water reactor. Another moot argument
Yes salts are corrosive but that’s what Hasteloy-N solves along with Inconel
And maintenance can be done by robots as they currently do in current reactors where the radation is so bad humans can’t go there.
You are the worst at this
🤭 Try making clear points instead of mucking several things together, you can do it!
Robots can do the maintenance! Who maintains the hopefully mildly activated bots? How do we ensure mission-critical systems can come back online in a timely manner without lots of expensive redundancy? Have you observed how long robots can survive exposure to intense radiation?
Sorry little guy. MSRs take all of LWR/BWR issues and adds extremely corrosive components into the highly radioactive mix. Try talking to the rest of us when you’re more experienced actually building things that are economically/environmentally contributory.
I’m no longer going to argue with an idiot
Only one of us seems afraid of facts. Adios, gringo.
What facts have you provided? 0
Haha, nice sales brochure 🤡
What do you think is the important information within this?
Fusion reactors will ALWAYS be 30 years away. Not only that they will concentrate energy resources with in the very wealthiest of nations because they are EXTREMELY hard to build and expensive. Molten salt reactors or even light water reactors are the solution too our energy needs. They are available now and the waste can be managed despite the endless fear mongering. Fusion is a waste of time for now. Even fission reactors are wildly expensive to build and you think we as a species can move on to fusion reactors in the near future? Changing mildly radioactive value or dealing with corrosive materials is 100000x less of an engineering feat than achieving cheap and reliable nuclear fusion. The reason it’s not wide spread is because counties love their oil and have fear mongered fission so that little to no research goes that way. Fusion is a pipe dream
Hmm. I see that you’re passionate about resolving our dependencies on fossil fuels. I agree, but as an alternative, there’s a growing consensus amongst us in the energy systems market showing that solar is on-track to becoming the most cost effective source of energy, short term.
Are there downsides to it? Yes. Materials science, the same field creating piping that can theoretically barely resist MSR’s corrosiveness, is also making gains on more efficient solar arrays. Work is also in progress at one of our universities on recycling depleted silicon.
Perhaps fusion is unattainable on earth, for now. Spinoffs and developments out of its research are still quite valuable for us all.
There are many ways to solve this serious danger on the horizon for us all. Fastest, cheapest solution would be collectively reducing energy consumption. But that’s unlikely. Making reactors at scale should be done carefully, as any mistakes will have ramifications for quite some time. MSRs are the least appealing solution as an engineer.
Solar is limited per region and does not provide stable high capacity power. It cannot serve for a base load power source and can’t even be used as a substitute for base power in some regions where it is needed most. Nuclear especially thorium based reactors are proven to work, and have been since the 60s. It is the future for our base line power needs. The only reason we are pulling away is propaganda and fear mongering. It can be dangerous but it is a local danger. CO2 emissions endanger the entire global population and will end modern civilization if we do not switch from fossil fuels.
Imagine using HVDC to distribute energy farther at much lower loss. An upgrade to HVDC would net us about 40% more energy capacity without having to build a single new plant.
Grid-scale storage is being worked on in clever, interesting ways. For example, there are interesting mechanical storage ideas like ARES, using concrete laden train cars to electrically convert kinetic into potential energy, and vice versa.
A hillside, some rails, chains, a motor and some rail cars. All proven tech that we currently depend on for moving goods at low cost of ownership and high reliability.
There are many other clever options. Expand imagination and we can live without long-lived radioactivity.
Sorry to tell you your fist point has been known for over 100 years and is how we have been electrifying the planet. Good thing you’re catching up though!
Second point… Same thing countries have been doing this with water for decades, now were “discovering worse ways” to do the same thing
Ontario Canada has been making 80% of our electricity from our nuclear plants for the past 50 years with 0 deaths and less contamination from radiation and other particulate matter than burning shit to produce electricity. And on top of that we had nuclear plants for making medical isotopes used in all kinds of medical procedures which can not be made any other ways.
Thorium reactors only put out trans uranics that only last 300 years rather than 15,000 and can also desalinate water or capture CO2 from the atmosphere?
Oh and it can use the waste from other nuclear plants that last for 15,000 years to produce electricity and make them degrade in 300 years.
We can make all those type of transport better with clean electricity made in a Molten Salt Reactor
Sure I’ll Open my mind to better ways to make electricty, this includes nuclear
You know, tiny, it’s funny how obvious it is that you’ve decided to actually look up the talking points to parrot now that I’ve actually challanged your low quality arguments. Would you like a cracker?
I don’t generally learn what I need to know from sales brochures, as engineers are hired to find and resolve issues using the truth, dictated by physics and experience in machine shops. Additionally, there are a number of circumstantial issues that fog the translation between theory & reality. Keep up with me, tiny:
https://www.machiningdoctor.com/mds/?matId=5180 shows what we refer to as machinability, a reference number influenced by both crystal structure, and hardness. The low m/min value shows that it takes a lot of time (which is expensive) to machine a final product, be it a pipe, a valve, valve seat, or the particularly expensive heat exchangers.
Let’s continue. What do people like drinking? Fresh water? Hey, you know where we ought to use the limited water supply? In a gigawatt energy storage system! Location needs to be right next to a river, which happens to be right next to a high mesa physically capable of withstanding several million gallons of weight (remember, 8.2lbs/gal of water, tiny). That tremendously limits location. How about problems related to flora and fauna, or the inability to scale the storage plants, or the issues of permeability of the ground, etc? Op-ex on gravity storage systems is almost as low as it gets, and a mechanical system further resolves most pain points, though admittedly adds a few small ones too. Still with me? Stop eating your crayons and pay attention!
Your medical isotopes only come from candu units, which are in limited supply for reasons which are fairly obvious to even tiny intelligences like yours. Very good, we’ve got Canucks doing a careful job with their reactors, though as with any plant, there have been mishaps and questions at other places. Indian point nuclear generating station, 20 miles north of NYC had a serious problem of unknown amounts of tritium leaking into the local water table, as well as the Hudson. The real problem was that after a decade of perimeter detectors going off constantly, nobody at entergy knew what the primary source was! I have direct experience dealing with this. As a single example,[ here’s one of the times it happened.(https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactors/ip/ip-groundwater-leakage.html). And this has kept happening over the years, to what in the industry was referred to as a model plant.
You need to understand that something can be high risk, low likelihood, and that’s still enough of a deterrent to enactment. You’re talking about a system which mixes extremely corrosive elements with high-gamma U232, making for a doubly-difficult to manage system. There are upsides vs b/pwr plants but both myself and professional industry agree that the upsides don’t outweigh the very serious downsides.
I’ll clarify that I am ok-nuclear, but only if nothing else works. Got it, tiny?
Again this works on small scale but does not fit power a large scale modern city and does not scale with our energy consumption needs over time. HVDC Is great when it’s a state away or less but what happens when it’s 2? 3? Four states away? There is still energy loss. Nuclear is long term, energy independence that scales with our energy needs. Nuclear does have long term radioactive but if processed correctly is not really a burden. Untimely it will be a combination of all these techniques that save us but what I’m saying is that for base load power. Nothing right now beat nuclear in terms of convenience, raw power output, energy independence, and reliability. Modern reactors are safe, advanced, and capable of generating more energy than we even consume.
Nuclear power as we know it might be ok but for that reprocessing issue. The Brits finally had enough of a need that they pushed legislation permitting movement of nuclear waste for the express purpose of reprocessing into useable fuel. They have quality trackage, thorough testing of storage cars, and most importantly a well-heeled rail management office, with a lot of power to ensure the rail operators follow the rules, and Dave real consequences when the rules are broken.
Meanwhile, we’ve had that recent large derailment of toxic chemicals in Ohio that I’m sure we’ll be in people’s memory for a while, particularly when we start discussing carting spent fuel around. Currently poor infrastructure in the US? ✔️ Low-value penalties sure to a corrupted political system? ✔️
Look, part of this is more than a technical problem, it’s also a risk management and social contract problem. What do we do about a poorly regulated national rail system? How do we reassure people whose property may be seriously damaged by a potential spill that they’ll be made fully whole again? This applies anywhere we’re doing this, not solely the US.
Things are changing for HVDC, it can in fact be used for national-level distribution backbones with much lower cumulative loss vs an equivalent AC system.
Currently there’s a $10 million grant to figure out how to make IGBT-based VSCs cost less, and based on that alone, it sounds like the US is looking at making that exact backbone, running east to west, with branches running north to south. Local distribution would take advantage of existing AC infrastructure, segmented into smaller subsystems.
The reason fusion is always 30 years away is because that statement is always accompanied with the subtext of 30 years at the current funding rate. Funding consistently decreased for decades as optimism in the tech fades.
However, this decade will be marked with a number of breakthroughs. Last year we achieved the first net energy gain from fusion ever, there are a number of fairly well funded startups with very promising tech, and ITER will be the closest we have ever gotten to a real working fusion plant with (hopefully) large scale net energy
Now is precisely the right the time to increase funding to fusion to push us over the hump into usable power production
It still cost billions on billions to build these prototypes. The working reactors will be the same way. We need cheap easy to access energy now not later. The earth is dying and will continue too if we don’t take immediate action. Build the nuclear plants now keep researching fusion. But we cannot really that a working model will be available to us in the near future
… what do you think the green energy sector is doing?
There is orders of magnitude more funding being sunk into rolling out existing green energy tech than in researching fusion. This money isn’t going towards fission reactors because they aren’t economically viable when compared to other forms of green energy like wind and solar.
For base load it is
Energy storage of solar is promising to be cheaper than nuclear
Nuclear powerplants are very, very expensive when you amortize the commissioning and decommissioning costs into the lifetime expenses. There have been repeated attempts to encourage fission adoption over the last 20 years and almost no new plants are being made because the economics just don’t work.
- Piping remains extremely complex, the activated thorium becomes U235 eventually, irradiating the hell out of the entire system. How do you change a valve when it gets damaged? You have other valves, and bypasses, and check valves, and…
It’s not limitless clean energy. It’s awesome, but technically it still uses water and turbines to turn the heat to electricity. In a world with vastly more electric demand this will eventually lead to global warming as well, because a lot of the heat is released into the environment.
That’s on a totally different scale though ;)
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Do you have a source on the claim that nuclear fusion will lead to global warming? I did a very cursory search and I’ve found articles that talk about how the technology is being exaggerated but all the ones I’ve seen said that it does not contribute to global warming.
Sabine Hossenfedler did a video on the topic: https://youtu.be/9vRtA7STvH4?si=y4_KuLbd1DzKmIX8 Basically, it is an issue humanity will likely have to solve eventually, but nowhere near as pressing as our current problems.
If waste heat becomes a problem then we have been wildly successful beyond our most optimistic hopes. Signs point to that future being an utter fantasy. It’s squarely in the “good problems” category. I wish we could just choose between another order of magnitude increase in industrial output and increasing the temperature of the planet by a few degrees
I’ve seen her videos before and they’re fantastic. I hadn’t seen this one yet obviously. What I took away from this is for right now CO2 is the immediate threat but waste heat will be a problem at some point. If a doctor had a patient with cancer and a bullet wound. He or she will treat the bullet wound before ordering a round of chemo. If I can get all star treky, it sounds like some kind of perfect Maxwell’s demon might be the holy Grail in converting waste heat into free energy. Regardless though the immediate concern should be reducing CO2.
Just be careful. She’s known as a bit of a crank. Physics is happy to accept curmudgeons, but remember that there are more professional, experienced opinions than her’s alone.
For ex, you’ll see she has a video on trans people with some… specious conclusions.
I’ve personally seen little evidence of her being a crank. I’ve seen many claims and they mostly tie to her running a sort of consultation company, but no evidence of her or her firm promoting objectionable ideas. Sure she might oversimplify some topics, particularly economics and sociology. But I think her main critique in the trans video holds up… a lot of the research is poor quality and while not directly the fault of the researchers (although many of them do promote it) it is used to support hypotheses that were never tested.
I understand. Just keep an open mind, even negative people are usually trying to contribute in a positive way the only way they know how.
He’s assuming that making energy cheap and abundant will drive up demand as we find other uses
In a world with vastly more electric demand
Historically this has been true but I’m not convinced. We’ve definitely entered an era where efficiency and low energy are important, and I think that trend will continue
More people will need AC, but AC is becoming much more efficient. The entire fossil fuel supply will be transitioned to electrical …… damn, maybe he’s right. I started thinking in terms of how I used electricity, as an American, and I believe it’s generally plateaued, but consider the vast majority of the globe does not yet live like an American and may want to ….
Yeah at the scale of a Type I civilization probably one that is close to Type II. No reason to worry about it now. And even so we already have tech that can radiate heat into space without it heating the surrounding air.
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