A massive nuclear fusion experiment just hit a major milestone, potentially putting us a little closer to a future of limitless clean energy.
A massive nuclear fusion experiment just hit a major milestone, potentially putting us a little closer to a future of limitless clean energy.
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.
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.
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
Here learn something
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?
And you think current reactor designs aren’t hard? Seriously? Wow OK end if story for you.
Thankfully casting this stuff is fairly easy. Has this stuff been tested in a SLS printer which would make your machining is hard point absolutely moot?
Tell me you have 0 clue about MSR by telling me they use water. Hilarious man. Try a CO2 heat exchange for the 500c temps the reactor runs at. The only water needed for a MSR is the secondary heat exchange between CO2 and water using a closed loop system.
Find any information bad on the much safer CANDU reactors, MSR are magnitudes of order safer due to not having 900+ psi water acting as a coolant
The limited supply of CANDU is just due to stupid politics/bureaucracy, Ontario has been trying to build a new reactor for the past decade and was nearly canceled under our moronic Liberal leadership at one point
Once again the guy who literally invented both types of reactors favored the MSR design. I’ll take his opinion over yours as he actually worked with the shit leadingntonthe creation of Hastaloy N. Not C233 or w/e you linked.
We have the technology to deal with every problem you have with the MSR.
If gamma ray make it so hard to do anything why did we created cobalt-60?
And to put a cherry on top
I never, ever said MSRs use water. Like, ever. 🤷
Porosity, residual stresses, QA testing, all are significant factors with SLS forming. At no point in trying to discuss this with you in front of everyone has there been anything but an emotionally distressed, incoherent response to provided facts.
Everyone sees your hail Mary at play. Everyone. You are factually naked in front of everyone, trying your best to look competent.
Good luck, silly, I’m going to watch a movie with my kind-hearted girlfriend, and go to my nice well-paying job working on energy systems tomorrow to be a positive contributor instead of dead weight.
Then why did you mention fresh drinking water if MSR doesn’t use it? Oh wait, it can desalinate water with MSR
Yeah Ii want good QA in a reactor, NASA / SpaceX use SLS to aide in manufacturing rockets, if it can handle those pressures I’m sure a 1 atmosphere of pressure in a MSR won’t be much if a challenge for SLS printed parts.
Nothing I have stated is incoherent its just a shitty defense for you not being able to defend your position.
I’m sure you are a “productive member of society” enjoy your day
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.