Amateur Scientists Seek Fusion Reaction 401
ElvaWSJ writes "A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans — fewer than 100 worldwide — are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home. The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television, from the 1960s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."
Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Funny)
Because for every hobbyist who builds one of these hoping to get more power than they put in, there's someone in the background playing a violin...
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think you can call the gasses in the solar core loose. There are also some pretty awesome magnetohydrodynamics involved. In the end almost every high-energy photon produced will spend a looong time bouncing around the core (I've heard estimates of up to 50 million years) being absorbed and re-emitted ensuring that much of the energy stays in the core.
Actually it is that last bit that probably does it, the large quantity of emitted energy that ends up being recycled to maintain the reaction. That is
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Informative)
For those who may not know how a fusor works...
You need to get hydrogen to slam into each other very hard to have fusion. One traditional way to do it is to make a magnetic "bottle" to contain everything. This is hard to do, because the gas does not like to be compressed, and can squirt out the edges if your field is not incredibly strong and consistent. This is kind of like squeezing a hand full of jelly. This is the "traditional" approach. See HERE [wikipedia.org].
A fusor, on the other hand, takes a different approach. It uses a static electric field. The theory is that, if you ionize the hydrogen, it has a positive charge. So, you put it in a roon with a large electric charge. The hydrogen will accelerate towards the negative-charged region and keep on going all the way through. Once it passes through, the negative charge is behind it, so it starts to slow down, and eventually reverse direction and go back to the charge again at high speed. If you get enough ions doing this, eventually some of them will hit head-on in the middle with enough velocity to fuse. Simple, no? Pretty pictures available HERE [wikipedia.org].
There are only two problems. The first (and most serious) is that the region of negative charge is usually created by a bunch of wires welded together in a soccer-ball shape. You put a strong negative charge on the wires, and you have an instant negative region of space to attract the hydrogen ions. This works well, but some of the hydrogen ions hit the wires of the ball itself, which rob the entire system of energy. Those ions have to oscillate thousands or millions of times through that region before they, by chance, happen to hit another ion. If the ion hits the wire before hitting another ion, then it's purpose in life has failed. If there was only a way to create a static electric field without those pesky wires.
The other (less serious) problem is, even if you achieve over-unity energy, how do you extract energy from a system like this? The most obvious answer is heat (steam turbines, etc.), but the system (and those little wires) can only take so much heat before melting. Fusors (if I am not mistaken) are very good at producing neutrons, helium, and maybe X-rays. It is pretty hard to get energy out of those.
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:4, Interesting)
Excellent explanation. I'll take it one step further.
Recently, there was a rather famous Google Talk by the founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corp, a DARPA funded energy research company. They built a series of fusors using "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement", which eliminated the wires using an array of electrical coils. This research appeared quite promising, but the project was shuttered for political and budget reasons.
-ellie
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Polywell attempts to combine "the best" of both types of fusion reactors, as it tries to set up a "magnetic bottle" that can contain an electric charge that does pretty much the same thing as the Fusor in terms of trying to confine the nuclei of fusible atoms. Since the electrons creating the electrical field are contained in a magnetic structure instead of a physical metallic structure, it solves two things at once:
Still, there are a number of other issue and things unique to the Polywell that raise questions if that line of thinking will actually produce energy as well. Some detractors of the Polywell think that some of the energy losses from its design may still not get past the break-even point, but that remains to be seen in practice.
What you've written here, harrkev, is a good introduction to the topic. Thanks for putting this together!
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gah!
gravity energy?
Gah!
the energy comes from changing hydrogen into helium. Gravity is not needed for fusion.
Hmm... I wonder which people would prefer to have, 10 square killometers of expensive solar pannels which have to be replaced regularly and block all the light from the ground below them making it useless for much else or a single reactor burning a remarkably clean fuel we have in almost unlimited quantities.
Jungle? (Score:4, Informative)
expensive solar pannels which have to be replaced regularly and block all the light from the ground below them making it useless for much else
Well, Arecibo radiotelescope opponents said the same and, lo and behold, under the reflector panels there's a bloody jungle.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, you are fusing two atoms together to create a larger atom. Gravity plays no part in this reaction. The resulting atom has less mass than the initial atoms, and the excess mass is converted into energy. E=mc^2 and all that.
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no, no. Seriously. It's a limitation of the design, not the idea of a fusion reactor.
Bussard's "whiffleball" reactor design looks promising, and there are a few others which may succeed, but building one of those which will actually generate power is (unfortunately) financially out of the reach of any mere hobbyist.
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
...but building one of those which will actually generate power is (unfortunately) financially out of the reach of any mere hobbyist.
Right! Which is pre-cise-ly why mere hobbyists were totally unimportant when steam engines were superseded by explosion/electric engines, when electricity superseded town gas, or when heavier-than-air craft superseded dirigibles, or when modern biochemicals/genetics/pharmaceutics took off after the '70s. And to the whole transistor -> chip -> microcompting discontinuity thing.
No 'amateurs' there, no sir-ee. No bycicle mechanics either. Or cofee plantation heirs engineering in Paris. Nooo-sir !
What's more, personal fortunes were much greater and lives-of-leisure more common (and acceptable) in those days than in our own more proletarian and democratic (or board-cratic) era.
So its quite improbable that anyone nowadays will have enough money and free time available to turn these 'hobbies' into 'serious' research. No free time. No wealthy patrons. And resistance is IR^2, damn!, I mean : futile. :)
No, it's about scale (Score:5, Insightful)
Now look at a float glass plant, a steel continuous casting and rolling mill, or any likely practical fusion design. They simply do not work at small scales, therefore they cannot be developed by cottage industry.
Re:No, it's about scale (Score:4, Insightful)
I would agree that the tokamak reactor is something that simply won't work on a small scale... and seems to be the current darling technology for mainstream physicists who are working on fusion technologies.
With the billions of dollars spend in that direction, it should speak volumes that this is a dead-end technology.
As far as a practical fusion device that can generate more energy than it takes to get the fusion process started.... that is indeed a tough challenge. The IEC hints that it may not have to be as complicated as the tokamak reactor design, and the IEC at least allows an amateur scientist to study this concept where actual real fusion is taking place... admittedly on a small scale.
As far as steel fabrication and manufacturing, I happen to know a few amateur blacksmiths that get pretty good at what they are doing, and can make some rather incredible things. It isn't quite on the scale of a major steel fab plant, but there is room for amateur metallurgy and glass fabrication that can work on the scale of an individual or small-team level. That economies of scale are there, no doubt, but it can be done on a much smaller scale than you are implying here. The rest is how you scale that production up to larger quantities and ensuring more consistency in terms of the end product.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So, the Wright brothers should not have been able to invent the airplane because they were incapable of building a Boeing 747 in their little cottage?
FAIL.
You can build a perfectly working airplane that fits on a kitchen table. Granted, it might not transport a person, but it's otherwise completely functional and airworthy.
Next?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, orders of magnitude have this way of piling up, and when they do so, it matters.
So, you need offsetting orders of magnitude: money, brains, luck, or some combination thereof.
I've worked with fusion researchers; some of them were jerks, but all of them were pretty damned smart. They didn't have much money relative to what they wanted to do, but they were spending lots more than any hobbyists are.
That leaves luck. Somebody might just happen on something that others could have thought of, but didn't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's a matter of budget. If these older fusion reactor designs could have been tweaked to produce usable power, it would have been done by now by researchers who do have sufficient funding. Many national governments would be extremely interested in this, as would many private companies. I think it's pretty safe to assume that after all these decades, if people haven't figured out how to make these reactors produce power, it's just not going to happen.
This doesn't mean no one will ever make
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would have to agree with you to a perhaps much more limited extent:
The fusion design that has been getting all of the attention is the Tokamak design, where all of the billions of dollars and thousands of professional engineers and physicists have been working toward. After all of the money and decades of research, I think it is fairly safe to say that this line of research is at or very nearly at the end of the road in terms of what else they are going to learn from it.
If you compare this to computer technology, it is like trying to build a full modern computer using vacuum tubes in logic circuits. You ended up with monster computers like the ENIAC or UNIVAC that worked, but pushed the technology right to its edge and demonstrated that something else was needed in order to significantly scale down the complexity of the design.
What is needed for fusion research is to find the equivalent of a semi-conductor solution that can significantly reduce the size of the needed components and allow a major break-through in terms of efficiency and power output.
Just as semi-conductors haven't completely replaced vacuum tubes, any new breakthrough in fusion power generation will have to come from some place completely different.
It should be noted that the IEC reactor (aka the "Farnsworth Fusor") is something that has only recently been explored to any major extent, and even this is only by mostly amateur researchers. It certainly isn't something that a complete knowledge of the technology has been obtained about, nor have there really be "decades of research" on the concept.
The Polywell reactor is a direct descendant of the IEC, and there may be other similar kinds of designs. Bussard even gives credit to Philo Farnsworth and his research, and goes into what the actual limitations of the basic IEC design might be as well as noting how the Polywell design tried to overcome some of those limitations.
This certainly isn't a scientific well of ideas that has been exhausted.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So, I'm having trouble figuring this out, and would appreciate some help. Are you an asshole, or just a moron?
Re:Can a String Theorist? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just the law of the conservation of energy and matter... energy or matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
That not what happens, E = mC^2, so a little tiny spec of mass can be converted into a great deal of energy with no change in the total E * m of the system. With these fusor they'll never get past break-even because the containment fields require more energy to maintain than the reaction releases; think of it as changing electricity into neutrons with the fission as an intermediate step rather than a power source.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No string theory needed. The reason it takes more power than it produces is that the fuel collides with stuff other than just other fuel, like anodes and cathodes needed to make the fusion happen.
whatcouldpossiblygowrong (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone remember the "radioactive boyscout"?
David Hahn to make his own reactor (breeder, i think). He accumulated quantities of radium and tritium from smoke detectors and lantern mantles in a shed. The DOE had to lock down his parents whole house and yard to clean it up.
David Haun [wikipedia.org]
Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong (Score:5, Informative)
Hahn was arrested [nwsource.com] last year for trying to steal smoke detectors from his apartment complex.
Judging from his mugshot [blogspot.com] he looks to be suffering the effects of radiation exposure.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That does actually appear to be him in the photo. Notably (according to wikipedia), he has refused testing and medical treatment for radiation poisoning on many occasions.
Re:whatcouldpossiblygowrong (Score:4, Insightful)
What he is doing is real science. All the time you see arguments that people should believe in Science because it's real and tested, and that you shouldn't believe the bible because it's just a book. But how do many scientists operate? They read stuff in books and believe it. Do they do the experiments themselves to verify the science? Or do they just read in a book about somebody else who did an experiment?
Then you get somebody like this who gets out there and does his own experiments, actually tries things out to see what happens. He's a real scientist. So if you wanna be a scientist, get out there and do some experiments! And if you want to believe the bible, do some bible experiments! Try reading a book, and doing what it says, and see what happens. Real science.
Re:Smoke detectors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are correct about exceeding critical mass, but keep in mind that simply having a supercritical mass is still a long way from having anything that will do anything spectacular like explode. A supercritical mass would be much happier to simply melt itself (and everything it's in contact with) into a molten and highly radioactive goo. It can take a long time for this to happen if the mass is not far above critical, plenty of time to disassemble or disable it.
Not to say it's particularly safe, either, you'll probably die of radiation poisoning not too long afterwards, like the two scientists who accidentally let the "demon core" go supercritical [wikipedia.org] back in the 40s.
Amateur Scientists Seek Perpetual Motion Device (Score:5, Funny)
Good article.
Michelson (Score:5, Informative)
" The designs are based on the work of Albert Michelson, co-proponent of luminiferous aether theory, from the 1890s."
It's worth reminding people that, whatever his original views of luminiferous aether, Michelson was one of the great experimentalists of the 19th century and his name is most firmly associated with the experiment that's widely credited with experimentaly destroying the credibility of aether theories [virginia.edu].
(It's still possible to come up with aether theories even with the Michelson-Morley results (and the results of hundreds of other people who replicated and refined that result), but it's much more difficult, and the resulting theories end up rather hard to credit.) I assume that the original use of the word "proponent" was a typo).
Re:Amateur Scientists Seek Perpetual Motion Device (Score:5, Insightful)
*Arapidlyspinningblackholesayswhat?
Re:Amateur Scientists Seek Perpetual Motion Device (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't "gain free energy", but you can transfer energy from say, a planet, to say, a spaceship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_slingshot [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not free, when you consider the bigger picture. There's energy used getting the water up to the starting point (heat, etc), the difference is that we're not paying for it directly.
In a more-or-less closed system, like a solar system, you don't get free energy from gravity.
Re:Amateur Scientists Seek Perpetual Motion Device (Score:5, Funny)
That's funny. I usually waste my mod points modding down posts that start with variations on "Go ahead and mod me down." I guess this is your lucky day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've never actually heard anything suggesting Michelson believed in luminiferous aether
Let me help:
Delta-V, Delta-T, Albert A. Michaelson
Wanted to find out why light moved so brisk;
Needed a much bigger
Interferometer;
Back to the drawing board,
can't get the drift.
-- sorry, remember the quote but not the attribution.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
All known hydrogen fusion reactions produce strong neutron fluxes. Strong enough to kill, and death by radiation poisoning is not my idea of a fun time.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, different strokes for different folks...
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Homemade fusors are not likely to have really dangerous levels of neutron radiation.
The principal danger in fusors is X-Ray radiation. It's produced in generous amounts and can kill you just as good as another types of penetrating radiation.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
So don't forget to wear you film badge. Because nothing says safety like a device that can tell you after the fact that you've received a fatal dose of radiation
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
Every hobby has its hazards. Building a fusor is probably safer than, say, mountain climbing. In both cases, you could die a nasty death if you're not careful. Serious practitioners are careful.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
All known hydrogen -hydrogen fusion reactions produce strong neutron fluxes. Strong enough to kill, and death by radiation poisoning is not my idea of a fun time.
There, fixed that for you.
The holy grail for Polywell fusors is proton-(11)Boron fusion [wikipedia.org]. Aneutronic, and generates alpha particles which are almost trivially easy to convert to electricity.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
Shoot, I just spent all this time building a Farnsworth fusor for nothing.
there was a high school kid (Score:4, Interesting)
who built a tabletop farnsworth reactor a few years ago
its technically challenging to build one of these, but not beyond the skillset and material list of a committed and persevering amateur science buff
however, saying that once you build one you can work towards self-sustaining fusion is like saying after playing with legos you can go build a pyramid. well yea, you have the conceptualization down, but you still need to move heaven and earth and invest trillions
having said that, what these guys are doing is still important in terms of awareness and getting the good word out. we NEED fusion power. to save us from pollution, global warming, petrodollar funded russian neoimperialism and islamic fundamentalism, etc.
and one of these guys just one day may provide the mental spark to get working a real breakthrough in the field, or inspire a kid somewhere to wonder in awe, and he grows up to provide that mental spark of a breakthrough. anyone who doubts that is just way too jaded
so i salute you amateur fusion researchers
keep hope alive
Re:there was a high school kid (Score:5, Insightful)
having said that, what these guys are doing is still important in terms of awareness and getting the good word out. we NEED fusion power. to save us from pollution, global warming, petrodollar funded russian neoimperialism and islamic fundamentalism, etc.
We have plenty of fusion power.
We've got a 1.989e30 kg fusion reactor producing approximately 386 billion billion megawatts of power.
We just don't harness it very efficiently at the moment.
Not power generators (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite the fact that this is a link to a non-technical publication's website, the Farnsworth Fusor [wikipedia.org] is a real fusion device and works basically how they describe it. What it is not, however, is anticipated to ever be a viable power source, and there are significant theoretical hurdles to prevent it from being viable relative to other approaches (and when you make any kind of fusion reactor seem plausible in comparison, you're probably not going anywhere). In my experience, most hobbyists are well aware of this and just enjoy the tinkering.
The primary functions of a fusor are 1) Generate neutrons 2) Look really cool 3) Kill you with extremely high voltages if you screw up.
Why didn't they mention the polywell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Focusing on Farnsworth fusors in an article written in part about fusion as a possible energy source seems as poorly researched as writing about steam engines in an article about internal combustion. The polywell [talk-polywell.org] seems be the heir apparent for serious work in energy out of the fusor lineage.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was wondering exactly the same thing. In my view the Polywell is the most interesting thing going on in fusion research these days, and it's a direct descendent from the kinds of devices these hobbyists are building.
Philo T. Farnsworth (Score:5, Interesting)
.
Best book [eht.com] on the early days of television that I have read. The above quote is from page 126.
Fusors are Old News (Score:4, Interesting)
As the summary acknowledges, the fusor has been around for a while. If it were theoreticly possible to get net power gain, don't you think it would have been tried?
I doubt many of the people experimenting with the fusor are seriously trying to get net power gain. It's useful as a neutron source. Thus, you could make isotopes with it. That's rather scary, and something that I'm sure a lot of people would not want advertised; but it's also common knowledge for anybody who has an interest in nuclear science.
Bring on fusion! (Score:4, Funny)
I can't fucking wait for the day cold fusion arrives and we get to tell all those assholes in the middle east "Hey heres a fusion reactor that lasts for a century and costs $500. We'll no longer be needing your oil"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right! No plastics, no chemicals, no lubricants !!!
Idiot!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right! No plastics, no chemicals, no lubricants !!!
Idiot!
All these can be manufactures from just about anything with carbon and hydrogen. It just takes energy, so as long as there's oil to be pumped, it's cheaper to use the oil. It would even be possible (though not worth it) to manufacture stuff equal to crude oil.
And then of course there are oils directly from plants. This might be a big thing in the future, when genetic engineering makes it possible to design plants to produce oils with desired properties and desired extra chemicals in them. After all, protein
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And why would you need oil if you have enough energy to synthesize any hydrocarbon of your choice on an industrial scale ?
WMD (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, a small subculture of amateur neoconservatives are building working homemade tanks, fighter jets and cruise missiles in order to seek out and destroy these Weapons Of Mass Destruction before its too late and a mushroom cloud appears in somebody's basement
Cheering the big booms (Score:4, Interesting)
"before its too late and a mushroom cloud appears in somebody's basement"
I for one cannot wait for the moment one of those amateur fusion tinkerers vaporizes his own house in one humongous boom. I'll be there and cheering when it happens.
Do you know why ?
Because it'll signal the end of a whole era. Have you followed the research domain of LENR/CANR - formerly known as "cold fusion" - over the years, for example ? There you have thousands of labs all around the planet making endless refinements and taking almost infinite precautions so they make the most impossibly-deniable measurement of some excess heat when electrolyzing half a pint of water.
This is madness ! That kind of exercise in pointless "due process" is an incredible waste of time ! That's at best undergrad routine, it should be reserved for the time when LENR/CANR/LANR/whatever-it-is makes it to mainstream acceptance, and be funded with leftover budget while the big names focus on the Big Things like earning a Nobel rewriting our understanding of chemistry and building net power generators and licencing the tech all around.
What those guys really need to build acceptance and make a true breakthrough is one of them to go in a huge boom that razes a whole wing of the electrochemistry department building, a boom so big no one can pretend with a straight face that the excess energy in the beer-mug-sized jar was just a measurement fluke. A large fireball rising amidst flying debris and thunder ! What better pan-in-the-face demonstration of useable excess energy or net power gain can you wish for ?
How many brilliant chemist careers were started by exploding hydrogen-filled balloons and/or dumping raw sodium metal in water ? This is what we really need: more big booms for science's future ! More awe in the eyes of the passers-by ! Nuclear technology did not build such a pervasive recognition in the mainstream throughout the 50s by merely splitting some atoms inside a heavy graphite box, but by expanding radioactive mushrooms of fiery hell to the stratosphere !
As others have said ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone building these expects to ever have a net power output from them -- that's not the point. The point is to be able to say you built a fusion reactor, or as others have said to generate isotopes for other experimenting, etc.
IMO, a more important area of amateur and admittedly fringe scientific research around fusion and fusion-like reactions is the several hundred teams that still continue to this day to investigate what the heck is going on with low temperature fusion. Tons of progress is being made in the field, and some reasonable theories are starting to form. There's a lot of unknowns, but helium is regularly produced, neutrons are regularly produced and more interesting from a theoretical standpoint, lots of atoms are changing from one element to another...
Its like the 1700's experimenting with chemistry. Lots of people doing lots of very cool and interesting experiments and getting lots of very interesting results, even if we (humanity, not me personally) still don't quite get it.
IMO, its an aspect of science we miss in the modern world. These days we just assume we understand things pretty well and experimenting is about engineering or proving a theory. Its cool there are still areas of fundamental science experimentation going on where we just don't get what is happening and have no idea what might happen with the next variant.
Fusion? BAH!!! (Score:5, Funny)
There's only two possible outcomes. (Score:3, Funny)
Really embarrassing or REALLY embarrassing.
Confucius say (Score:4, Funny)
Confucius say "Man who build fusion reactor at home flux his wife instead of his secretary."
next to his bed? (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, he never wants to get laid ... EVER!
Re:next to his bed? (Score:5, Funny)
And if he does, he needn't worry about birth control...
brilliant (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who has worked in fusion, there is significant radiation created by the process. The larger reactors can't run on the ideal deuterium/tritium mixture because it would irradiate entire cities while the reactor burned. I would not want a small one in my garage. The reactor I worked on was in a concrete bunker a fair distance away from any people. It was also the size of a large house.
If you want to live in the future and be on the cutting edge of science, go to grad school and study physics (you're never too old). There are not enough people seriously studying fusion. You'll get paid to work on reactors (big or small) which may have a commercial future. We wear snarky shirts that no one understands too.
farnsworth (Score:5, Funny)
Why isn't this tagged with "goodnewseveryone"?
What about gravity? (Score:5, Funny)
Can be used for breeding? (Score:3, Funny)
I don't mean getting Mr. Fusor to give Mrs. Fusor a special cuddle, I mean using the thing as a neutron source to produce fission fuel.
I'm guessing not, as the thing would be more tightly controlled.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
No, this really works as advertised. It's a high school science faire level of complexity and cost (if you're willing to deal with stray neutrons). For practical reasons, it can't be made to produce more energy than it consumes, is all. The principles have been known since the 20s. Robert Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet fame) had patents on it.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
But the stray neutrons (or other energetic particles, depending on the reaction) are the real problem with fusion as a power source. To quote TFA:
Fusion advocates say reactors would be relatively clean, generating virtually no air pollution and little long-lived radioactive waste. Today's nuclear power plants, in contrast, are fission-based, meaning they split atoms and create a highly radioactive waste that can take millennia to decompose.
The spent fuel from a fission reactor is just not that hard to deal with - park it in a contianment area as robust as the reactor itself for 5-10 years, and you're left with not-very-much not-very-radioactive waste that could be easily disposed of, if it weren't so valuable that we insist on keeping it instead.
It's the rest of the reactor that's the serious problem. Depending on the reactor design, quite a bit of the reactor structure can become radioactive over time.
Fusion is going to have the same problem. Even if you have a reactor vessel the size of a washing machine, you're going to need significant shielding, an energy transfer mechanism (water leading to a turbine or something), structural elements, etc. Surem the problem with spent fuel goes away, but the problem with speant reactors remains. Not something you'd want in everyone's basement.
Re:Good grief... (Score:4, Funny)
Only the first paragraph was quoted from TFA - preview button, who needs it!
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
But the stray neutrons (or other energetic particles, depending on the reaction) are the real problem with fusion as a power source.
That actually depends on what your fuel source is. The common science fair level project uses hydrogen (not deuterium, even), and produces, IIRC, neutrons. There are other fuels possible, and some don't produce much of anything nasty. IIRC, Lithium 3 on one side and Lithium 4 on the other produces stable helium isotopes, and electricity, and absolutely nothing else.
There are still issues with fuel that misses other fuel striking internal components of the reaction chamber, which can produce some radioactivity, but getting to the self-sustaining point will also greatly reduce this sorts of unwanted collisions and ther resulting radioactive byproducts.
Re:Good grief... (Score:4, Informative)
create a highly radioactive waste that can take millennia to decompose.
Bullshit. You have nuclear waste highly radioactive, or cold waste which take millennia to decompose.
In fact, the nuclear waste can be recycled into fissible material, hot subproducts (very appreciated by the pharmaceutic industry), and cold waste which take millennia to decompose.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Radioactive carbon is one thing, uranium and plutonium another. There may be some typical overreaction by Greenpeace yet I'm not sure you should dismiss the issue as trivial so lightly. There were linked articles that shed some light on their concerns.
Greenpeace revealed that Cogema, the operator of the state-owned La Hague reprocessing plant, has installed inadequate equipment off the plant's discharge pipe, 30 metres under the sea, in a flawed attempt to prevent the routine discharge of radioactive particles into the ocean. Levels of radiation on the outside of the two steel chambers are so high (up to 500 micro-sieverts each hour) that a no-dive zone was self imposed by Greenpeace's radio-protection officer.
Since July, Cogema have been attempting to remove the radioactive crust from within their waste pipe. Greenpeace had called upon French authorities for a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment prior to any operation. This was not conducted, and during the operation hundreds of kilograms of waste material escaped into the ocean.
Greenpeace revealed today that nuclear particles larger than 63 microns were captured during a scientific sampling FROM Cogema's discharge pipe, while the Discharge Authorization from 1980 states that no particle larger than 25 microns can be discharged by the reprocessing plant.
In late 1998, following a green light and final checks by regulatory authorities DSIN, responsible for regulating nuclear transport, and OPRI which handles radioprotection, spent fuel shipment transportation from Cruas-Meysse to La Hague resumed. Shipments had been suspended in April 1998 after safety authorities reported ground contamination at the Valognes terminal near La Hague.
In mid-January 1997, the British Medical Journal published a study by two French scientists, Dominique Pobel and Jean-FranÃois Viel. The report warned of an increased risk of leukaemia for children who played regularly on beaches near the nuclear La Hague reprocessing plant, triggering local public concern. French Environment and Health Ministries commissioned an official epidemiological study of leukaemia around La Hague to be conducted by a high-level, ten-member team of experts. On 16 June 1997, the Secretary of State for Health requested OPRI (Office for Protection against Ionizing Radiation) to conduct an analysis of the marine environment (water, sediments, fauna, flora) around the sea discharge end of the effluent pipe of the La Hague plant. Measurements taken by OPRI near the beaches detected no radioactivity above the natural radioactivity level.
Activists such as Rousselet had reason to doubt La Hague's chemistry, essentially the same as the separation process developed by the Manhattan Project. It has proved an ecological, occupational, and humanitarian disaster nearly everywhere else. Spills and explosions at reprocessing plants in the United States, Russia, and Britain have polluted rivers and contaminated hundreds of thousands of acres. Britain's Sellafield reprocessing complex, on England's Cumbrian coast, was shuttered in April 2005 after safety authorities discovered that 83 cubic meters of highly radioactive liquids had spilled during a period of nine months.
While they may be rabidly anti-nuclear they still have a right to be concerned.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Interesting)
up to 500 micro-sieverts each hour
1 sievert (SV) = 100 rem So, we're talking about tens of milli-rems per hour. Great. You get cosmic radiation at a higher rate than that by flying on an airliner.
a no-dive zone was self imposed by Greenpeace's radio-protection officer
Yeah, like that means anything. Just more food for the FUD.
French Environment and Health Ministries commissioned an official epidemiological study of leukaemia around La Hague
Over ten years ago, studying a quickly-appearing illness. No results? No surprise.
Measurements taken by OPRI near the beaches detected no radioactivity above the natural radioactivity level
See? Greenpeace has no substance to their argument.
I'll admit that no plant should circumvent the guidelines, nor should they then hide that fact. But the facts are that the safety guidelines are many times more strict for nuclear power than for any other type of power. I don't mean precautionary measures, I mean environmental impact. Coal plants release many times more radiation, spreading it over large areas via their smokestacks, than nuclear plants could even dream of. Even wind power has a greater carbon impact than nuclear power -- from start to finish, including building infrastructure, mining uranium, and handling the waste. Again, La Hague seems to be acting in an unethical manner, but I just can't stand all the ignorance about nuclear power.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
The patents apply to a fancier version called the Polywell. Polywell attempts to cut losses to the point where net power is possible. As far as I know, no hobbyist has attempted that one yet. It's a much more expensive design that, depending on the fuel, would generate truly lethal doses of neutrons, and would need lots of shielding.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Bussard was trying to use a Boron-11 fuel matrix that doesn't release neutrons in the same fashion as Deuterium fusion does. One of the reasons for this is precisely to help cut down on the neutron flux coming from the reactor.
His design goal was to use it as a direct drop-in replacement for boilers at coal-fired power plants, using similar sorts of shielding and precautions as would be already in place for such a facility. Water in the boiler itself would offer what extra protection would be needed, and radiation levels for released radioactive products would be lower than would be typical for a coal plant as well.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
This said, you are correct that the fusion rate in a Polywell is something of a much greater concern if you actually got one going, and would be leathal if it used traditional fusion fuel targets.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Chernobyl was awful, and I don't dispute that. I also noted it was a major exception to the general rule. The one thing that makes Chernobyl so incredibly awful is due to the fact that all of the material is concentrated in one place. The reason I hesitate about how damaging it was in comparison to coal is due to the fact that Chernobyl is not only a major facility, but that it is still supplying electricity to the Grid in Eastern Europe.
It is likely that Chernobyl would beat out a coal plant using sources particularly high in radioactive elements in terms of kilowatt-hours of energy produced, but I don't think it would be several orders of magnitude higher. Keep in mind that the coal plants spew this "waste" willy-nilly all over the entire area where they are located, and over the course of decades and not all at once like the Chernobyl disaster did. I also lack all of the specific numbers to do a strict comparison.
That facility is also an example of awful engineering that simply wouldn't happen in the regulatory environment of western governments, but that is a separate issue.
As far as citations or evidence, I could give dozens here. Here are a couple that perhaps you ought to read if you don't want to believe little old me:
At least so far as some "common sense" stuff, keep in mind that coal comes from underground sources and that often that coal is mixed with a whole bunch of other elements, including nearly every naturally occurring radioactive element on the Earth. Trace amounts of Uranium alone is sufficient to spread huge amounts of low-level radiation over nearly all of the soot fall-out that comes from the burning of coal... and that goes right up the chimney.
BTW, as far as the nuclear industry being aware of this... it has been "common knowledge" for decades. They have used this argument, but very few people are really paying attention. Certainly not the "greens" that get into an uproar over the construction of nuclear power plants. This isn't in the major news media outlets because it isn't really even news. There isn't anything "new" about this sort of information, even if it may be a revelation to you.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Interesting)
James Lovelock [wikipedia.org] and Patrick Moore [wikipedia.org] (Greenpeace co-founder) are just some of the people pushing for increased use of nuclear power at the moment.
Nuclear power is indeed cleaner than coal and is the only realistic alternative to coal available today for baseline power generation.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Interesting)
The "pro-nuclear fanboys" that you are complaining about here are the engineers who know a hell of a lot more about nuclear power than you do... partly due to the fact that they are in the trenches helping to design these things and have a hell of a lot better knowledge about basic physics than you seem to be demonstrating with this sort of posting.
If this gives me a chance to vent my spleen, so be it.
I will admit that there are issues well above and beyond just the raw design of the reactor, and the concentration of wealth/power that comes from the building of a major nuclear power plant is a huge issue as well.
One of the advantages of the polywell reactor is that it would de-centralize the building of power plants, and put them on the scale of a neighborhood plant that wouldn't be a major terrorist target. This is a reactor that conceivably an ordinary person in a 1st world country could own on their own, or at least it could be owned by a small non-profit group.
Another of the more interesting applications that Bussard and his team came up with was a nuclear-powered semi-truck using this technology. He didn't think he could get it any smaller than something on the back of a semi-trailer rig, but it could be used on that scale and haul freight on that sort of scale. That the radioactive products would be low-grade enough to allow transport on public highways is something to think about as well.
Of course all of this depends on getting the Polywell to work in the first place. While there have been some interesting promises, Bussard had his funding dry up right before he died. There is a group that was able to get some continued funding on the idea, but it is in the backwater of the R&D development.
As an extra note, the reason why there were budget cuts for this line of fusion research: The war in Iraq. Seriously. That was the explicit reason given by the OMB about why this research program was cut. Now mull that one over for a little while. This is about the "greenest" form of power production that I can even think about, yet because it is "nuclear", the green movement doesn't want to touch it at all.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
Are these the same yahoos that post videos of "perpetual" motion machines on Youtube?
No. Wikipedia is your friend. [wikipedia.org]
Farnsworth - Hirsch - Meeks fusors are quite real and effective. They're easy to build even by hobbyists using readily obtainable parts. Commercial versions serve as controllable neutron sources. Fusion neutron output of up to a trillion per second has been reported and rates in the billions per second are easily obtainable. To date it is estimated that Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks fusors have produced far more total fusion neutrons than all other non-bomb fusion devices combined.
Downside is that they involve ions moving in a trajectory past a metal electrode, which they must pass without hitting many thousands of times on the average before they participate in a fusion reaction. Hitting the electrode loses the energy used to create the ion and attempt to confine it, dumping the energy as heat in the electrode. Getting the electrode to be sufficiently "transparent" to achieve breakeven seems to be a lost cause.
Bussard's family of Polywell fusion machine designs apparently started as an attempt to steer the ions around the inner electrode of a Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks machine using a magnetic field. But it has since developed into a different (though related) principle: Use the magnetic field from the self-shielding magnet/electrodes to confine electrons (which are much easier to handle), creating a high-density space charge in the center of the machine. Use the electrostatic field of the electrons to attract and confine the ions in this region at high density and temperature, resulting in fusion. The magnetic field still shields the inner structures and the field is convex toward the plasma, limiting the plasma instabilities the plague "conventional" fusion machines. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, Wikipedia is exactly that, a friend. You know, the kind of friend that likes to tell tall tales, and is generally fun to be around with. Just don't ask him/her to help with your homework, at least not if must get it right or you'll flunk ;-)
Real fusion (Score:5, Informative)
There was an article by Tom Ligon in Analog back in September 1998-- it's available on the web [fusor.net] if you're interested in more details.
This is pretty cool. I love amateur science.
With that said, note that there is a vast difference between merely demonstrating fusion, and producing usable power by fusion, roughly similar to the gap between the glow of your old radium watch dial, and a nuclear bomb. But if the hobbiests can learn to scale it up... now, that would be cool.
Re:Real fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some hard limits to what a typical IEC fusion reactor can produce... as the "grid" that encloses the fusion core also tends to absorb some of the particles that are needed to sustain the reaction.
What the IEC (Internal Electrostatic Confinement) reactor does really well is produce a stable neutron source that can be turned on and off with a switch. There are some very useful applications for such a device in terms of nuclear physics research and medical treatments where this would have tremendous value even if you can't reach anything even near a break-even energy production for the device.
For a medial device, it is really nice in terms of being able to have a neutron source that can be turned off, pulled apart for maintenance, and when the equipment is de-commissioned or surplussed you don't need to get deal with radioactive waste disposal. It can also be installed without having to get special permits from the Atomic Energy Commission.
Re:Good grief... (Score:5, Insightful)
No work is being done, so therefore no energy consumption is required.
By the same token glue would be producing energy by making two things stick to each other...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IANA physicist but,
an object that is attracted to magnets in a magnetic field has potential energy much like an object suspended above the ground has potential energy by virtue of being in a gravitational field. In both cases, the energy of the object just before hitting the magnet/ground is the same as the work required to separate it from the magnet/ground and restore it to its starting position (assuming all energy conversions are 100% efficient).
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
People do not build the reactors to get energy. One of the reasons they are built is to see a fusion reaction, which is quite impressive. There are some videos on youtube.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Its for the tinkerer who wishes to learn more about high vacuum pumps (absorption, ion, vane, turbo...), vacuum chamber design (welding, management of outgassing...), low pressure measurement, low pressure gas flow, high voltage (flybacks, diode stacks, corona discharge, flashover...), particle detectors (scintillators, avalanche photodiodes, image intensifiers, calibrated op amps...), instrument design (fast ADCs, multi-channel analyzers...), oh and some cool stuff related to nuclear physics thrown in. Most of us can't buy all the gear, so we make it all from scrounged parts. And learn a tremendous amount of related engineering in the process. Look at it this way - its like the difference between building an RC car and rebuilding a classic car - anyone can toss together a kit, but if you want to learn how to restore an older car you end up learning dozens of skills you didn't realize you need. Its one of the most interesting educational projects in modern science that isn't illegal (yet).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Great sentiment but I can see this changing, very quickly when the DHS realises that you have a fusion reactor in your dorm-room/basement. They will get nervous even if the reaction is non self-sustaining. In any case, those neutrons are dangerous, aren't they?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Farnsworth fusors are also used as a laboratory source of neutrons. For that application it only matters that they produce sufficient neutrons of the required energy.
Widely used in medicine and research (Score:5, Interesting)
Farnsworth fusors are widely used in medicine and research as an easily controlled and cheap source of neutrons.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
a couple of hundred bucks, less if you live near a junkyard :)
Re:Radioactive Trajedy (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet. They built a time machine.
Re:Fusion? Pah! I've done them better! (Score:5, Funny)
Burger King and Taco Bell? You could do so much better. Let me help.
Step 1: Broccoli and Cheese soup. Crush some Oyster Crackers into it and DON'T forget the Tabasco sauce.
Step 2: Pork and Beans. 1 Can. Always a classic.
Step 3: ONE foot-long-cheap-ass Don Miguel burrito (the spicy red one). Can be purchased at any fine 7-11 anywhere. Only ONE. Trust me.
Step 4: 5 Hardboiled eggs with salt and pepper.
Step 5: Steamed Cabbage and 2 raw onions with plenty of butter.
Step 6: A single large bag of Funyuns.
Do all of this within 3 1/2 hours. Sit on the couch and wait about another 2-3 hours. Hold everything in till about 6 hours after you started.
You know that saying "killed the dog"? Well if you have pets, I don't recommend this.
DISCLAIMER: If you have any kind of a heart condition, or if anyone else in the house has one DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS.
Re:by working you mean failing (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no, no. It's not "almost" fusion. It is fusion. It is almost a fusion generator. That doesn't mean fusion isn't occurring. It means that the reaction is not self-sustaining. There's a huge difference. Saying that it isn't fusion is like saying that a match placed in a sealed jar and set ablaze using a laser isn't really fire because it consumes all the oxygen and burns out and there's no way to add more oxygen....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't work that way. You can get energy out of fusion and fission until you hit iron at the middle, which is at an energy well. The sun will end up a lump of iron once it finishes fusing due to this fact.
Actually, the sun isn't massive enough to create iron. It will instead end up as a lump of mostly degenerate carbon and oxygen.
Re:Has someone tried,.. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an honest question: where do our iron deposits come from?
Um ... from dead stars that had enough mass to produce iron (as well as even heavier elements) as they died. This means stars that were much more massive than our little sun.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be overly simplistic.
The solar system is roughly 5 billion years old, the universe is roughly 13 billion years old. The early universe contained more supermassive stars than today's universe, and these giants only had lifespans in the tens of million years. So a lot of them popped before our solar system formed. It is believed that our solar system formed in the vicinity of se