An ecelctic mix of energy and climate news stories from around the world compiled by Roger Andrews.
This week we feature the one technology that could solve all the world’s energy problems – nuclear fusion – which MIT scientists claim can be supplying grid power within 15 years. We follow with OPEC and Venezuela; Europe’s oil future; the UK/Russia standoff; Canada to go nuclear; Ireland to ban coal; South African coal miners put renewables on hold; Russia hacks US power plants; New York commits $1.4 billion to renewables; Czech tycoon commits $1.2 billion to buying old coal plants; Europe’s hydropower drying up; smart grids in UK; an Even Bigger South Australian Battery; electricity from raindrops and how the Permo-Triassic mass extinction was caused by burning coal.
Back in 1976/78 Science published a series of reports on fusion power. There was an update in 1997 in Physics Today. The key take away was that any conceivable fusion reactor would be an order of magnitude larger and more expensive than the equivalent fission reactor. The point being that the costs of the electricity from a fusion reactor and its footprint would be so huge that there would be no conceivable commercial or military use. A fusion reactor could not fit inside a Nimitz or Ford carrier.
Physicists have been trying to build a self-sustaining fusion reactor for over 40 years, and they have failed utterly. Fusion has to be regarded as one of the great scientific frauds of all time. A few high ranking physicists have enjoyed a jet set life style for their whole careers, and literally thousands of exploited low level physicists have wasted their entire lives on this hoax.
The biggest obstacles to achieving sustainable controlled nuclear fusion is the initiation and containment of the reactions.
Several techniques for this have been investigated. The current favourite is, of course, the tokamak. One which has caught my interest and which I’m examining is the polywell, which utilizes inertial electrostatic confinement
The size and shape of the tokamaks is governed by the underlying physics. One reason that a commercial-scale reactor based on it has never been built is that much of the physics is still not completely understood. Several interim machines have been built and tested simply to investigate some of those phenomena. Understanding that will, eventually, hopefully, allow a tokamak to be finally commissioned to produce power for a utility grid.
The polywell, by comparison, can be a lot smaller than a tokamak. One research group, funded by the U. S. Navy, built a number of test devices and the results looked promising. Unfortunately, the project ran out of funding, which the Navy didn’t renew due to other priorities.
Is fusion a hoax? Of course not. But, like many “big science” projects, it has been packaged and sold as the ticket to the bright shiny future we were all promised more than 50 years ago.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the facility that’s getting all the attention nowadays, along with the oohs and aahs from the media. One reason it’s been endlessly flogged as the solution is because it’s an multi-national project, partly due to its expense plus it’s trotted out as a “world peace” undertaking.
Many experts have speculated that ITER won’t achieve its objective, but it might yield interesting results, though it’s a rather bloated way of acquiring them. We’ll likely find out in a few years time, if it’s ever completed and actually starts running.
Personally, I think that money would have been better spent on something like the polywell. It’s cheaper and smaller plus it’ll yield results much faster. For the same cost of ITER, numerous investigators could have set up their own facilities, built their own polywell machines, and conducted their research, possibly answering many of the fundamental questions that ITER supposedly is built to examine.
A lot of good information here from you, but just a couple of additions regarding ITER. This project was initiated in the 1980s as an international project with principal leaders US, Japan and the EU. It was set up this way because each of the three had previously been planning their own separate tokamaks to demonstrate stable fusion, and all three had been halted because of the cost and government budget constraints.
So they agreed to pool their efforts and bring in other partners. The original design for ITER was approximately 11OO MW, but in the late 1990s this was scaled back to 600 MW, again because of budget constraints. What was also agreed at that time was that the project would proceed on a pay-as-you-go basis. That is, they would build as much of the project in any given year as they were provided with funding.
Canada had an important role in ITER. The Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project (CFFTP) located in Oakville developed the tritium fuel handling system for ITER.
And you are right about polywell. However, it wasn’t the Navy discontinued it. It was the Clinton administration that cut off funding. In general, the Clinton administration was a disaster for nuclear research and technology funding and support for all areas of nuclear R&D, not just fusion.
Anyone notice the “Canada to go nuclear” item? Seems odd, must be just more Liberal symbolism, masquerading as action.
If anyone has been paying attention, the environutters are having hemorrhages over the construction of a basic pipeline in B.C., because it’s dilbit, and not oil (HA).
Imagine the craziness if the Libs were serious about expanding Nuclear energy. The B.C. activists would go full apoplectic in every conceivable way. These people are truly deranged, facts be damned!
For the record, there does need to be nuclear solutions, but it should be revolving around SALT Thorium reactors, a far safer, non-pressurized reactor system, than traditional U235 pressure reactors, where all the accidents happen, and, tremendous waste is created by the process. Somehow, the Liberal plan just reeks of paper shuffling and paper pronouncements of great intentions, signifying nothing. Liberal MO.
Ever check out how much neutron radiation is produced by tritium/deuterium fusion? It is many, many times higher than fission power.
Sorry, there is no material on Earth that will provide safety from the trillions upon trillions of extremely high energy neutrons that are produced by this type of fusion.
It is just a pipe-dream and a way to waste billions of dollars on scientist salaries.
Fusion will have to come from other elements or other isotopes where this kind of dangerous radiation is not produced.
However, it wasn’t the Navy discontinued it. It was the Clinton administration that cut off funding.
The research group I was thinking about was the one led by the late Dr. Robert Bussard. According to the accounts that I read, it closed down operations about 10 years ago because the Navy’s funding was directed towards its involvement in Iraq.
Ever check out how much neutron radiation is produced by tritium/deuterium fusion? It is many, many times higher than fission power.
That’s one of the drawbacks to the current proposals. It’s believed that even if ITER does begin operating, the lining of the tokamak vessel will eventually have to be replaced due to the material adsorbing the neutrons that are emitted. Eventually, it’ll begin expanding to the point that the surface layers will start spalling.
But there are advantages to using hydrogen, including the isotopes deuterium and tritium. One is that hydrogen is commonly available. Another is that it has a high energy yield with each fusion reaction.
But the fact that neutrons are a byproduct is one reason some investigators are looking at other reactions. One that I find interesting is proton-boron.
The protons are produced by ionizing hydrogen. Boron, which is commonly available as borax, is vapourized and its electrons stripped. The resulting reaction produces less energy than hydrogen fusion, but it also produces helium as a byproduct.
I’ve read a number of publications about the proton-boron polywell and this might be one fusion method worth pursuing.
No way in heck these guys get commercial status fusion in 15 years.
And NG turbines are now so cheap it will almost impossible to compete with them.
The only group that might get to commercial inside of 20 years is the group calved by Lockheed a few years ago but I haven’t heard much from them lately.
Spread the rumour.
Canada building nuclear….weapons,as Little Potato prepares to teach that big bully USA a lesson.
I am surprised to find we have a Liberal Minister who is actually possibly competent.
Who is this mystery woman?
Kim Rudd, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, and she’s very good. Has the best understanding of nuclear generally than any federal minister I can remember in more than three decades. This is the first time nuclear has had a dedicated cabinet representative.
You might say she’s the one shining light in an otherwise dismal cabinet.