By Steven Goddard
A favorite excuse to push the AGW agenda is that “energy is limited, so we have to preserve it for future generations.” But nothing could be further from the truth. As that clever fellow Albert Einstein figured out ( E = Mc² ) – energy is available right here on earth in vast supplies beyond our comprehension. In fact, a primary concern of mankind over the last 65 years has been to figure out how to keep mankind from releasing some of this energy too quickly, in a catastrophic fashion.
Einstein’s equation tells us that one kilogram of matter can be converted into 90,000,000,000,000,000 (ninety million billion) joules of energy. That is roughly equivalent to saying that one liter of water contains as much potential energy as 10 million gallons of gasoline. Those who saw the movie “Angels and Demons” are familiar with the concept of combining matter and anti-matter to achieve a highly efficient matter to energy conversion. Mankind probably won’t have access to that sort of technology for some time into the future, but we already have hundreds of fission reactors generating a significant percentage of the world’s energy.
Scientists and engineers are also actively pursuing control of thermonuclear fusion, which powers the sun, stars and hydrogen bombs – and offers nearly unlimited energy potential using readily available fuel. All of our current energy sources (coal, oil, wind, gas, nuclear, solar, etc.) are ultimately by-products of fusion. Controlled fusion uses as fuel primarily the hydrogen isotope deuterium, which is abundant in seawater.
In the south of France, there is a large international fusion effort underway named ITER (Latin for “the way.”) The project was originally agreed to by Francois Mitterrand, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in 1985, and was officially launched in October 2007.
It is now being built in the south of France as part of an international collaboration between France, the US, Russia, the UK, the EU, India, China, Korea and Japan. In 2010, the first concrete will be poured.
The deuterium will be heated to 150 million degrees centigrade, forming plasma (decomposed hydrogen atoms) which will be contained by electrical and magnetic fields inside the Tokomak pictured above. (Note the size on the person at the bottom right in the picture above.) The plasma particles combine in a fusion reaction to form helium, and release vast amounts of energy in the process – which is captured as heat and used to generate electricity.
From Wikipedia : (D = Deuterium T = Tritium n = neutron)
The easiest (according to the Lawson criterion) and most immediately promising nuclear reaction to be used for fusion power is:
D + T → 4He + n
Deuterium is a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen and as such is universally available. The large mass ratio of the hydrogen isotopes makes the separation rather easy compared to the difficult uranium enrichment process. Tritium is also an isotope of hydrogen, but it occurs naturally in only negligible amounts due to its radioactive half-life of 12.32 years. Consequently, the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle requires the breeding of tritium from lithium using one of the following reactions:
n + 6Li → T + 4He
n + 7Li → T + 4He + n
Below is the timeline for ITER over the next decade.
It is anticipated that some fusion energy will be in the power grid in as little as 30 years, and be the primary source of electrical energy in perhaps 80 years.
– Hopefully the construction of ITER is not being powered by frequently motionless windmills.
Some AGW types want us to think small, when in fact the key to meeting future needs is to think large. You can’t feed 10 billion people by fantasizing about the “good old days” – which never actually existed.
Aron:The problem with limousine liberal activists like the one I quoted is that they are under some guilt-complex illusion that free trade is the creation of evil white Republican Protestants. That’s why we have a leftwing media acting as a lapdog for a [snip] American president. He’s supposed to be the ethnic minority saviour (a Yoda figure) who will teach the white man the errors of his ways and return mankind to an eco-friendly prehistoric socialist utopia.
Trouble is that these “Caviars” (we call them so in my country, because, while eating caviar, they believe themselves to be the saviours of the poor) who being always well fed bureaucrats of governments or in all UN agencies are trying to impose on us (not only the USA) those wrong theories, which fell down at the same time the Berlin wall fell down in 1989.
Many in the world have already tried the absolute destruction of peoples and economies it entails.
I think that the best way of avoiding their success it is not to oppose with arguments those irrational theories but by exposing the stupidity of those who back them, by mocking at them, the less instructed will laugh at them too, and they, like scaired ostrichs, will inmediately hide their heads under the sand. They are not sane people, they are morons, and very feeble ones; they increase in strength when taken seriously.
Adolfo Giurfa (08:50:43) : “Windmills beginning to fall by the spears of WUWT Don Antonio Quixote!
“There is another portable source of energy:This patented generator is a solid-state generator which uses the nuclear resonant ferromagnetic effect in a cylindrical rod of iron(56). This effect has been named by the inventors the “isotopic mutation effect”.
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/mmcgen.htm”
Quoting from the link: [CUE THEREMIN]
“The inventors claim that if we introduce 105 eV to the iron (isotope 56), its change to the iron isotope 54. The energy generated by this nuclear reaction inside the iron rod will produce an energy gain of 20,000 eV. The energy required for generating the isotopic mutation is produced by a nuclear magnetic resonance effect. The parametric excitation is obtained by the coil #2 acting as the pump.”
[FADE THEREMIN] Just more woo-woo science.
The notion that fusion is going to be “clean” doesn’t hold water, heavy or otherwise.
The reaction –
D + T → 4He + n
generates a heavy neutron flux that heats up some medium of choice to produce power, presumably eventually through a conventional steam turbine.
I’m no expert here, but that neutron flux is also going to whack the atoms in the surrounding structures and make the whole machine radioactive, much as the reactor vessel and plumbing in a fission power plant becomes radioactive. Same for the tritium production process.
That means we’ll have the same decommissioning situation we now have with nuclear plants. Actually we won’t, because a thousand years from now, when the seas have finally risen ten feet, practical fusion will doubtless be “just around the corner.”
And by the way, thanks for that inspirational photo at the top of the post.
🙂
Mike
former B-52 driver
Scientists have been working on fusion reactors for at least 25 years without success. For the Tokomak reactor as you point out; “The deuterium will be heated to 150 million degrees centigrade” That’s a pretty good trick.
Now consider another possibility. There already is a fusion reactor that’s been operating 24/7 for 5 billion years or so. It produces far more power than the human race is likely to every need, and it is so environmentally friendly that even the most psychotic environmentalist would not dream of shuting it down. Of course its called the sun. Solar electric technology is already a reality. The only problem is collecting it in an economical manner. If someone could develop inexpensive and efficient solar cells which could be installed on our rooftops instead of shingles that would go a long way toward bringing this about. Of course we would also need improved battery technology to make it work 24 hours a day. But those obstacles seem less daunting than those facing the Tokomak.
“Roger Sowell (07:37:11) :
….
Then, finding a way to do something useful with the heat without melting the reactor is a bit of a problem. The materials science professors and researchers were having quite a bit of difficulty with that one. It had something to do with the energy of inter-atomic bonding, under which everything they tried disintegrated at those temperatures.
It is a very good thing that the sun is so very far away from Earth.
Therefore, unless some amazing breakthroughs in magnetic bottles and heat-resistant materials have occurred, or will occur, fusion is off the list of energy providers.” — Roger E. Sowell, May 18, 2009
So, does anyone have answers to those fundamental problems? Have materials scientists invented Indestructium? How does one add material and take away products from a magnetic bottle while fusion occurs?”
I have never worked directly with fission or fusion but have some experience with high temperature systems the key is not really the temperature of the reaction but the energy flux, both as heat radiation and particles. You need to remove the heat from the reactor walls (which are shielded from direct contact by the magnetic fields) fast enough to keep them from vaporizing or melting. This is the energy that eventually goes to spin the turbines. You also need a material that will not be destroyed by the particulate radiation. The impacting particles tend to distort the crystalline nature of materials and interfere with properties like high thermal conductivity that are required to get the heat out. I do not know what solution was arrived at for ITER but I assume they have one they like.
The only “scientific” constant I see is the relation ship between fossil fuels and fusion.
The 30 year constant.
Fossil fuels are always going to run out in 30 years
Fusion will be available in 30 years
For updates on the U.S. Navy’s efforts to bring Bussard’s Polywell fusion to , uh, fruition, check in with Classical Values…
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/05/wb8_in_the_work.html
Cosmos (10:22:16) :
Good video of Robert Bussard talking to the people at Google abot fusion.
Thanks for that link. I agree with Bussard, that there are fewer
and fewer people who think outside the box. I worked at
Hughes Aircraft Company for years and they had a program
called ATEP (advanced technical education program). This
program allowed people, during their lunch hour or after work,
to take company classes taught by some of the premiere scientists
and engineers in their field. It allowed for cross discipline
education and training, which lead to big leaps in technology
and innovation. It also fostered an atmosphere of communication
between the old guard and the up and coming. As a young
engineer, it was great to be able to approach a senior scientist
with a question or suggestion and not have your ego smashed
by arrogance. It turned the work place into a productive and
positive environment. His type of research transcends the AGW
debate because success will render it moot and the prospect
of unlimited clean power will be transformational and positive.
Again, thanks for the link.
You need to remove the heat from the reactor walls (which are shielded from direct contact by the magnetic fields) fast enough to keep them from vaporizing or melting. This is the energy that eventually goes to spin the turbines. You also need a material that will not be destroyed by the particulate radiation. The impacting particles tend to distort the crystalline nature of materials and interfere with properties like high thermal conductivity that are required to get the heat out. I do not know what solution was arrived at for ITER but I assume they have one they like.
…
My concern as well – Not specifically the induced radiation of the reactor walls and magnetic coils and vacuum vessels (gonna love those pressure/access/maintenance hatches!) but the transfer of the energy OUT of the fusing mass through all of the containments (magnetic “walls”, vacuum barriers around the magnetic fields, steam/water barriers around the heat transfer medium(s), electrical/magnetic coils and containers (and their insulation and copper/silver/conductors) and the penetrations for the fuel and the coils and the piping.
Induced radiation is modestly low level, and is created inside steel (stainless = chromium, iron & carbon & nickel,?) strucutres that will stay in one place.
But I have never seen any specific, credible engineering discussion of how the thermal (heat) energy that is being created in a vacuum inside magnetic fields gets OUT through all the barriers into something that can be heated up, pipid elsewhere, cooled off, pumped back into the “magic containment-that-is-not-a-containment bottle” bottle.
Neutrons carry some energy, but the new tritium and Li in the ionized plasma itself must be cooled off, removed, and replaced with new fuel.
Chu’s “pellets and lasers” ? Not going to work any better than a current fusion bomb for producing power.
>>Where would the hydrogen for the fusion come from?
>>While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the
>>universe it is incredibly scarce here on earth because
>>our atmosphere can’t hold it.
Is this a wind-up, or are there really people out there that are this scientifically illiterate?? Mind you, this is the level of intelligence we expect from the average Green.
Why would hot air balloonists want hydrogen? The last time this was tried was back in the early 1800’s with dismal results. Fire beneath plus hydrogen in balloon tends to produce very high thermal output for a short while. Very spectacular but the balloon does not remain aloft very long.
No for hot air balloons propane or butane is best.
Otherwise if you can afford it by all means fill your balloon with hydrogen, this might be less dangerous in these non smoking days but I remember rushing around trying to get spectators to put out their cigarettes. A long time ago.
Kindest Regards
If the funding of global warming science had been instead fed into fusion some 20 years ago would we be having this discussion?
No matter how big the hole I am sure with enough minds and money we can engineer our wayout of anything – and if global warming turns out to be a problem than we can terraform the moon or start a fresh on mars.
ITER and Laser inertial will be great for plasma physicists. They seem unlikely to produce practical electrical generators ever.
For a small fraction of the cost of these the alternative fusion schemes could be investigated and either found to be fundamentally flawed or worthy for further investigation. Our technological society is in danger of failing because of “groupthink” not just as regards climate change.
I’m still hoping Richard Nebel and his team can make the Bussard polywell work. No show stoppers so far after a fair bit of intensive experimentation.
If not, then advanced fission designs can power our civilization and we ought to get on with it before the Luddites destroy us.
a jones (16:55:13) :
There are German hydrogen balloon clubs, which get free hydrogen from companies that consider it a waste product: click
ralph ellis (04:05:35)
ralph ellis (04:37:11) :
If you want to post anti-Christian nonsense and have an enthusiastic reception, you may wish to try doing so at the “science blog” Phyrangula. I suggest that moderators delete the two posts referenced above.
Geonite (11:29:04) : Nuclear fusion/fission are not the answer to our energy needs. Nature has had 4.5 billion years to figure it out and nature uses the sun as it’s energy source. The sun is our nuclear reactor.
I’m sure I’ll just be one of 10,000 to point this out… Using the Sun is using fusion.
Where would the hydrogen for the fusion come from? While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe it is incredibly scarce here on earth because our atmosphere can’t hold it.
Don’t know how to break this to you, but 2 out of every (roughly) 3 atoms in the ocean is a hydrogen atom. You know H 2 then O make water…
And that ignores the large quantity of hydrogen in things like hydrated minerals…
I think someone needs a bit more time in the science class and a bit less time in the sun…
anna v (11:42:39) :
Well, I am sorry about this. It is the first time I hear of it. I thought it was something like “it takes two to tango” or some such, an older saying.
I’m over a half century old and a native speaker of English. NEVER have I heard anyone take offense at the notion of breaking eggs to make omelettes; so please to not think there is any particular sensitivity to the phrase among most English speakers. It is a common phrase used without worry by folks far and wide.
I believe it is in fact quite old. I would guess that it dates from thousands of years BC, but probably more as “Ugg not can make egg-goo if not Ugg squash eggs much!” 😎
Please, Anna, see my prior comment on the issue and feel at ease using language as you see fit and without hypersensitivity to everyones pet peeve…
Roger Sowell (07:37:11) :
There seem to be insurmountable difficulties in finding materials of construction that will not melt or evaporate at the very high temperatures obtained in a fusion reaction.
Robert A Cook PE (16:30:52) :
You need to remove the heat from the reactor walls (which are shielded from direct contact by the magnetic fields) fast enough to keep them from vaporizing or melting.
. . . But I have never seen any specific, credible engineering discussion of how the thermal (heat) energy . . gets OUT through all the barriers into something that can be heated up, . . . Neutrons carry some energy . . .
The plasma in the torus has less than a gram of matter in it. If it touched the walls it would instantly cool. High temp, but not much heat.
All the energy transfer from the reactions is carried outward by the neutrons, which are unaffected by the magnetic field. They dump the generated energy outside the vacuum tank in absorption blankets that heat up, and also shield the rest of the equipment from radiation damage.
Flanagan (13:38:39) : Actually, one of the AGW arguments is that fossil fuels are limited, no energy. So this post is actually a very long strawman.
This makes no sense what so ever, no matter how I try to parse it. AGW is orthogonal to fossil fuel inventory, only use. “no energy” is unrelated to the predicate. “Strawman” comes out of left field. Flanagan, have you been in to the holiday punch a bit early? (Or have I 😎
Geonite (11:29:04) :
Where would the hydrogen for the fusion come from? While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe it is incredibly scarce here on earth because our atmosphere can’t hold it.
Folks, I ask you – Is not this worthy of “Quote of the Week” honors?
Geonite and I have probably 30 or 40 lbs of hydrogen between us. We could power the earth for centuries.
However, we shouldn’t make fun of the uninformed who venture onto this site. Goodness knows I’ve flubbed a few here myself, but the problem is that all really bright Alarmists are bright enough to avoid places like WUWT, where their strongest arguments will be taken apart, degree by degree.
The sun does a lot of fusion but it does it mostly by being very big. I recall that its power production, per cubic meter, is only around 5 watts.
If we ever get fusion reactors to work, they will have to produce far more than that. But on the other hand, they won’t have to be able to run without any new fuel for billions of years.
Some day in the future people might enjoy all the benefits of fusion power, or they won’t. I’m 35 and feel that it is a very safe bet that it will not happen in my life time, so all this talk of fusion power seems more like future fantastic than a way to address the needs of us folks now living.
Fission has proven itself, and for all practical terms it is an infinite supply of energy. Fusion might be 40 years away, or it might be 400 years away, but it does not matter at all today because it will not become a practical reality within any of our lifetimes.
Shame we are squandering so much of our energy on these foolish wind farms and other such nonsense.
rbateman (13:53:36) :
If we make fusion power at this point in time, they will surely make weapons out of it.
Your “point in time” is 57 years late.
There are good reasons why we might not want Iran enriching Uranium or generating Plutonium under the guise of “nuclear power.” There is no particularly good reason to want to stop them from extracting Deuterium from seawater however.
In 1908 there weren’t a lot of people who foresaw the Boeing 747 going commercial 60 years later. Most people knew that it was impossible for humans to fly.
In 1943, the Chairman of IBM said “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/siliconvalley/events/acm97/gb/tsld010.htm