Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new ITER Nuclear Fusion timetable has been agreed, which slips the first scheduled Deuterium / Tritium burn to 2035 – 8 years after the original scheduled date. But an exciting and unexpected US breakthrough has just breathed new life into one of the oldest approaches to achieving controlled nuclear fusion.
New schedule agreed for Iter fusion project
An updated schedule for the Iter fusion project has been approved by the Iter Council, which represents the countries taking part in the project. Under the new schedule, first plasma is now slated for 2025 and the start of deuterium-tritium operation is set for 2035.
A two-day meeting of the Iter Council at the Iter headquarters at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in France unanimously approved the project’s baseline – its overall schedule and cost. The project is to build the world’s biggest tokamak fusion reactor at Cadarache in southern France. It should be large enough and hot enough to reach ‘ignition’ and maintain a stable heat-generating plasma for minutes.
“The overall project schedule was approved by all Iter members, and the overall project cost was approved ad referendum, meaning that it will now fall to each member to seek approval of project costs through respective governmental budget processes,” the Iter Organization said in a statement yesterday.
The Council concluded that project construction and manufacturing have sustained a rapid pace for the past 18 months, “providing tangible evidence of full adherence to commitments”. The successful completion of all 19 project milestones for 2016, on time and on budget, is “a positive indicator of the collective capacity of the Iter Organization and the Domestic Agencies to continue to deliver on the updated schedule”, it said.
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Read more: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-New-schedule-agreed-for-Iter-fusion-project-2111164.html
The year 2035, with the possibility of further schedule slippages, seems an awfully long time to wait to know whether large scale nuclear fusion is viable.
Thankfully there are other possible approaches which don’t involve vast UN administered bureaucracies.
Breakthrough in Z-pinch implosion stability opens new path to fusion
Researchers have demonstrated improved control over and understanding of implosions in a Z-pinch, a particular type of magneto-inertial device that relies on the Lorentz force to compress plasma to fusion-relevant densities and temperatures. The breakthrough was enabled by unforeseen and entirely unexpected physics.
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Recently, however, researchers using the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories have demonstrated improved control over and understanding of implosions in a Z-pinch, a particular type of magneto-inertial device that relies on the Lorentz force to compress plasma to fusion-relevant densities and temperatures. The breakthrough was enabled by unforeseen and entirely unexpected physics.
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According to existing theory, however, the imposed magnetic field should not have significantly impacted the growth of the instabilities that normally shred the liner and prevent high levels of compression during the implosion. But, while fusion plasmas are subject to various forms of instability, referred to as modes, not all these instabilities are detrimental. The pre-magnetized system demonstrated unprecedented implosion stability due to the unpredicted growth of helical modes, rather than the usual azimuthally-correlated modes that are most damaging to implosion integrity. The dominant helical modes replaced and grew more slowly than the so-called “sausage” modes found in most Z-pinches, allowing the plasma to be compressed to the thermonuclear fusion-producing temperature of 30 million degrees and one billion times atmospheric pressure. The origin of the helical modes themselves, however, remained a mystery.
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Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161028115240.htm
Z-pinch is one of the oldest experimental approaches to controlled fusion, because it is so simple. Z-pinch is essentially a giant electrical transformer, but instead of a secondary coil, the fusion plasma forms the secondary. Triggering a pulse of current through the transformer primary induces an enormous current in the plasma, which in turn generates an extremely intense magnetic field, squeezing the plasma (hopefully) to nuclear fusion temperatures.
The downside of Z-pinch is the force tends to be applied like squeezing a sausage – all the goodness squirts out the ends of the Z-pinch. But the researchers at Sandia National Laboratories claim to have found a way to fix this problem.
Obviously we’ve all been here before, nuclear fusion research is littered with exciting breakthroughs which never fulfil their early promise. But given the long wait until ITER is finally switched on, there is plenty of opportunity for clever attempts to research exotic approaches to nuclear fusion to leapfrog the multi-decadal UN project.
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The whole point of all this effort is to do what? Boil water, to create steam, to move a turbine. Coal and oil do a much better job without having to spend a trillion dollars trying to develop a more complicated technology to.. boil water. All fusion research money should be transferred into developing thorium nuclear reactors. Burn coal until you can replace them with nukes. Mic drop
Speaking from experience, when one attempts a feat never before achieved, proposing any realistic schedule is completely useless. One might succeed, one might not, but the date of the success is anyone’s guess.
MM,
I’m reminded of the story that if Conestoga Wagons could have flown at the speed they traveled over land, and one had departed for the moon in 1849, it would still not have arrived by the time that the Apollo astronauts arrived. Sometimes, it takes a technological breakthrough, or at least significant evolution, before difficult things become feasible. That is what is interesting about the Skunk Works experiment. The problems with the F-35 not withstanding, they are taking a different approach from the big government projects that are probably hampered by bureaucracy and thinking inside the box. The culture at the Skunk Works has always been one of thinking outside the box.
RK and all,
Something a little more current: https://www.quora.com/What-happened-to-the-Fusion-Reactor-by-Lockheed-Martin
“The way that the mainstream physics community responded to the concept was shameful in many regards and has eerie parallels to the way that climate “scientists” respond to skeptics.”
Yes. It’s almost a given, scientist or not, that people are predisposed to be skeptical when its in the best interest of the status quo and not otherwise. If they depend on that status quo and it’s seriously threatened their skepticism turns into self righteously driven criticism of the messenger because the message is too disruptive for consideration.
LPPFusion is extremely promising, expecting short-term results. This tiny company has achieved two of three Lawson Criteria for fusion… and the LPPFusion reactor has achieved outputs that place it between 1st and 5th among all fusion devices. The company is soon to install the final configuration using beryllium anodes and cathodes with a hydrogen-boron fuel.
This is an aneutronic machine that operates at billions of degrees C and prodices no radioactive waste.
http://lppfusion.com/
Meanwhile ITER is a dog that likely will never work (The torroidal radius is too large to sustain fusion reactions) … But ITER does excel at chewing up vast sums of cash.
The smart money is on the non-Tokamak configurations like the LLFusion focus fusion configuration, stellerators etc.
yah sarastro92…sad though that the LPP folk intend to basically give away the tech, and that the costs are so low that the era of centralized control of energy sources would be past us all. Because big money won’t fund what they can’t control, generally-speaking. That said, Dr Lerner himself said that beyond a few million to solve the last hurdles (mostly finding robust anode materials or something like that), it was time not money that was the issue to reach prototype and production. He predicted about 4-5 years, a few years ago. They appear very close now, certainly ahead of the other main competitors. Agreed also that ITER and Tokamak dead-end tech.
Tiburon… you’ve misconstrued the business strategy of LPPFusion… the company plans to license the reactor technology to ensure the entire world can benefit from electric rates 100 times cheaper than current US rates… and yes the reactors are so small and compact they can be sited the way sub-stations are.
But still there is huge money to be made in replacing the entire power generators and distribution network globally… Once installed, however, the only real costs are maintenance.
It’s true that rent-seeking monopolists will oppose something close to “free energy” … but anyone who gets in now for pin-ball money will be sitting on a multi-trillion dollar venture. As the LPPFusion project creeps towards real ignition, investors will emerge. The bonanza is just too large to ignore. And if not in the US, then overseas.
Bureaucrats creating jobs,….
for bureaucrats and the bureaucrat’s offspring.
All hot fusion projects have been made obsolete by two recent developments. One is the work by Randal Mills at Brilliant Light Power, and the other is by A. Rossi with the QuarkX and e-cat. Both have been demonstrated, but are still a way from sales.
… and the other is by A. Rossi with the QuarkX and e-cat
Are you serious? Rossi did never manage to demonstrate anything. He permanently refused to let independent testers reproduce his “experiments”. Bluff.
A. Rossi is a fraud and it sounds like Randal Mills is too.
Isn’t 2035 the year the Budget returns to Surplus?
“Forget nuclear fusion until they prove it superior to molten salt nuclear reactors (they can’t –…”
Forget MSRs until they can compete with LWRs (light water reactors), hydroelectric, biomass, coal, and natural gas. These established power generation technologies account for 98% of the world’s power generation. The remaining 2% of generation with a few exceptions are technologies promoted by clueless idiots.
I have a hard time understanding the fascinations with things that do not work very well or not at all. The power industry does not have problems safely meeting our customers needs with existing resources. We do it with insignificant environmental impact.
While electricity is an exceeding reliable, useful and beneficial; it one of the cheapest commodities to produce.
In other words, established technologies can not be beaten.
For the record, wind and solar are not yet established technologies. They are example of things promoted by clueless idiot. It is a credit to the power industry that they work at all. There is nothing bad about the small amount of power that they provide.
From Germany:
Many many thanks to all these “clueless idiots” who developed wind energy… simply because we lack place to store all the nuclear waste produced by our 19 LWR plants!
Germany holds 80 millions of humans on small 350,000 km². No deserts available like in the US, India, China, Australia…
Unfortunately, the politicians actually heading the land literally live hand in hand with the electricity producers, what has tremendously slowed down offshore wind plant building to the benefit of the coal maffia.
Germany does not lack the space, they lack the political will. Isolating spent fuel from human takes very little space. About the same as the hazardous waste generated from from the manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels.
Finland is putting the waste in bore holes into granite under the existing plants. There are many viable solutions. Pick one.
Retired Kit P on November 24, 2016 at 12:47 am
Germany does not lack the space, they lack the political will.
Tell me where you live, and I’ll give you the answer appropriate to the location.
Retired: You are leaving out the heavy water CANDU reactors. “Today, there are 31 Candu power reactors in seven countries, as well as 13 ‘Candu derivative’ reactors in India, with more being built. Export sales of 12 Candu units have been made to South Korea (4), Romania (2), India (2), Pakistan (1), Argentina (1) and China (2), along with the engineering expertise to build and operate them. Three of the Canadian units are undergoing major refurbishment.” Some of these are burning fuel made from old bombs as part of their fuel, which is a good thing. Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/canada-nuclear-power.aspx
Dan
Dan, you are correct. CANDU reactors are examples of proven technology that MSR would unlikely be able to compete with.
D-T fusion is bad idea because the fast neutrons it releases are actually more damaging to equipment than those from a uranium reactor. Boron and proton is a better bet.
Other thing is, most of the projects aim to achieve ignition through compression and heating. In fact, it is much, much easier to achieve fusion by electrostatic acceleration. As little as 10kV can produce D-D fusion. The difficulty with electrostatic fusion is that the energy used in accelerating the ions is typically greater than the fusion yield. This is mainly because of the relatively small collision x-section, which means that many fail to collide in such a way as to fuse, instead liberating their kinetic energy on the walls of the vessel as heat.
It’s a much more promising field than thermal ignition, though. For a start, it’s easily demonstrated to work. Yes, that’s right, it does work. Not in 2035. Now. The challenge is to design a machine that achieves a net energy gain. The Polywell might be one such possibility.
Exactly, Ian Macdonald.
It does not work for power generation. Let me know when the first net MWh of power is produced. Then we can discuss how well it does not work.
A delay in practical fusion power would have seemed worse, had we not found a motherload of oil under TX…
So from 2025 until fusion takes over, we should be burning nuclear waste in molten-salt reactors if we have any sense at all. Certainly not covering the countryside in low-energy-producing gadgets that create as many social and environmental problems as they supposedly solve.
I’m afraid you misunderstand what happens.
What might at best be burnt isn’t waste: it is the 5% useful fuel rest (U235, Pu239, U233) you obtain upon reprocessing the rods.
The waste: that’s the remaining 95% (contaminated steel and U238; you can’t use the U238 as it is contaminated with U232, which is highly toxic, is neither fissile nor fertile, and acts as a fission blocker).
I’ve solved the engineering problems with fusion, but for the sake of humanity haven’t published them because continued burning of fossil fuels is so critical to the survival of humanity, faced as we are by the need to green the earth and forestall the next glacial advance.
But I’ve put the results in a time capsule, just in case.
“managing a high-risk technology like nuclear power”
Actually nuclear is a low risk high consequence technology. Release of radioactive material could hurt people. Americans have been doing it since 1955 with LWRs . No one has been hurt by the release of radioactive material under our management system.
Nuclear fusion on a desktop – the Farnsworth fusor. Invented by Philo Farnsworth in 1964
http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/fusion/images/ptfwfusor253.jpg
useless money pit
“Tell me where you live, and I’ll give you the answer appropriate to the location.”
@Bindindon
Nice try at deflecting the issue that Germany lacks the political will to pick a good technical solution.
We live in a motorhome and are currently in the Mojave Desert not far Yucca Mountain. Worked on the evaluation that found that Yucca Mountain was suitable as a long term storage location.
The lack of political will wrt to spent fuel just ended in the US until the next time we elect a democrat president.
Before heading south for the winter, we were in Washington State near the Hanford reservation where we lived for many years. Putting high level waste in basalt formations was not acceptable because the area was covered with glaciers during the last ice age.
I have also been responsible for spent nuclear fuel at a nuke plant.
Based on 40 years of experience, I think nothing will happen. Store high level waste is not an engineering problem. Dry cask storage requires the area of a few tennis courts at each nuke plant.
The interesting thing highly radioactive material is it does not stay highly radioactive for very long. After 300 years you can hold it in your hands because it becomes low level waste. It could be buried in any landfill after the useful parts are mined out.
I do not know what the topic of fear mongering will be in 300 years and I do not care either.
Nuclear FUSION is not the source of the power (light element fusion) in stars! The center of stellar bodies being under enough pressure, create “super heavy nuclei” and “deep potential wells” in which matter is converted to anti-matter, and the antimatter combines with the matter and releases energy in a pure E=mc^2 result.
For information on this see: http://proton-21.com.ua/publ/Booklet_en.pdf Read this “booklet” and realize that the Xray spectra from their “impulses” creating the SUPERHEAVY nuclei match stellar Xray spectra.
According to the work of Proton21, stellar bodies are actually SHN accumulations at their cores, which convert matter into anti-matter by forming “deep nuclear potential wells”, see theory by Walter Geiner (RIP, 2016, October..thank you Walter!) http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/337/1/012002/pdf
I would also like to point out that in this interview of the head of Proton21 (here: http://www.americanantigravity.com/files/articles/Proton-21-Interview.pdf) The Explosive Inversion photo on Page 10 is of a dense polyethylene insulator (original form shown right). One was left near by the discharge electrodes in their test chamber. When they opened it, they found the insulator had taken the form shown on the left.
BECAUSE the insides of these are THREADED, and the outside, SMOOTH you are able to figure out that the insulator is turned INSIDE OUT.
Now, there are people who repeat things they are just told and believe them. There are people who go on heresay. There are people who think the NYT’s is “gospel”.Let me tell you why I’m quite sure this is real…that picture (page 10, Ademenko interview) was taken by ME at the Proton21 facility in Kiev Ukraine in August of 2005. I’ve felt it, seen the set ups, know where it was and also was able to participate with the PROTON21 staff in a couple hour speculation on what could have caused it. (Everything we came up with was FLAWED in one way or another!)
So it’s not only a matter of the “perennial con job” of the HOT FUSION folks, but also a matter that the “standard model” is wrong. So forget nuclear fusion, it ain’t happening!
Any project that has been delayed for an incredibly long time and has no results to show should be shut down. I remember once being shown as Tokamak at Princeton and wondereing why no one was working with it. The answer was and is simple: They still haven’t figured out how to make fusion work.