Confession on $1.50 fuel post

[anotherT34C]

We can fix the world. Energy, wealth, climate stability, and prosperity for all. Just two words... nuclear fission.

And... keep an eye on ITER. Construction begins next year, and knob twiddling begins ten years after that. After a year or two of knob twiddling, we'll probably (baring unforeseen physics) have the parameters for commercial fusion power.

[David M]

Amen...fission for now. Fusion in the future. Sure beats windmills and solar panels that will only serve to blight the landscape.

[Alan Wheeler]

. After a year or two of knob twiddling, we'll probably (baring unforeseen physics) have the parameters for commercial fusion power.

Actually construction began back in 2005. But that is about the sum total of the goodnews.
It is going to be much longer than 10ysrs from now. It is expected to take 10yrs to build ITER. Then they will do the knob twiddling as you said for another 10yrs ruffly put. The big issue they have at the mo, is that there are materials needed that are not invented yet. They are not invented because they need the working model to work out what it is they need by testing what they have started with. The biggest issue they have is the material they build the walls of toroidial reactor out of. It breaks down and becomes brittle due to the bombardment of stray neutrons. Plus the material becomes radioactive. Although it is not the same type of radioactive as Fission produces. This stuff breaks down in a few years, not thousands.
Once the "knob twidling" has finished, they expect a further 10yrs of testing and tweaking to get the power output required of a commercial reactor. After that, they will spend ruffly another 10yrs building the first full size reactor that commercial ones would be built as. This reactor will be called DEMO. So another 10yrs perhaps to build that one and then how long after that before the first commercial one is still just guesses.
30yrs ago, the powers to be stated that Fusion was 30yrs away. Sadly 30yrs on, the prospect of fusion is still 30yrs away and maybe another 10 to 30 after that even before a commercial plant is operating. And then the big issue to all that is funding. ITER is costing 10Billion. Being a European effort, I assume that 10Billion is Euros.
ITER is going to be the first sustainable reactor, meaning they will get out more energy than they put in.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

Actually construction began back in 2005 ...

Construction has yet to begin on ITER.

The ITER site, at Caderache, France, was chosen in 2005.
The international agreement to build the fusion power reactor, was signed in November of 2006, with construction scheduled (at that time) to begin in 2007.
Meanwhile, the US has cut it’s ITER funding for 2008.

[cooper]

windmills and solar panels are looking good again : )

[hellosailor]

The ITER project :

"
Detailed plans exist for the construction, operation and decommissioning of ITER, and indicate that, if the ITER Organisation is established in 2006, the first plasma should be possible in ITER by the end of 2016. "

Since ITER apparently has been a dead web site for the last three years, once must wonder if it will become another glorious pan-european technology experiment. Like the Concorde, or their GPS constellation.

I do wish it well, but note that it times of global recession, no one is going to throw big money into blue-sky research projects. Except, perhaps, some canny OPEC members with good patent attoreys?

[Richkd]

I have been reserching and conducting some experiments of my own on the permanent rare earth magnetic motor. I first thought that this was another perpetual motion machine but dang if it isnt. The japanese have just introduced the FIRST, always the first, Magnectic motroised Bike. It'll take on any rice burner or Harley.

This is what I am working towards for my own boat and SUV! And eventually my house.

People WAKE up! This kinda tech has been around for decades! Tesla kinda discovered it and others played with it but it was burried on the back shelf.

Go on UTUBE,( of all places) and check it out. THEN get on line and GOOGLE it. Or as the soon to be former Prez says ..........use THE Google on THE InternetS!. lol

[anotherT34C]

Construction on ITER has not yet begun. It's not so much that there are many 'we don't know how to do that' problems, but rather problems of the 'we can't decide which solution would work best' sort. The engineering design is expected to be frozen next year. This is NOT vaporware.

When I was in grad school, I took a plasma sequence taught by one of the ITER stability physicists. I was pretty surprised to learn that the expectations that were sold to the politicians are very very conservative compared to what is expected. I thought this pretty foolish, given what I know about public cynicism towards science, and also since I'm pretty sure the (cynical) politicians themselves are expecting that the physicists are overselling their proposed device rather than underselling. That is after all what politicians do. Scientists are probably among the most cautious and conservative people in the world. It's no accident that accelerators and space probes last far longer than their 'expected' lifetimes.

ITER is expected to operate at the lower edge of what a viable commercial plant would need to produce, right out of the gate. The principal problem is that the physics is too hard to do theoretically (in physics speak, this means 'mathematically'). We have empirical operational data points for smaller D-T fusion reactors, we can fit them to a curve, and we can project where we expect ITER to operate. This is why 'knob twiddling' is so important. As soon as the thing is turned on, they'll start collecting data points, and the physicists will likely know very soon exactly how to make a viable power plant. After that, it's all about 'how much is good enough?' and 'should we start building commercial plants now, or wait and try XX at ITER'?. That phase is expected to last ~20 years, but If I had to guess, I'd guess that the first commercial plants will open several years before ITER the experiment closes.

In the meantime, fission works just fine. In fact, more than just fine. Honestly, we could fiddle with ITER for thousands of years, and fission would still be just fine.

Fun side-note: ITER is designed to be a 'burning' plasma fusion reactor using deuterium and tritium. The D can be scooped out of the ocean, but the T needs to be made, so it's not completely trivial to get. D-T reactions have the largest 'cross-section' which is a fancy way to say 'they're easiest to do'. However, D-3He has a cross section one order of magnitude (10X) smaller, but with an output energy at the peak almost a whole order (60keV for D-T, 450keV for D-3He) higher. This is a pretty big deal. Where do you find 3He? The moon.

[Alan Wheeler]

In the meantime, fission works just fine. In fact, more than just fine.

Arrr but there is a very limited supply of fuel and that is also running out fast. Then the big issue I have is what is done with the spent fuel and how it is transported to were it is stored and that it is still very dangerous for the next 10K years. It maybe OK for you guys in the US to transport it to someplace in your own country, but it is a different story having spent fuel transported across half the world and right across small nations like ours, back doors to get to those dumping sites.

or their GPS constellation.

Is there a problem with there GPS system getting off the ground???

[anotherT34C]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

Arrr but there is a very limited supply of fuel and that is also running out fast. Then the big issue I have is what is done with the spent fuel and how it is transported to were it is stored and that it is still very dangerous for the next 10K years. It maybe OK for you guys in the US to transport it to someplace in your own country, but it is a different story having spent fuel transported across half the world and right across small nations like ours, back doors to get to those dumping sites.

Reprocessing! There is no such thing as nuclear waste, only fuel not yet burned. In the US it is illegal for us to complete the fuel cycle (thankfully Europe and Japan have no such problem) and we're presently stuck with 'once-through'. The cause was some silly high-mindedness from the Carter administration that was intended to fight proliferation (didn't work).

As for 'how much Uranium is left', look into it, you'll be surprised. Uranium is actually a pretty common ore, and estimates of 'how much' are usually only estimates of how much at a given price point for extraction. Increase the price, and the volume of ore goes up exponentially. There is literally millions of years worth of uranium on this planet alone.

And if that's not enough, U233 can be bred from thorium, which is yet three times more abundant than raw Uranium. We'll be bumping up against the half-life of the stuff before we start running out.