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Speeding the development of fusion power to create unlimited energy on Earth
Can tokamak fusion facilities, the most widely used devices for harvesting on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars, be developed more quickly to produce safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy for generating electricity? Physicist Jon Menard of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has examined that question in a detailed look at the concept of a compact tokamak equipped with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Such magnets can produce higher magnetic fields – necessary to produce and sustain fusion reactions – than would otherwise be possible in a compact facility.
Menard first presented the paper [open, DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2017.0440] [DX], now published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, to a Royal Society workshop in London that explored accelerating the development of tokamak-produced fusion power with compact tokamaks. "This is the first paper that quantitatively documents how the new superconductors can interplay with the high pressure that compact tokamaks produce to influence how tokamaks are optimized in the future," Menard said. "What we tried to develop were some simple models that capture important aspects of an integrated design."
The findings are "very significant," said Steve Cowley, director of PPPL. Cowley noted that "Jon's arguments in this and the previous paper have been very influential in the recent National Academies of Sciences report," which calls for a U.S. program to develop a compact fusion pilot plant to generate electricity at the lowest possible cost. "Jon has really outlined the technical aspects for much smaller tokamaks using high-temperature magnets," Cowley said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday March 25 2019, @08:21PM (13 children)
If you can violate the First Law of Thermodynamics to create unlimited energy out of thin air on Earth, surely you can just as easily create an unlimited heat sink to somehow take away any of the excess without increasing entropy. Because we're well into the realm of magical thinking here: Even Pons and Fleischmann weren't being this grandiose.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 25 2019, @08:34PM (8 children)
The unlimited energy isn't coming from thin air, anymore than Hiroshima and Nagasaki did - or the heat from the Sun.
Instead of a heat-sink, I propose running a heat pump to reject high energy IR to space - sourced from fusion to power the pump and heat from the oceans.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday March 25 2019, @09:27PM (5 children)
Your heat pump will have to be at least as massive and big as the entire planet. The Star Trek stuff is pretty much off the table for now, until someone can show us everything we know is wrong.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:50AM (4 children)
The easier, and only long term, answer to continued economic growth is expansion to space.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:06AM (3 children)
And that will become practical the moment we break the light barrier. Who's gonna be our next Chuck Yeager?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:30PM (2 children)
I think people underestimate the attractiveness of Mars, Venus, the Asteroids, and even Jovian/Saturnian moons as compared to an Earth with 100B homo-sapiens resident.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:28PM (1 child)
an Earth with 100B homo-sapiens resident
That's very unlikely... We're just like any other species, we will reach a limit that cannot be extended. It's really nothing to be concerned about.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:51PM
Overpopulations generally aren't pretty for the overpopulated species, and most don't establish equilibrium on their first boom in a new environment - which is what h. sapiens is doing now.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 25 2019, @09:29PM (1 child)
That heat pump is going to need a beanstalk for a radiator, and I don't thing carbon fibers are strong enough. Either that or you're going to need to make some really high plateau hot enough to change the climate over the entire globe. A low red hot should probably be hot enough. Now, how do you pump the heat into that? (This isn't a matter of generating the heat there, it's a matter of collecting the heat from all over and pumping it onto that plateau. Of course, you run into the same problem with the beanstalk, but there the radiator is cold enough at the top end, that you could use it to cool the poles, so I guess you need two of them.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:55AM
The oceans would seem to be a good heat conductor for global distribution, let them bring the heat to the pump.
A breakthrough in higher temperature superconductors would be a nice thing to conduct heat up a beanstalk, although I think that replacing the telescope farm at the top of Mauna Kea with a big-hotter than lava radiator wouldn't be a bad thing. You could also run a higher gradient heat pump into Mauna Loa - pushing heat from the ocean back into the mantle, if the vulcanologists can identify a strong subduction current in the lava that would take hotter lava down.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday March 25 2019, @09:45PM (2 children)
Write to your representative and ask him to support the repealing of that pesky law. Problem solved by the magic of politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 25 2019, @10:26PM (1 child)
Your proposed methodology needs refining: The letter to a representative must include a large check in exchange for this effort.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:20AM
Ima gonna promise him a reasonable percent of profits (say, 60%?) from the generated energy.
I bet he's gonna take the deal, he may be stupid enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:55AM
We already have several means of converting heat to other forms of energy. They don't even have to be all that efficient if you're just talking waste heat. So what if they lose 90% (not actually lost, just not going into the specific form you want it in) of the potential energy in waste heat?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.