What would happen if an energy storage device failed?

[D Tibbets]

This discussion is escalating to ridiculous levels. Consider the real results like the LHC and the bursting water heater. Is there significant damage- yes. Is a city vaporized- no. Does a refinery explosion and fire do considerable damage and kill workers- yes. Is a nearby city depopulated - no (except for evacuations).
The real question is not if a few people will be killed (BP cared little about that aspect in their Texas refinery), but the cost of the accident. In the LHC it resulted in a delay and a few million dollars(?). In a Polywell it might result in the loss of power for perhaps 6 months, and the scale of the lost power could be compensated for from the grid. Perhaps 300 million dollars will replace it. In a large Tokamak , the power loss might last 10 years, the replacement/ repair cost may be 10 billion dollars, and the scale of the loss will be difficult to replace with excess capacity on the grid.

Everything becomes more difficult, costly, and dangerous with increasing size. And, the Tokamak is very large.

PS: Arguing that electrical current in a wire will not result in explosive effects, haven't seen a transformer explosion, or appreciated the Z pinch machines. It is all a matter of the speed and volume. Thew speed can can be modified with an intermediate storage device such as a pressure vessel

Dan Tibbets

[ladajo]

http://hifweb.lbl.gov/wdmschool/talks/17_GrinenkoR1.pdf

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_ ... er=1380551

http://wn.com/Electrical_arc_from_line_load

http://machinedesign.com/article/puttin ... spark-0205

[Joseph Chikva]

The real question is not if a few people will be killed (BP cared little about that aspect in their Texas refinery), but the cost of the accident.

I think that in developed country such as USA or Japan, etc. each occurred death is very very costly for BP or any other company e.g. TEPCO.

In a Polywell it might result in the loss of power for perhaps 6 months, and the scale of the lost power could be compensated for from the grid. Perhaps 300 million dollars will replace it. In a large Tokamak , the power loss might last 10 years, the replacement/ repair cost may be 10 billion dollars, and the scale of the loss will be difficult to replace with excess capacity on the grid.

First TOKAMAKs was not larger devices than Polywell.
3 m Polywell with 10T superconducting coils also would be rather big device.
Yes, you are right saying that replacing the coil weighing 350 tons is difficult. But unlike any other fusion experiments only TOKAMAK has overcome Lawson criterion but with not achieving the required triple product. V.s. unknown parameters for 8 generations of also conducted experiments for Polywell. I see a big difference here. And not in favor of Polywell.
Regarding cost we should take into consideration that ITER program is an experimental reactor with many subprograms in its frame. Yes, I do not understand expediency of some subprograms. For example welding. As I do not see principal difference of ITER’s structure from e.g. oil refining/petrochemical structures. Why new welding technologies should be developed?
There are too many question regarding cost of ITER project.

[KitemanSA]

10TWHr of energy if a terrorist circumvented the

There is no such thing as a 10 TWHr energy storage superconductor, or capacitor....

Are you suggesting that it cannot EVER be made? Or are you just sniping at me?

[KitemanSA]

Did I do my math wrong or are you just being idiotic again?

Please, keep up or shut up.

You do math wrong and are idiotic again.
Please, keep up or shut up.

Show me how. At least in a way that makes any difference. Put up or shut up.

[Joseph Chikva]

Did I do my math wrong or are you just being idiotic again?

Please, keep up or shut up.

You do math wrong and are idiotic again.
Please, keep up or shut up.

Show me how. At least in a way that makes any difference. Put up or shut up.

I have showed you several times that energy stored in ITER's toroidal magnetic field is equivalently to 10 tons TNT and not 14 kton and not megatons as you state. Energy releases in milliseconds vs. nano or microseconds in high explosive case (1000-1000000 times slower), energy released in heat form by the current oscillating in resistive matrix of superconducting cable. That energy is enough only for heating of that matrix only on 17 deg K. Not enough?

And do not look at me similar to how catholics look at gugenots in Bartholomew’s night era.

[KitemanSA]

I have showed you several times that energy stored in ITER's toroidal magnetic field is equivalently to 10 tons TNT and not 14 kton and not megatons as you state. Energy releases in milliseconds vs. nano or microseconds in high explosive case (1000-1000000 times slower), energy released in heat form by the current oscillating in resistive matrix of superconducting cable. That energy is enough only for heating of that matrix only on 17 deg K. Not enough?

And do not look at me similar to how catholics look at gugenots in Bartholomew’s night era.

Are you REALLY this F*ing STUPID???
LOOK at the posts. SOMEONE (bk78 I think) mentioned a design for an electrical energy storage unit of 10TWHr. Who the F is talking about your stupid tokamak?
KEEP UP!!!
Bozo.

[MSimon]

I have showed you several times that energy stored in ITER's toroidal magnetic field is equivalently to 10 tons TNT and not 14 kton and not megatons as you state. Energy releases in milliseconds vs. nano or microseconds in high explosive case (1000-1000000 times slower), energy released in heat form by the current oscillating in resistive matrix of superconducting cable. That energy is enough only for heating of that matrix only on 17 deg K. Not enough?

And do not look at me similar to how catholics look at gugenots in Bartholomew’s night era.

Are you REALLY this F*ing STUPID???
LOOK at the posts. SOMEONE (bk78 I think) mentioned a design for an electrical energy storage unit of 10TWHr. Who the F is talking about your stupid tokamak?
KEEP UP!!!
Bozo.

You might want to do a psych check - why are you so identified with the subject? Why when anyone makes a statement contrary to your ideas do you go into bouts of considering?

You have way more invested in this than is necessary.

[KitemanSA]

You might want to do a psych check - why are you so identified with the subject? Why when anyone makes a statement contrary to your ideas do you go into bouts of considering?

You have way more invested in this than is necessary.

Did you ever get a nit under a denture? It is a small and useless thing, but highly annoying. That is Joe.

Even Skipjack realized he had missed a defining point in the discussion. But oh, no, not omniscient Joe. Oh well.

[Joseph Chikva]

Are you REALLY this F*ing STUPID???
LOOK at the posts. SOMEONE (bk78 I think) mentioned a design for an electrical energy storage unit of 10TWHr. Who the F is talking about your stupid tokamak?
KEEP UP!!!
Bozo.

Tokamak is not mine, but I think that it is not more stupid than you smart polywell and even much smarter Rossi's device.
May be I am stupid if missed about your or someone's else fancy 10TWHr energy storage. At least that was offtopic in this thread. Also take a look to linked here by Ladajo paper written by much trained than you guy from Brookhaven National Lab about boom or kaboom of magnets.
And I am trying to not assult you. But you are wrong in number of points. Good luck Kiteman.

[KitemanSA]

Tokamak is not mine, but I think that it is not more stupid than you smart polywell and even much smarter Rossi's device.
May be I am stupid if missed about your or someone's else fancy 10TWHr energy storage. At least that was offtopic in this thread.

Actually the thread STARTED with energy STORAGE devices of varying size. So TOKAMAKS are off topic. And I didn't introduce the 10 TWHr concept, bk78 did (IIRC). I just responded to his post. Wherein you attacked me for something completely off topic. You REALLY need to keep up.

Also take a look to linked here by Ladajo paper written by much trained than you guy from Brookhaven National Lab about boom or kaboom of magnets.
And I am trying to not assult you.

But you do it so continuously. Is it a congenital condition?

But you are wrong in number of points. Good luck Kiteman.

Please point them out specifically. I mean ones where I hadn't already mentioned that I was not sure of a datum.

[Skipjack]

Are you suggesting that it cannot EVER be made? Or are you just sniping at me?

If I had to come up with such a device, I would certainly make sure that it is designed in such a way that there cant be huge explosion.
Since the thing is only hypothetical, I would add some hypothetical savety measures

[Joseph Chikva]

Actually the thread STARTED with energy STORAGE devices of varying size. So TOKAMAKS are off topic.

Designs of TOKAMAK’s toroidal field coils and inductive energy storage are similar. We have not enough data on Inductive Energy Storages because they are not used widely but some interesting data on TOKAMAKs are quite available.

But you are wrong in number of points.

Please point them out specifically.

• Are you agree that 14 kton equivalent TNT energy will not be stored in ITER?
• Are you agree that speaking about probable “kaboom” in ITER you can not say in which form (via which way) energy stored in the magnetic field flows into explosion energy (shock wave in expanding gas)?
• Etc.

[KitemanSA]

[/quote]

You do math wrong.... .

Show me how. At least in a way that makes any difference.

I have showed you several times that energy stored in ITER's toroidal magnetic field is equivalently to 10 tons TNT and not 14 kton

Please note that Joe has not mentioned my MATH at all. Yet again, he builds strawmen.

Joe, FIRST, I acknowledged that my dim recollection of the amount of stored energy in an ITER could have been wrong at the time, and then acknowledged again when the value of 10 TONNES was provided that it was probable the value that I had misremembered. SO WHAT? 10 TONNES of HE from ITER (YOUR NUMBER) is still a lot of energy and a powerful potential explosive.

and not megatons as you state.

And this again is a demonstration that whereas you MAY actually be ABLE to read, you steadfastly refuse to do it with respect to my posts. I have NEVER, repeat NEVER made ANY suggestion that ITER has megatonnes of energy equivalent. That is YOUR fantasy. I merely responded to a post by SOMEONE ELSE wherein HE positied a 10TWHr STORAGE unit.
To simplefy... NOT ITER, something ELSE. Got it?
Are you able to comprehend that?

Energy releases in milliseconds vs. nano or microseconds in high explosive case (1000-1000000 times slower), energy released in heat form by the current oscillating in resistive matrix of superconducting cable. That energy is enough only for heating of that matrix only on 17 deg K. Not enough?

Absolutely not. The heat does NOT appear evenly throughout the matrix. It appears at the break. And that is enough to make the material at the break go KABOOM!

The links that ladajo provided abonve show the result of a measily 1MJ (ONE mega joule) of energy dumping across a gap. That kind of EXPLOSION (read kaboom) kills many people a year around the world. Dumping TJ (Tera Joules) across gap would be a bigger kaboom.
Actually, TJ is WAY too small. 10TWHr = 36000TJ = 36 PJ (peta Joules)

And do not look at me similar to how catholics look at gugenots in Bartholomew’s night era.

Is that the way a scientist looks at a bible thumping religioneous fanatic? Because you REALLY look like a BTRF to me.

[KitemanSA]

Are you suggesting that it cannot EVER be made? Or are you just sniping at me?

If I had to come up with such a device, I would certainly make sure that it is designed in such a way that there cant be huge explosion.
Since the thing is only hypothetical, I would add some hypothetical savety measures

Excellent statement.
Please describe, hypothetically, a safety measure that would prevent the explosive release of said hypothetical energy if a hypothetical terrorist shoots a hypothetic shaped charge thru the hypothetical device.