I was looking at that issue while you were typing your post.
According to wiki.. the RO plant makes water at about 6kWhr(e)/m^3. Multi-stage flash distillation plants use ~25kWhr(th)/m^3. However, that is starting at ~100degrees C. If you started at much higher temperatures you could use many more stages and the E/m^3 usage would be much lower. The cost of that is that you would need to pump the water to much higher pressures.
A 100 GW D-T Plant
About 127,000,000 GW if my arithmatic is right!Roger wrote:How much does the entire planet use ???
100Gw gee whiz.
R~6400km.
A~127,000,000km^2
Solar insolation ~1GW/km^2
Viola! Ok, the albedo may reduce that a bit, but not much. Call it 100petawatts.
In other words, we'd need about a million of them if the sun went out!
Umm, maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but I thought he was asking how much *electric* power humans currently generate and consume? Anyhow, if that's what he's asking, Wiki says ~16TW.KitemanSA wrote:About 127,000,000 GW if my arithmatic is right!Roger wrote:How much does the entire planet use ???
100Gw gee whiz.
R~6400km.
A~127,000,000km^2
Solar insolation ~1GW/km^2
Viola! Ok, the albedo may reduce that a bit, but not much. Call it 100petawatts.
In other words, we'd need about a million of them if the sun went out!
This physical size of this fusion generator could be downsized by a factor of 600 if energy rich thorium was added in a fission fusion hybrid design, and still maintain or increase its thermal/electric power output. This would also provide a potential for direct nuclear power conversion to direct electrical current that could eliminate turboelectric power generation.
Deployed as a backbone power producer at the center of an intercontinental super conducting DC power grid, such a plant could provide a significance fraction of CONUS electric power production
Deployed as a backbone power producer at the center of an intercontinental super conducting DC power grid, such a plant could provide a significance fraction of CONUS electric power production
A couple questions: what kind of waste would such a H-fusion/thorium-fission reaction produce? One of the goals of fusion power is either no radioactive waste, or very small quantities of very short-lived waste. Would this hybrid reaction tend to generate short-lived wastes, or long-lived waste?Axil wrote:This physical size of this fusion generator could be downsized by a factor of 600 if energy rich thorium was added in a fission fusion hybrid design, and still maintain or increase its thermal/electric power output. This would also provide a potential for direct nuclear power conversion to direct electrical current that could eliminate turboelectric power generation.
Deployed as a backbone power producer at the center of an intercontinental super conducting DC power grid, such a plant could provide a significance fraction of CONUS electric power production
Instead of using thorium, could you do a similar hybrid fusion/fission where you convert waste from the current and past generations of 'conventional' fission reactors (LWR/PWR/BWR)?
I'm psyched about the possibility of different fusion power approaches, but I think the nations of the world (U.S. in particular, but most nuclear nations) really need to be looking for a way to economically deal with all the long-lived waste that is currently sitting around.
Axil wrote:This physical size of this fusion generator could be downsized by a factor of 600 if energy rich thorium was added in a fission fusion hybrid design, and still maintain or increase its thermal/electric power output. This would also provide a potential for direct nuclear power conversion to direct electrical current that could eliminate turboelectric power generation.
Deployed as a backbone power producer at the center of an intercontinental super conducting DC power grid, such a plant could provide a significance fraction of CONUS electric power production
The waste would be restricted to elements with Z less than or equal to elements no greater than Z= 91(protactinium). At most, only trace amounts of transuranic wastes would be generated if any.A couple questions: what kind of waste would such a H-fusion/thorium-fission reaction produce? One of the goals of fusion power is either no radioactive waste, or very small quantities of very short-lived waste. Would this hybrid reaction tend to generate short-lived wastes, or long-lived waste?
The cool down time for this nuclear waste type is about 500 years.
If you mean depleted U238, I say that is not wise to do.Instead of using thorium, could you do a similar hybrid fusion/fission where you convert waste from the current and past generations of 'conventional' fission reactors (LWR/PWR/BWR)?
For others transuranic elements maybe, but the waste extraction/recirculation loop would be completely customized toward that function.
DR. Burks, heavy ion fusion approach uses multiple fusion modules, some of whom could be dedicated to burn transuranic wastes exclusively. But the thorium and transuranic waste loops would be completely separated for simplicity sake.
Gross estimates of the total capital cost of the Accelerator DriverAero wrote:BS it might be, but we should get a good handle on it from the presentations in about two weeks, Aug 30 - Sept. 3, 2010. What do we know about the symposium?
Related to the topic, what will be the use of a 100 GW power plant? I guess, for one, it could be used to desalinize a lot of water. How much? I've no idea, but fresh water can be piped for a long way to the end users.
It does sound expensive, does anyone have a handle on the cost of such a power plant? Or the cost of some of the main parts? What are the odds of creating a 100 GW polywell in the same time frame at a lower cost? I would speculate that if one is a thermal plant and the polywell can be made to be a direct conversion machine, then the thermal plant loses on cost.
Complex plus the ten reaction chambers, is approximately $30 billion.
Although this is a large number, in the context of the large amount of
useful heat energy produced (100 GWth), it is both reasonable and
commercially viable. For example, if all of the heat energy is applied
solely to the production of electric power (50 GWe) the capital cost
would be less than $1,100 per kW. This compares to $1,890 per kW
for advanced gas/oil combined cycle (CC) plants, $3,496 per kW for
the most efficient integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal
plants, and $3,318 per kW for an advanced nuclear plant.
Furthermore, because the Deuterium “fuel” for HIF power production
is essentially free, and the cost of manufacturing each fuel pellet is
estimated to be only a few dollars, the resulting cost per kWh of HIFproduced
electricity is projected to be a fraction of the 2.7 to 3.0 cents
per kWh of coal, gas or nuclear generation methods. A conservative
estimate of the potential revenue from a single HIF Power Complex—
from the sale of electricity only—is greater than $10 billion annually.
I contend that direct nuclear power conversion can increase power efficiency to about 90%. Its just an engineering issue.
We know that there are large losses in converting thermal energy to electrical (someone above gave a figure of 30-35GWe output from 100GWth input).
The breakthrough technology is direct nuclear power conversion; where the nuclear energy comes from: fusion, fission, waste, really doesn’t matter that much.
I'd love to see the direct conversion plan for a tok. Esp the neutrons. Which you have to cool to breed tok fuel.Axil wrote:I contend that direct nuclear power conversion can increase power efficiency to about 90%. Its just an engineering issue.
We know that there are large losses in converting thermal energy to electrical (someone above gave a figure of 30-35GWe output from 100GWth input).
The breakthrough technology is direct nuclear power conversion; where the nuclear energy comes from: fusion, fission, waste, really doesn’t matter that much.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Axil,
The power companies ideally prefer plants on the order of 50 to 200 MWe and no larger than 1 GWe. The chunk size is as important as the $/kw and $/kwh.
The plant is 30 times larger than than the largest desired. It is 150 to 600 times as large as plants in the ideal range.
And then assuming you are going to capture waste heat from the fuel breeding you are going to need a very large river to cool the sucker. Limiting plant placement.
I suppose you could use salt water. But that greatly increases the cost of the condenser and associated eqpt.
BTW T breeding is at this time a strictly theoretical exercise. No one knows if the T can be contained sufficiently for plant safety or if you can really capture the neutrons at 99 to 99.9% efficiency.
The power companies ideally prefer plants on the order of 50 to 200 MWe and no larger than 1 GWe. The chunk size is as important as the $/kw and $/kwh.
The plant is 30 times larger than than the largest desired. It is 150 to 600 times as large as plants in the ideal range.
And then assuming you are going to capture waste heat from the fuel breeding you are going to need a very large river to cool the sucker. Limiting plant placement.
I suppose you could use salt water. But that greatly increases the cost of the condenser and associated eqpt.
BTW T breeding is at this time a strictly theoretical exercise. No one knows if the T can be contained sufficiently for plant safety or if you can really capture the neutrons at 99 to 99.9% efficiency.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
At 2 to 3 MeV sure. At 20 KeV waste energy direct conversion may be possible. Get it down to 2 or .2 KeV and the problems you allude to disappear.Axil wrote:“I do accept that pigs fly.”
So sorry, but the alpha particles from p-B11 fusion will blast apart whatever solid material you employ for direct energy conversion medium in polywell and in just a few minutes. That is where I see the airborne pigs.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
An optimum direct conversion plan should utilize any nuclear energy carrier including neutrons. Lithium deuteride makes such a plan possible.MSimon wrote:I'd love to see the direct conversion plan for a tok. Esp the neutrons. Which you have to cool to breed tok fuel.Axil wrote:I contend that direct nuclear power conversion can increase power efficiency to about 90%. Its just an engineering issue.
We know that there are large losses in converting thermal energy to electrical (someone above gave a figure of 30-35GWe output from 100GWth input).
The breakthrough technology is direct nuclear power conversion; where the nuclear energy comes from: fusion, fission, waste, really doesn’t matter that much.