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The BBC Looks At Fusion
Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:59 pm
by MSimon
Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:30 pm
by TallDave
The challenge will then be to smooth the rough edges of the technology in order to mass-produce economically viable, reliable power stations.
Haha!
This long-term and final solution to the energy crisis depends of course on sustained public investment at current or preferably significantly increased levels.
Yes, it needs massive public investment because it can't possibly compete with private power sources.
This is a challenge that I believe we must confront now, and not tomorrow. At some point in the future, we will generate our power by nuclear fusion; there is simply no other way to deliver the trillions of watts needed to make life comfortable for all the citizens of our planet.
Bullhooey (or at least very misleading). We have a minimum of 1,000 years of fission fuels available.
Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:15 pm
by Professor Science
TallDave wrote:Bullhooey (or at least very misleading). We have a minimum of 1,000 years of fission fuels available.
Your statement is also misleading in that we have a certain number of watt/hours of fission fuels available. we don't have a flat 1k years regardless of how fast we fiz it. and at growing demand rates we will no doubt need something much better sooner rather than later.
Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:00 pm
by TallDave
Professor,
Actually, that 1,000 years is the most pessimistic scenario, assuming usage continues to increase, fission fuels are less plentiful than hoped, and all energy is derived from fission. With optimistic assumptions, we might have 250,000 years worth of fuel. This also ignores 1,000 years of cumulative technological improvements.
Two things a a lot of people don't realize -- 1)there has been relatively little exploration for uranium over the past 30 years and 2) fission fuel is not a large component of the cost to produce energy via fission; uranium prices could increase by 10x with minimal impact on cost per kilowatt. So there are huge amounts of economically viable fission fuels available that are currently ignored while we use up the cheapest, easiest stuff.
Since we definitely don't need fusion for 1,000 years, it makes little sense to start building any fusion reactors today unless they can be competitive with current fission plants.
TallDave wrote:http://www.nea.fr/html/pub/newsletter/2 ... ources.pdf
Including thorium, it ranges from 17,000 to 250,000 years at 1999 electricity production levels, depending on whether you mine unconventional sources like seawater. So we should have at least ~ 1,000 years before ITER is necessary even if electric demand keeps increasing and only nuclear fuel is available.
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:45 am
by MSimon
Since we definitely don't need fusion for 1,000 years, it makes little sense to start building any fusion reactors today unless they can be competitive with current fission plants.
Would it be OK to do a few experiments?
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:58 am
by JohnP
Since we definitely don't need fusion for 1,000 years, it makes little sense to start building any fusion reactors today unless they can be competitive with current fission plants.
How well are the radioactive ores distributed? If the world 'goes fission,' who's going to be sitting on the gold mines?
Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:30 pm
by TallDave
Simon,
Sure, but it's best if they're on a path towards a design that has a strong chance at being economically competitive, like Polywell.
John,
It depends on what fuel they end up using and what time period we're talking about. There's maybe ~100 years of cheap stuff, mostly in places without reprehensible governments.
The worldwide production of uranium in 2006 amounted to 39 655 tonnes, of which 25% was mined in Canada. Other important uranium mining countries are Australia (19.1%), Kazakhstan (13.3%), Niger (8.7%), Russia (8.6%), and Namibia (7.8%).
However, it's not likely to be a "gold mine" the way oil is. Oil is great when you can pump it for less than $5/bbl and sell for $50-150, but oil demand is a lot more flexible and unpredictable than uranium demand, as fission reactors are small in number compared to internal combustion engines and will have their demand forecast years before they enter production. Also, higher-priced oil supply is more difficult to bring online than uranium supply because of the uncertainty and the fact that unlike uranium, oil itself is a very large proportion of the cost to produce oil energy, making oil production much more sensitive to price fluctuations. Uranium and other fission fuel prices will probably never reach large multiples of cost.