Sure. Steam ships do it. However, the material cost goes way up. It may not be too significant in overall plant cost. However, I'm unaware of significant land based power plants that use sea water cooling.Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
Major Electronics Magazine Picks Up On Polywell
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
But chris, you are always telling us ITER is a much better bet than Polywell. Count the neutrons you tell us.
We say when evaluating a plan it may be useful to count the estimated dollars in the estimated final product in order to best allocate the research money.
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In any case. Too late for that now. If Polywell proves out in two years and goes on to a power plant design two years after that it won't matter. If it doesn't it won't matter. It would be good though to pump up alternate approaches. Just in case.
We say when evaluating a plan it may be useful to count the estimated dollars in the estimated final product in order to best allocate the research money.
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In any case. Too late for that now. If Polywell proves out in two years and goes on to a power plant design two years after that it won't matter. If it doesn't it won't matter. It would be good though to pump up alternate approaches. Just in case.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
This is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Of course we can estimate these things ahead of time. It would be ridiculous not to.Blithering on about whether 2GW is better than 20GW is nonsense. You won't really understand the practical and/or financial implications until the first one is built.
This is like arguing we can't tell whether a bridge from New York to London makes financial sense until we build one.
Yes, let the shining glorious scientists waste billions of dollars without the petty concerns of how it's paid for or whether they're actually producing anything of value. Never mind the ugly capitalist system that pays for all this, and gives humans ever-higher living standards.This isn't some new model of car being built; it's not predictable by the reptilious accountancy species. I'm only interested in the glorious triumphs of humans, so don't bore me with the filthy politico/accountant's business.
The truth is scientists produce lots of abstract information, while engineers and accountants are the ones who make it useful to humans.
They already have that glorious utopia in Cuba and North Korea. It doesn't look much like Star Trek; the former can't afford toilet paper and in the latter millions starve to death.One day, you won't have money as you understand it, and those that read these ancient websites will wonder what on earth you're talking about
Last edited by TallDave on Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Chris,
It is already well into the grimy engineering approach.
We are not talking new science here. Some glorious search for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
We are well into the engineering phase. Can we make a diverter that works? Can we solve the first wall problem? Will the Polywell SC magnets be strong enough to deflect alphas? Can the Polywell burn B11? What is the cost of power conversion. What is the power gain? What size of plant will be required to generate economical electricity? How big will the vacuum pumps need to be. What is the cost of power supplies? etc. etc. etc.
None of the questions being asked are science questions (we will use the scientific method to find answers). The questions confronting us with all proposed fusion methods are engineering questions.
The short version: we already know how to do fusion. The question now is can we do it at a profit?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
It is already well into the grimy engineering approach.
We are not talking new science here. Some glorious search for knowledge for knowledge's sake.
We are well into the engineering phase. Can we make a diverter that works? Can we solve the first wall problem? Will the Polywell SC magnets be strong enough to deflect alphas? Can the Polywell burn B11? What is the cost of power conversion. What is the power gain? What size of plant will be required to generate economical electricity? How big will the vacuum pumps need to be. What is the cost of power supplies? etc. etc. etc.
None of the questions being asked are science questions (we will use the scientific method to find answers). The questions confronting us with all proposed fusion methods are engineering questions.
The short version: we already know how to do fusion. The question now is can we do it at a profit?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Nope, don't agree with your analogy. Everyone agrees that God (fusion) exists, the argument is what "way" or ways should be used to bottle his beneficence. If there are several ways that might work and if they do will provide his beneficence at $5 per $10 beneficence bottle (well worth the price) and one way that is almost certain to work but to all expectations will only provide it at $500 a $10 beneficence bottle (certainly not worth it), where should limited resources be placed to develop "the way" to God?chrismb wrote: It's like listening to people debating the existence of God, but missing out the 'existence' part and just moving straight on to how much His house cost and what cubic capacity His pick-up has got under the hood!!
So far, many folks I have some respect for say that the tokomak route will never give us <$10 per bottle. Are they wrong? How?
Basically just those that have as a secondary purpose the desalination of seawater.MSimon wrote:Sure. Steam ships do it. However, the material cost goes way up. It may not be too significant in overall plant cost. However, I'm unaware of significant land based power plants that use sea water cooling.Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
Seems to me like sucking up ocean water would be an ideal setup to preheat water for a multi-stage flash desalination plant. With a few extra 'free' degrees input temperature, I'd think you'd be able to get a significantly higher freshwater output with less of an energy expenditure.MSimon wrote:Sure. Steam ships do it. However, the material cost goes way up. It may not be too significant in overall plant cost. However, I'm unaware of significant land based power plants that use sea water cooling.Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-stag ... stillation
You've got the heat, might as well get some extra revenue out of it, right?
(Looks like KitemanSA beat me to the idea. Dang!)
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.
From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre ... ng_StationMSimon wrote:Sure. Steam ships do it. However, the material cost goes way up. It may not be too significant in overall plant cost. However, I'm unaware of significant land based power plants that use sea water cooling.Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
Here's one, and there is another on up the coast. Unfortunately I don't recall its name but I do recall that both plants are cooled with sea water. Dumping the waste heat into the ocean is a big deal for the greenies in So. Cal.The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a nuclear power plant located on the Pacific coast of California. The 84-acre (34 ha) site is in the northwestern corner of San Diego County, south of San Clemente, and surrounded by the San Onofre State Park and next to the I-5 Highway. It provides nearly 20% of the electrical power to the residents of Southern California.
Unit 1 is no longer in service. This reactor was a first generation Westinghouse pressurized water reactor that operated for 25 years, closing permanently in 1992. Units 2 and 3, Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors, continue to operate and generate 1,172 MWe and 1,178 MWe respectively.
Aero
Now if we could dump the greenies in the ocean. I wouldn't want to apply for the toxic waste permit though.Aero wrote:From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre ... ng_StationMSimon wrote:Sure. Steam ships do it. However, the material cost goes way up. It may not be too significant in overall plant cost. However, I'm unaware of significant land based power plants that use sea water cooling.Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?Here's one, and there is another on up the coast. Unfortunately I don't recall its name but I do recall that both plants are cooled with sea water. Dumping the waste heat into the ocean is a big deal for the greenies in So. Cal.The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a nuclear power plant located on the Pacific coast of California. The 84-acre (34 ha) site is in the northwestern corner of San Diego County, south of San Clemente, and surrounded by the San Onofre State Park and next to the I-5 Highway. It provides nearly 20% of the electrical power to the residents of Southern California.
Unit 1 is no longer in service. This reactor was a first generation Westinghouse pressurized water reactor that operated for 25 years, closing permanently in 1992. Units 2 and 3, Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors, continue to operate and generate 1,172 MWe and 1,178 MWe respectively.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I used to body surf down there. The water was warm then. That would have been '67 or '68.Tom Ligon wrote:The dirty little secret of SoCal is the water is too damned cold for swimming. A little strategic warming of the water along the beaches might help.
Just leave it cold where the seals and sea lions poop.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Saltwater condensers for steam turbines is not that unusual. There has been a learning curve though on what materials are best to use. We recently replaced our condensers with titanium tubes and tube sheets. Since the cold war end, titanium costs have become competitive. Barnacle and muscle growth requires either frequent cleaning or automated systems though.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
I tend to agree that we're at the phase where engineering considerations are important fusion reactions were achieved with particle accelerators at the turn of the 20th century. What we're striving to do now is simply to balnce the books of energy in vs energy out. No dramatic new insights into the nature of the universe to be gleened here (although arguably plasma physics can be used to explain a number of astrophysical phenomena)
You can't plug 20GW into the national grid directly, but perhaps a 20GW nuclear fusion reactor could be used as a kind of in situ hydrogen refinery. I'm sure there are large oil refineries around the world who export an equivalent of 10 to 100 of GW in continous oil flows into tankers and internation pipelines etc.
You can't plug 20GW into the national grid directly, but perhaps a 20GW nuclear fusion reactor could be used as a kind of in situ hydrogen refinery. I'm sure there are large oil refineries around the world who export an equivalent of 10 to 100 of GW in continous oil flows into tankers and internation pipelines etc.