Major Electronics Magazine Picks Up On Polywell
Yes. However the hydrogen (or other fuel) made must be competitive. Which puts you back to square one.jmc wrote: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.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Not to be an ITER apologist, but you could build the thing next to a large oil-shale deposit. There are probably other industrial uses which could survive the occasional scheduled downtime.Betruger wrote:Is that how it has to be? That is an interesting problem.KitemanSA wrote:It is not the abundance, it is the hole it leaves when shut down, which it MUST be on occasion. That is a heck of a hole.
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Absolutely. My statement had an unstated assumption that it was tied into the grid.dnavas wrote:Not to be an ITER apologist, but you could build the thing next to a large oil-shale deposit. There are probably other industrial uses which could survive the occasional scheduled downtime.Betruger wrote:Is that how it has to be? That is an interesting problem.KitemanSA wrote:It is not the abundance, it is the hole it leaves when shut down, which it MUST be on occasion. That is a heck of a hole.
Not sure I've ever said ITER is a much better bet. Show me.MSimon wrote: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.
I wouldn't bet on either, based on performance to date.
What I have said is that tokamaks have, as an absolute matter of fact, 'done the business' of evidenced hot plasma fusion and therefore substantiate the ongoing interest. I've made no predictions of future performance and if you look you'll find I'm rather downbeat on it. I don't personally believe they will achieve stable banana [self-driving] currents. Just my gut feeling.
I am much more positive towards stellarators (for this reason). If I was given free money to put a bet on to one current project, then I'd go for stellarators. But depends what the bet is. If it is 'first to get as much energy out as put into the reaction media [instantaneously]' then tokamaks have already won that one. Their problem is that they are not continuous devices [yet], nor intrinsically stable even for the duration of thier flat-top pulse.
I've never knocked Polywell for not being as good as tokamaks - I've knocked Polywell for its own deficits. You're trying to claim a non-sequitur connection between tokamaks difficulties [which are all acknowledged, including the huge minimum size required] as a reason to support Polywell. It's not a cogent argument.
I think most engineers are so because they like to turn dreams into a physical reality. But they are generally prevented because they are employed by a class of people who are predominantly accountants.gblaze42 wrote: Engineers are the realists. If we we're to just revel in the scientific pursuit of knowledge and not worry about the cost, why don't we pursue making antimatter via particle accelerators? it's easier than fusion, since we can already do it.
Could it be the cost that prevents us?
If fusion were to costly to produce a working power plant, there would little point in going for that as well.
I'm not picking on your response particularly, but this whole thread makes me really angry because money is the EXCHANGE MEDIUM, it is not THE THING BEING EXCHANGED. It is such a fundamentally mis-conceived notion of our modern age that it's got our Governments making preposterous statements that our financial centres are 'wealth-creators'. They might be 'wealthy-people creators' but the only points of wealth creation are mining, farming, and production engineering. The more you do of any of those, the more wealth you create.
People have become brain-washed slaves to the idea that money is King. Money is the representation of captial and therefore cannot be King - it is a figment of the accountant's creativeness.
Build a 20GW fusion reactor and it will 'cause' money to flow as it is a piece of capital. C'mon engineers!! We CAN sieze back humanity from the accountants - it is only in recent times that 'international money', as we know it, was invented. If it were otherwise, then one pound's weight of sterling silver would still be worth 'One pound sterling' and we'd never have seen a world financial crisis.
ELMs? ITER? There are no working prototypes of any fusion device.chrismb wrote:Don't be daft! Show me the working prototype that shows the physics is nailed down!!!...MSimon wrote: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.
Of course Polywell has its loss problem. And B11 is a proposal at this stage. No tests.
Still. Today - I'd put more money on Polywell delivering economical power to the grid than toks.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Are you supporting my statement, or trying to contest it?MSimon wrote:ELMs? ITER? There are no working prototypes of any fusion device.chrismb wrote:Don't be daft! Show me the working prototype that shows the physics is nailed down!!!...MSimon wrote: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.
But the problems are not primarily physics problems for ITER. Other than ELMs etc. they are engineering problems. Physics may be used to solve them (you would be surprised at how much engineers use physics) but they are not physics problems. They are engineering problems.chrismb wrote:Don't be daft! Show me the working prototype that shows the physics is nailed down!!!...MSimon wrote: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.
The first wall problem is an engineering problem.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.