Page 4 of 11

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:16 pm
by MSimon
Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
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.

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:24 pm
by MSimon
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.

===

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.

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:33 pm
by TallDave
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 just mind-bogglingly stupid. Of course we can estimate these things ahead of time. It would be ridiculous not to.

This is like arguing we can't tell whether a bridge from New York to London makes financial sense until we build one.
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.
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.

The truth is scientists produce lots of abstract information, while engineers and accountants are the ones who make it useful to humans.
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
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.

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:41 pm
by MSimon
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.

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:47 pm
by MSimon
chris,

You are a prime example of how most scientists are not very good at engineering as I posited above. I can now safely rest my case.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:32 am
by KitemanSA
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!!
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?

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?

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:36 am
by KitemanSA
MSimon wrote:
Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
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.
Basically just those that have as a secondary purpose the desalination of seawater.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:45 am
by JLawson
MSimon wrote:
Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
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.
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.

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!)

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:42 am
by MSimon
Yes. Flash distillation. Done on steam ships. Used for plant make up water and drinking/cooking water.

These days I believe for land based use reverse osmosis is preferred.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:49 am
by Aero
MSimon wrote:
Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
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.
From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre ... ng_Station
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.
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.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:57 am
by MSimon
Aero wrote:
MSimon wrote:
Concerning cooling, if corrosion can be controlled, wouldnt ocean water work for the heat exchanger?
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.
From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre ... ng_Station
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.
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.
Now if we could dump the greenies in the ocean. I wouldn't want to apply for the toxic waste permit though.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:04 am
by Tom Ligon
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.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:40 am
by MSimon
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.
I used to body surf down there. The water was warm then. That would have been '67 or '68.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:02 am
by mvanwink5
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.

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:23 am
by jmc
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.