Talk-Polywell.org

well considering we could have been running the whole show on MSRs since the 70's and mitigated the carbon climate debacle, imo the 'total failure' has already happened..
now we are out of time and building these huge energy harvesting systems that will be obsolete in 20 years when nuclear finally gets it's act together

I mean the first BWRX-300 will be what ~2028 in Darlington, even if Helion makes headlines next week with >Q, it will be decades+ of build-out before it makes a real dent in the global emissions profile.

my point is that for the near term renewable/storage is going to be essential
eventually yes they will be done in by high maintenance costs and low energy density

to paraphrase Churchill..
"You can always count on humans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else"

Question is: How quickly can that energy storage be built?
Also mind you, the whole 2030 deadline is nonsense. The IPCC does not say anything like that. It is a myth created by the extinction rebellion movement, based on some fake science by fake scientists.
Essentially, we have until 2050 to get to zero carbon. Still a tight deadline, but assuming we get fusion by ~2030, it is possible.
As for Helion, by my calculation, they technically already have a Q(sci) for T-D > 1. But they are not advertising it (David severely dislikes the whole Q thing).

Skipjack wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:29 pm

Essentially, we have until 2050 to get to zero carbon. Still a tight deadline, but assuming we get fusion by ~2030, it is possible.

Why stop at zero? With low cost power, why not actively withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere.

The average level of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 600M years is about 3x current levels. Relatedly, that’s the level growers arrange in their greenhouses.

The idea that we should restore CO2 levels to that of a ‘golden age’ is therefore wrong. It is also hubristic.

Co2 emissions have risks. I think nuclear power does enough to solve this problem when heat from nuclear electricity is cheaper than heat from fossil fuels. Better battery tech will take care of the rest bar special cases.

re Helion, yes that direct energy conversion design is the winning ticket imo

I recall in their early and spacecraft propulsion designs a single FRC was accelerated, compressed, expanded and exited
if I understand now, the acceleration and compression are followed by expansion/collision and the merging of the two FRCs

curious the benefits of the collision stage if the compression stage has at least some capacity to reach fusion regimes.

[Here is an idea, use the green energy to suck the co2 out of the air and reform it back into fuel.
Oh wait that steps on to many big oil toes.

You shut the faucet before you wipe the floor. It is always better not to emit something than emitting it to catch it back and store it later.

Carbon capture is no option until the last fossil fired power plant is closed. Will that have happened in 2050? Even if Helion and all the others succeed?

It doesn´t end there. There are huge fossil infrastructure investements that cannot be replaced in such a short timeframe. Brick firing, cement production, you name it. Even if Helion start large scale production of cheap 50 MW power plants ten years from now electricity will not penetrate all fossil fuel applications in less than 30 years.

When those 50 MW plants start hitting the market it will cause economic recoils. A ton of coal not sold to the power plant will be offered at a cheaper price to the cement kiln.

There are ways to use CO2 to offset secondary emissions. Given that you have access to cheap energy it is a viable feedstock for synthesis. For example this project:

https://www.chalmers.se/en/projects/Pag ... duces.aspx

https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021- ... 6DBsK.html

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/ ... l-till-mat

Synthetic lard and food oil could displace huge quantities of diesel for agriculture. And, of course, land use.

But the numbers on electricity consumption are sobering. I found a figure for energy content in rapeseed oil equaling to 9,5 kWh per litre. Assuming an efficiency of about 50% in the process gives roughly 20 kWh electricity expenditure for one litre of food oil.

50 MW would be able to produce only 60 000 litres of food oil per day.

Stefank wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:10 pm

re Helion, yes that direct energy conversion design is the winning ticket imo

I recall in their early and spacecraft propulsion designs a single FRC was accelerated, compressed, expanded and exited
if I understand now, the acceleration and compression are followed by expansion/collision and the merging of the two FRCs

curious the benefits of the collision stage if the compression stage has at least some capacity to reach fusion regimes.

So what happens is that if two FRCs merge, they form a single, hotter, and more stable FRC.
Generally, FRCs are "weird" in that they get more stable the hotter they are.
Another benefit is that the the ratio of ion to electron temperature increases and that decreases the losses, lowering the triple product requirements compared to equilibrium plasmas like Tokamaks.
That single, merged FRC is then compressed using magnetic fields only, unlike their proposed space drive, which used a magnetically driven lithium foil liner.
A purely magnetic driven compression is good enough for low gain, but high repetition rate fusion. They only need a low gain due to their direct conversion and energy recovery, which really changes the entire equation.

RE: extracting CO2 from the atmosphere.

At the last Ice age, CO2 was 180ppm. At 120ppm, plants start to die. The Planet was far to close to having not enough CO2 to be considering mining it to produce chemicals when plants do a great job of that.

The current increase in CO2 has greened the planet. We shouldn't be forcing CO2 down when it produces longer growing seasons and higher crop yields.

It isn't well appreciated where '2 degree is dangerous climate change' came from. Originally when asked to assess the impact of raised temperature from CO2, it was (perhaps grudgingly) accepted that a rise of 1 degree was obviously beneficial, due to increased agricultural productivity (where we are now). But if you squint and draw a smooth curve and make some pessimistic assumptions, you can project the curve to cut back below the axis at about 2 degrees. So 'dangerous climate change' actually meant 'might be worse than where we started'.

Even the IPCC can only get the economic impact of no action to be IIRC 4% in 100 years under business as usual: so 98 years growth instead of 100.

Should we emit billions of tons of CO2? No.
Is nuclear power better? Yes, at least for electricity.
Should we stop with the crazy rectification schemes? Yes.

And yes, I would vote to not discuss climate change here if possible.

Agree. We end here.