
Major next steps for fusion energy based on the spherical tokamak design - jonbaer
http://www.pppl.gov/news/2016/08/major-next-steps-fusion-energy-based-spherical-tokamak-design
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jcbeard
Anybody ever wonder if we put 1/3 of the defense budget into Fusion energy
research (literally a new Manhattan project, lets call it the Princeton
Project) that we could have more impact than that entire defense budget? Think
about it. Most of the worlds conflict arises over struggle for resources, and
most of those resources are oil. If the world didn't lust for oil as a cheap
energy source, could we defund dictatorships around the world? Could we start
focusing on cultural and structural issues vs. the struggle for fossil fuels?
Seems to make far more sense to spend a few hundred billion USD on fusion
research vs. 1.59 million USD per cruise missile to fix/quell conflict that
arrises from that struggle. Just a thought, but it seems fixing the cause
rather than treating the symptoms is a far better approach in the long term.

~~~
virmundi
Not to get too political, but I think that the US tends to have the policies
it does to prevent the all out collapse of the Middle East. If you think it's
a shit storm now, just wait until they have nothing.

Few of those states invested in their people and their infrastructure. Instead
they created an almost UBI for their population. It's enough to keep them
relatively passive. Cheap gas and just enough to get by. All the while they've
created a sense of entitlement in their population. Look at how they treat
immigrant labor.

Sadly this population didn't take their minimal freedom to pursue the arts or
sciences. While there are instances of individuals improving their life,
developing skills and preparing for a post-oil world, the bulk of their
society just floats. Moving off oil will pull the plug on their basin. Their
societies will probably go down the drain.

Watch out for Europe when that happens. These groups will migrate north and
west. I don't think you'll see an exodus into Asia. Given their poor skills,
Europe will have a hard time incorporating them into general society. In the
end they will probably ghetto-ize. Now Europe will be a melting pot of
terrorism. Disaffected young males, the primary target of extremist groups,
will be sitting, by the millions, in slums in and around major European
cities.

TL;DR: Oil, for all of its faults, stabilizes the world. The US military
budget keeps that around.

~~~
DennisP
A while back I read that states which get their funding from natural resources
instead of taxes very seldom turn into liberal democracies. I think it was in
Zakaria's _Future of Freedom_ :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom)

So maybe oil hasn't been a net benefit for these countries. In any case, if we
stop needing their oil, their capacity for causing trouble will be drastically
diminished.

~~~
visarga
> if we stop needing their oil, their capacity for causing trouble will be
> drastically diminished

I think in a few decades their new need for self reliance could pay dividends.
They could be living much better in the long run.

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ChuckMcM
This may be cynical but every time I read the Princeton Lab's press I am
reminded of how different fusion _science_ is from fusion _engineering._ In
the former the words are like "explore ways of doing _x_ ..." or "Compare
different forms of _y_ ...". In the engineer press it is more like, "Once we
achieve _x_ which we expect to achieve by _p_ , _q_ , or worst case _r_ , we
will move on to _y_ leaving us one step away from fully operational fusion
plants."

As an engineer I much prefer the latter, something with a bit of urgency that
"we need to develop this as quickly as possible because it unlocks a lot of
solutions to problems which are threatening billions of people." Not "Ohh look
at all the shiny ways we can turn three two small atoms into one slightly
bigger atom!"

~~~
DennisP
Recently I watched a presentation[1] by the director of MIT's fusion program,
talking about their ARC design. They want to minimize physics risk by using a
standard tokamak, but take advantage of new commercially-available
superconductors to make a net-positive 200MW reactor that's ten times smaller
than ITER.

He mostly talks about practical engineering issues: modular reactor
construction, easy maintenance, testing current flow through joints in
superconducting tapes, 3D printing a reactor chamber with complex cooling
channels, immersion in FLiBe for ample cooling and breeding 14% more tritium
than the reactor consumes, etc.

The reactor would be about the size of JET, which was built in four years. MIT
has pretty good experience for this, since their Alcator C-Mod has more
powerful magnetic fields than any other tokamak in the world.

Of course the startup companies pursuing fusion are also taking an engineering
approach. Here's an interesting panel discussion[2] between the MIT guy and
people from Tri Alpha, General Fusion, and Lockheed.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWjAJKPLMEo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWjAJKPLMEo)

~~~
deelowe
Is it just me or does MIT seem to tend towards the more practical end of
things when it comes to R&D?

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theophrastus
Purely for the esoteric linguistic amusement: tokamak is a Russian acronym
where the "toka-" comes from тороидальная камера or toroidal chamber/cabin. So
a spherical tokamak would be a 'spherical toroid', and a bit oxymoronic. By
the bye, is there a likely set of pro/cons as compared to the stellarator
configuration?
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X))
It's at least interesting that "stellarator" appears in the posting's address:
GPS: 100 Stellarator Road.

~~~
DennisP
It's still a toroid, regardless of the shape getting revolved:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroid)

People generally say stellarators are harder to build but easier to operate.

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shireboy
If you are (like me) an armchair follower of energy news like this, these guys
give a good overview of the challenges of fusion research:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8460493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8460493)

As much as I want any of these "experiments" to succeed- and don't want to
denigrate the hard work of people focused on these projects- this is one of
those areas you have to really read between the lines on. It turns out it's
really hard to create a mini sun in such a way that you can reliably and cost-
effectively generate electricity from it.

~~~
DennisP
Nothing against .Net developers, I'm one myself. But to see what some actual
fusion scientists think about fusion, see the videos I posted here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12381137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12381137)

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aetherspawn
The funny thing is science fiction like Star Trek capitalised on issues like
plasma confinement (in a way that can fail) well before anyone could have
anticipated it would be an issue.

It will be interesting to observe how science converges with science fiction

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paws
Interesting to see the trend continue towards spherical tokamaks.

~~~
mordant
Like _actual_ AI (not the expert systems everyone is misleadingly labeling as
'AI' for marketing reasons), fusion power has been 20 years away for the last
60 years.

~~~
drjesusphd
This graph might have something to do with it:

[http://m.imgur.com/sjH5r?r](http://m.imgur.com/sjH5r?r)

~~~
AstralStorm
The graph is both accurate and misleading. Funding is often cumulative to an
extent.

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strommen
Just a PSA: there is _zero_ chance that nuclear fusion makes a meaningful
impact in stopping climate change in the next 30 years.

Before it becomes a significant part of our energy mix, fusion needs to be
cheap, safe, and reliable. It is nowhere close to any of these things right
now, and it will take a lot of time and money to get there - especially the
"cheap" part. It's simply not going to happen before the year ~2050.

The technologies that have a chance to stop climate change are solar, wind,
and energy storage.

~~~
slacka
The combination of reduced spending on fusion researcher and increased demands
of ITER, has resulted in a slowing of progress funneling funds aways from
other designs and projects. So if we stay on the same underfunded trajectory,
I agree. However, 34 years is a long time. Between now and 2050, if we had a
Manhattan Project-style push, that number could be brought down to 2040 or
maybe earlier depending on how soon we shifted.

