
An experiment to test whether nuclear fusion can be controlled to generate power - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/fusion-power-plant-iter-france.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
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TeeWEE
Whatever the concerns are, the human race should try to get fusion energy to
work no matter what. Fusion energy will be a big step in human civilization in
progress. It basically means unlimited energy at a fraction of the cost.
Intelligent live form that has mastered the power of suns. Its good for our
planet too. No more global warming. This is hugely important, whatever the
cost.

~~~
dkural
Those costs are born by real people, who have other needs such as education,
healthcare, sanitation, nutrition etc. If you truly believe "whatever the
cost", start by donating most of your salary. After all, you could live
somewhere smaller, consume less stuff, not take any days off, etc. It's so
important for human civilization to progress, right?

Second issue: There are cheaper ways to produce no greenhouse gases than
fusion energy, today. Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Geothermal, Wave, Hydro are all
mostly CO2 free, just like Fusion. However, these technologies compete in the
(very distorted) energy markets, have some environmental impact, social
impact, and there is too low a cost to simply poisoning our air quality with
cheap coal. Our grid designs are outdated, the way we regulate our utilities &
their incentives also don't align.

Third issue: Fusion is well understood, plasma physics, the structure of
magnetic fields etc. is the real issue, as other commenters have outlined.
There was a mistake in our understanding of how even our microwave oven's
fields are contained via the tiny Faraday Cage around them. Even Feynman was
wrong about it: [https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/surprises-of-the-
farada...](https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/surprises-of-the-faraday-cage)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
From that article:

> Q3. Somebody must design microwave oven doors based on laboratory
> measurements. Where are these people?

They're (1) deep inside large corporations like GE, LG, Sharp, and others -
they have non-disclosure agreements, keycard locks on the doors to neighboring
departments, and strict firewalls on their network connections. They don't
publish, which is probably a foreign concept to this Oxford professor.

And (2) they are cannot afford to be this curious, they are time-constrained
and budget-driven, which is also fundamentally alien to this professor's
tenure-based worldview. They have to pass CE/FCC emissions regulations, and if
a trial of a larger grid spacing or lower gauge says the device fails, that's
the conclusion of the matter - put in the stuff that worked before. They
certainly don't have a year to devote to understanding the fundamentals of
Faraday cages.

~~~
dkural
I don't think it's just a publication issue. As far as I'm aware GE / none of
the companies you cited actually did measurements on a variety of designs for
plasma confinement. It was great to see the German Wendelstein 7-X experiment.
I personally think that's a much more promising (both in terms of science &
economics) approach to fusion energy.

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dukoid
Fusion is not the problem. Fusion is understood very well. The problem is
plasma physics. If you happen to understand German, listen to this podcast
about Wendelstein 7-X
[https://alternativlos.org/36/](https://alternativlos.org/36/)

~~~
smoyer
I'm a fan of "new" approaches to fusion too - the 7-X and the Lockheed
"Compact Fusion" [0] designs have a better chance of producing continuous
fusion, do their research in much shorter time frames and prove/disprove
theories at much lower cost.

[0] [http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-
fusion.htm...](http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html)

~~~
dukoid
The stellarator approach is not new though. It was more or less "given up"
when the Soviets had early success with a Tokamak. But some researchers were
still curious why the stellarator didn't work as expected. And it turned out
that problems were understandable and solvable with modern computers... In the
podcast, their main criticism of other approaches is that they either don't
publish their numbers --- or they are quite bad. "Some" fusion is relatively
easy, producing energy with fusion is hard:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-
video/106807...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-
video/10680762/Schoolboys-nuclear-fusion-test-how-he-did-it.html)

~~~
mikeash
It fascinates me that producing net energy with fusion is actually really
easy, relatively speaking. It was figured out in the early 1950s and
immediately put to use. What's hard is doing it at less than a yottawatt
scale, so that the resulting energy could be used to power a city rather than
obliterate it.

I guess it's another example of how it's easier to destroy than to create.

For comparison, controlled fission was performed before the explodey kind, and
the first fission electricity was produced only three years after the first
fission bomb.

------
smoyer
_While it is not clear what would happen to the project if the United States
withdrew, Dr. Bigot argues that it is in every participating country’s
interest to see it through. “You have a chance to know if fusion works or
not,” he said. “If you miss this chance, maybe it will never come again.”_

We already know that fusion works just fine for the sun - this is not the
argument that I would use. And it's my opinion that we've already proven
fusion can't be cost effective (producing excess energy) with the current
reactor designs. I'd rather this money went towards moon-shots that were
proposing alternate ways of achieving fusion.

~~~
vilhelm_s
Cost effectiveness and producing excess energy are different things. The
energy losses scale with the size of the reactor, so an ITER-sized reactor is
expected to produce excess energy (barring unforeseen new effects).

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ams6110
Fission was also supposed to produce energy "too cheap to meter" and in theory
it should be able to. Reality didn't work out that way.

~~~
dukoid
Concluding from this that fusion is bound to fail would be a logical fallacy
though.

