More investment in Tokamaks and hot fusion is required

[paxmao]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is a potential source of safe, non-carbon emitting and virtually limitless energy.

This is not science fiction or, for that matter, a scam token. There are a number of projects around the world delivering quite promising results and all the citizens that have a say on how the money of their governments is spent should be demanding more funds to free humanity from fossil fuels and all the wars and climate problems that it brings.

A year ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/28/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-project-under-assembly-in-france

World’s largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly in France
Project aims to show clean fusion power can be generated at commercial scale

An now another opportunity to make this happen
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2327239-design-work-starts-on-european-commercial-fusion-power-station/

Design work starts on European commercial fusion power station
The EuroFusion consortium hopes its DEMOnstration Power Plant will take fusion power from the lab to commercial electricity supply by 2054

This is what we should be talking about and demanding from our leaders, instead of fighting over dinosaur juices - making 2054 be 2034.

[NeuroticFish]

Nuclear fusion is the dream of scientists for quite some time now, and while it sounds great, .. I don't know...
* I don't know if it's indeed possible to be done (to run independently virtually forever) because of its requirements for pressure and starting energy, plus some other conditions I don't know (longest run was under 10 minutes)
* I don't know how (in)secure such a construction would be, since releasing such a pressure means .. a big bomb.

[stompix]

* I don't know how (in)secure such a construction would be, since releasing such a pressure means .. a big bomb.

This is plasma, the pressure is not as big as you might imagine, ITER operates at a maximum achievable 2.6 atm.
https://www.psfc.mit.edu/news/2016/pressure-record-faq

Also, somehow the shields falling simply means a quenched reaction, everything will stop as it loses immediately heat and pressure and the reactor shuts itself down, plus the amount of fuel in a fusion reactor is completely different from a fission one which has years of fuel. So basically even if one would explode it will still be contained, there is no way for the amount of energy in a fusion reactor to keep building to generate a larger explosion, that energy build-up would again quench the reaction.

Nuclear fusion is the dream of scientists for quite some time now, and while it sounds great, .. I don't know...

Humanity has spent millennia dreaming about flying, now it's a trivial thing, the first electric car is more than one century old but they were considered impractical for most of the time till now.

[Fortify]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is a potential source of safe, non-carbon emitting and virtually limitless energy.

This is not science fiction or, for that matter, a scam token. There are a number of projects around the world delivering quite promising results and all the citizens that have a say on how the money of their governments is spent should be demanding more funds to free humanity from fossil fuels and all the wars and climate problems that it brings.

A year ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/28/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-project-under-assembly-in-france

World’s largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly in France
Project aims to show clean fusion power can be generated at commercial scale

An now another opportunity to make this happen
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2327239-design-work-starts-on-european-commercial-fusion-power-station/

Design work starts on European commercial fusion power station
The EuroFusion consortium hopes its DEMOnstration Power Plant will take fusion power from the lab to commercial electricity supply by 2054

This is what we should be talking about and demanding from our leaders, instead of fighting over dinosaur juices - making 2054 be 2034.

It's great news that more research is being put into this energy source, however we should definitely continue to research further on the many different avenues of renewables out there. Improving solar, using hydroelectric dams (that are environmentally sustainable), making windmills that are more efficient, investing in wave power, looking at geothermal energy gathering improvements, even nuclear power is relatively clean - there are so many different options out there that we should be encouraging a variety of sources away instead of putting all our faith in one. We're still in the infancy of all this technology so it'll be great when it is powering every grid around the world in a much more sustainable way.

[NeuroticFish]

This is plasma, the pressure is not as big as you might imagine, ITER operates at a maximum achievable 2.6 atm.
https://www.psfc.mit.edu/news/2016/pressure-record-faq

I am not that knowledgeable in the matter (hence I may be wrong), but the plasma may be only a first step.
I don't know if 2.6 ATM is enough to fuse H2 into He and/or split He into H2 (isn't this that's supposed to happen on long term?)

So basically even if one would explode it will still be contained, there is no way for the amount of energy in a fusion reactor to keep building to generate a larger explosion, that energy build-up would again quench the reaction.

Here I agree, just, as I said, I expect to see there much much more than 2.6 ATM (and also "a bit" of heat).

Humanity has spent millennia dreaming about flying, now it's a trivial thing, the first electric car is more than one century old but they were considered impractical for most of the time till now.

And we dreamed about flying to the stars and no luck yet, and we dreamed about running cars with water and no luck yet (although solar panels + water => hydrogen may not be that far from that).
Some dreams came true, some others not. Or not yet.
I do hope I'm too pessimistic and we get to have free energy with basically unlimited supply, maybe even during my lifetime. But I won't hold my breath for that.

[Hydrogen]

Thorium nuclear plants have been pitched as a potential successor to conventional nuclear energy. The technology has yet to materialize however. Despite much being published about it over the past 15 years.

The united states no longer has the capability to manufacture large concrete structures like the hoover dam or the shells of nuclear power plants. When a nuclear plant is built in the USA. The massive concrete shell is usually manufactured abroad in japan. Then shipped overseas to america at enormous cost. With the rising cost of oil and shipping, these costs become even more unaffordable.

Thanks to the enormous start up costs of nuclear plants. They typically search for ways to cut costs. The most popular cost cutting method is building the nuclear plant on the cheapest land that can be found. In a poor and sparsely populated neighborhood. Which is usually on a fault line in an area that is high risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. If you look at the location of nuclear plants in the world. A trend emerges where a high percentage of them are located in areas high risk for earthquake and tsunami. Here is a classic example of nuclear plants typically being built on a fault line:



Image link:  https://i.imgur.com/anbHUqm.jpg

If future nuclear plants are built, maybe they could be constructed in areas less prone to natural disasters.

[hatshepsut93]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

They key words are may and eventually. This idea is already very old, and progress in this field is very slow. Humanity should have been more nuclear fission power plants instead of dismantling them over irrational fears and propaganda from fossil fuel industry. That is one of the best ways to fight climate change, but it seems no one in power even considers it.

[stompix]

The united states no longer has the capability to manufacture large concrete structures like the hoover dam or the shells of nuclear power plants. When a nuclear plant is built in the USA. The massive concrete shell is usually manufactured abroad in japan. Then shipped overseas to america at enormous cost. With the rising cost of oil and shipping, these costs become even more unaffordable.

And do you have a  source for this?
Because I think youtube would be full of videos showing a 20 000 tons of concrete confinement building being shipped from Japan to Waynesboro, Georgia, and for sure I would want to see the thing that transports that and lifts it into place.

They typically search for ways to cut costs. The most popular cost cutting method is building the nuclear plant on the cheapest land that can be found. In a poor and sparsely populated neighborhood. Which is usually on a fault line in an area that is high risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. If you look at the location of nuclear plants in the world. A trend emerges where a high percentage of them are located in areas high risk for earthquake and tsunami.

Now, this is just an assumption, and you could have looked at the whole picture before making it


So, how many tsunamis hit the east coast on average a year?

And this you claim this is happening globally, here is Europe:



You can see that all regions full of nuclear reactors are NOT in areas where earthquakes or tsunamis happen.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This is what we should be talking about and demanding from our leaders, instead of fighting over dinosaur juices - making 2054 be 2034.

Word to the motherland, broheim. 

I think part of the problem with adopting this type of energy source is the massive bad rap nuclear power has gotten since at least the 1960s, with Three Mile Island coming to mind first.  Even if this is wildly different, there's still a stigma that's not insignificant which quashes such discussion before it even begins.  Perhaps the newer generation, the young people coming into power, will see past that and pick up where the last batch of nuclear scientists left off and free us from our dependence on fossil fuels.

The biggest problem, however, is that corporations like Exxon-Mobil and ones like them are extremely rich and very cozy with government officials because of the lobbying power they've built up for many years.  It'd be nice if these big oil companies would change with the times and demands for new forms of energy, but it doesn't look like that's happening.  Think about it: the electric car isn't a new idea by a long shot.  They could have become the standard instead of the gasoline-powered ones we've take for granted as the only option available (prior to hybrid electric cars and Tesla, anyway), but oil companies have wielded tremendous power for so long that it's going to take some doing to reverse that.

I've voted with my wallet for nearly the past decade and gone without a vehicle altogether.  If I were to buy one, I'd go for full electric in a heartbeat, assuming I could afford one.  Anyway.

[paxmao]

...

So, how many tsunamis hit the east coast on average a year?
...

How many do you need to make a whole area radioactive?

[crwth]

Making energy efficient is the dream of one's nation. There are a lot of researchers that are considering the different ways of making it even more efficient, whether they are about

• Energy transfer optimization
• Energy Conservation/Storage
• Operating life of a battery
• Alternatives for current sources of energy (e.g., Renewable Energy Resources)

If this has become the norm of everything, considering all the factors and parameters of building something like a nuclear fusion energy source, then it would be cheaper, for sure, the energy.

[davis196]

The future of nuclear reactors are the small module reactors. Not that I'm any kind of expert in nuclear energy.
Thermonuclear reactors sound like a great idea, but it would take decades for building economically effective reactors, which meet all security standards and can be approved before mass construction. The process is very expensive and time consuming.

Nuclear fusion is the dream of scientists for quite some time now, and while it sounds great, .. I don't know...
* I don't know if it's indeed possible to be done (to run independently virtually forever) because of its requirements for pressure and starting energy, plus some other conditions I don't know (longest run was under 10 minutes)
* I don't know how (in)secure such a construction would be, since releasing such a pressure means .. a big bomb.

Actually the conventional nuclear reactors are more like "a big bomb". Thermonuclear reactors operate in a different way, which makes them easier to shut down and most importantly, they don't need Uranium-235. All the hype around thermonuclear fusion is that such reactors would be way less dangerous and (probably) cost effective than the traditional nuclear reactors. I'm not saying that thermonuclear reactors are completely safe and there aren't any security concerns whatsoever.. I'm saying that they are supposed to be safer than the Uranium reactors.

[NeuroticFish]

The future of nuclear reactors are the small module reactors. Not that I'm any kind of expert in nuclear energy.

Although I agree that they can be a good step forward for now, there are a few topics here that worth mentioning:
1. Many people (and nations!) are afraid of nuclear power. From what I've read, that's one of the reasons Germany is closing them.
2. Even small reactors do produce nuclear waste, which is problematic to be disposed (and I'm saying it overly nice).
3. Nuclear fusion should give more power for longer time with virtually no waste at all, so it would be huge leap forward; it would make any fission based power plants "instantly" obsolete.

Thermonuclear reactors operate in a different way, which makes them easier to shut down and most importantly, they don't need Uranium-235.

I know. I didn't make confusion, I don't talk about that kind of bombs. But a sudden release of a huge amount of pressure is... a bomb.

[be.open]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

For reference: the installation is based on the tokamak system developed by Soviet scientists (Toroidal Chamber with Magnetic Coils), developed in the 50s of the last century by academicians I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov.

Russia is the initiator of the ITER project.

Russia has complete design documentation for the ITER reactor.

Russia occupies one of the key positions in the implementation of the international ITER Project.

It looks like your hatred of hydrocarbons is stronger than your Russophobia.

[paxmao]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

For reference: the installation is based on the tokamak system developed by Soviet scientists (Toroidal Chamber with Magnetic Coils), developed in the 50s of the last century by academicians I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov.

Russia is the initiator of the ITER project.

Russia has complete design documentation for the ITER reactor.

Russia occupies one of the key positions in the implementation of the international ITER Project.

It looks like your hatred of hydrocarbons is stronger than your Russophobia.

My "russophobia" does not exist other than in your imagination. I am aware that Russian nationals provided part of the theoretical basis for the hot fusion, and Nazis stablished the bases for rocketry and guidance systems but that does not seem to prevent Adolf Putin to use these to kill civilians.

Science belong to humanity, no matter who develops it.

[edgycorner]

The most promising future energy, cheap, abundant and that may eventually be easy to produce is hot fusion energy.  https://www.iter.org

For reference: the installation is based on the tokamak system developed by Soviet scientists (Toroidal Chamber with Magnetic Coils), developed in the 50s of the last century by academicians I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov.

Russia is the initiator of the ITER project.

Russia has complete design documentation for the ITER reactor.

Russia occupies one of the key positions in the implementation of the international ITER Project.

It looks like your hatred of hydrocarbons is stronger than your Russophobia.

With that philosophy you should stop eating then  

The gas which was used in concentration camps during WW2(Zyklon-B) is the work of of the same guy who invented synthesis of fertiliser from N2 and H2(which is used in almost all of the produce that you consume today).

As for fusion itself, it still got decades of development left to be feasible enough.