Fusion-lit uplands

Ray Zdybrow

Ray Zdybrow

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The UK's Secretary of State for Energy has announced that an electricity-generating fusion reactor will be built in Nottinghamshire, generating huge amounts of clean power to be used in Britain and exported to the rest of the world. Could any Chronners with the requisite scientific/technical knowledge comment on the likelihood of this, without (of course) violating the "no politics" rule?
 
I think some technical break throughs are needed before fusion becomes viable. "Normally, fusion is not possible because the strongly repulsive electrostatic forces between the positively charged nuclei prevent them from getting close enough together to collide and for fusion to occur." From:

Nuclear Fusion : WNA - World Nuclear Association

Nuclear Fusion, information on fusion energy, including the JET, ITER projects, tokamaks, information from the World Nuclear Association, the organization provides information on nuclear power, nuclear energy, nuclear reactors, fusion projects, nuclear waste disposal.
world-nuclear.org world-nuclear.org
 
I was under the impression that we are many years away from harnessing Fusion power. Most articles talk about short bursts of power output from experimental reactors but nothing stable. And perhaps the biggest hurdle - getting more energy out than you put in.

example:

" JET has just run tests that produced more than 59 MJ of energy over five seconds, more than doubling the output achieved in 1997."

physicsworld.com

Could commercial fusion power plants get us to net zero? – Physics World

James McKenzie applauds recent record investments in commercial fusion power plants, which could help us to create a net-zero economy
physicsworld.com

from this article:

As for Tokamak Energy, this British firm’s ST40 spherical tokamak reactor with HTS magnets reached a stunning 15 million kelvin in 2018. The firm, which received its last funding of £67m in January 2020, is now targeting a 100 million kelvin plasma from its upgraded ST40 reactor. I wonder if 2022 could also be a big breakthrough year for the company?

Meanwhile, last year the UK government announced a short list for sites for a prototype fusion plant known as Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production, or STEP. Based on technology pioneered by the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), STEP could be up and running by 2040. The final location is due to be decided this year
 
It will be built next to the 100% British Time Machine which politicians (of all persuasions) have been promising us since the days of Lewis Carroll. This machine will be able to transport vast quantities of energy-rich, fruit-based preserves from anywhere in time and deposit them in a chosen permanent location a consistent somewhen about 24 hours ahead of the current now.
 
JunkMonkey said:
It will be built next to the 100% British Time Machine which politicians (of all persuasions) have been promising us since the days of Lewis Carroll. This machine will be able to transport vast quantities of energy-rich, fruit-based preserves from anywhere in time and deposit them in a chosen permanent location a consistent somewhen about 24 hours ahead of the current now.
Click to expand...
This took a bit of thinking to translate.

Yes! I agree :ROFLMAO:
 
It should be pointed out that this structure will not be built with the purpose of creating energy for public consumption. It is, in effect, a prototype tasked with developing this potential source of energy.

In the article below, it is admitted that the plant may never become completely functional.
www.bbc.co.uk

'No guarantee' £20bn fusion power plant will work

The UK Atomic Energy Authority says the project should be operational by the early 2040s.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
I never really understood these investments. (I admit to not really reading up more than a cursory look)

But as we are nowhere near producing a prototype fusion reactor, never mind a commercial one (maybe by 2040 one might be on its way) what will this £20 bn be spent on?

Is it just Britain's new fusion research project?
 
As things seem now Fusion makes me remember the Thomas Edison quote
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Click to expand...
 
Okay I did a bit of digging.

The UK is still (I think) a member of ITER - a project that has taken many decades and about £22bn so far. It is slated to produce something that might be copied in a commercial plant by 2035.

(As with all fusion projects, add your own projection of decade's when it will actually produce something.)

This new project is very similar to ITER - but different - LondonWizards mentions it above: STEP.

But the thing is, ITER is a global project involving most of the world: EU, US, Japan and China to name some of the prominent members.

Could one country go off and do the same as a global collaboration? What if ITER fails in the medium term to succeed (the 'fusion is always 50 years away' scenario)? What's the point of spaffing £20 bn on a very similar project that has the same engineering problems - that may niot be solved at all? Shouldn't we wait to see if ITER actually succeeds? Is this an attempt to piggyback on ITER knowledge to try and build a fusion industry?

I shan't go political....but that's what this whole UK project feels like.
 
A point I've seen mentioned in a couple of articles: One reason all these fusion tests are so short lived is actually that the experimental reactors don't have any equipment for channeling the heat produced by the reaction away and converting it into electricity. So if you run the reactor for too long, it literally starts melting itself.
 
Fiberglass Cyborg said:
A point I've seen mentioned in a couple of articles: One reason all these fusion tests are so short lived is actually that the experimental reactors don't have any equipment for channeling the heat produced by the reaction away and converting it into electricity. So if you run the reactor for too long, it literally starts melting itself.
Click to expand...
You'd think that experimental reactors that are testing this (JET and ITER, for example) would work out how to take this excess energy - of fusion - and convert it into something useful via a good design, because this is surely what they were made to test. Especially ITER, because it's probably the closest to achieving something. My own personal physicist's eye (hence probably wrong :LOL:) on the reports of excess energy from fusion, aren't runaway heat overcoming the test rig, but the sheer difficulty in trying to achieve fusion for a reasonable length of time.

We already know that we can achieve hot and cold fusion; that's something we've known since the 60's. It's the engineering it to make it reliable and a proper power source that has proved pretty damn. damn difficult.
 
Venusian Broon said:
I never really understood these investments. (I admit to not really reading up more than a cursory look)

But as we are nowhere near producing a prototype fusion reactor, never mind a commercial one (maybe by 2040 one might be on its way) what will this £20 bn be spent on?

Is it just Britain's new fusion research project?
Click to expand...
As I understand it the joke in science circles is Fusion is only thirty years away and has been for sixty years.

Edit: VB said it was fifty years away. I guess it varies.
 
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