ITER and all things fusion.

[Buzzkil88]

The ITER or International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is a project that is constructing the worlds largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor in France. The ITER has been under construction for a while now, since 2007. They are now setting up some massive cranes to start building the complex. By 2020 ITER will be up and running, producing 500 megawatts of power for 500 seconds while only consuming 50 megawatts. So thats an output 10x the input. By 2050 Europe wants power from nuclear fusion on the grid, if ITER is successful.... but it will be. They have been testing it for over 20 years.

A mostly unknown project called JET or Joint European Torus was built in the 80's. ITER is based of JET. JET has been operating for over 20 years without much public knowledge. The only problem with JET is that it doesn't have a high output compared to its input. So a joint consortium of nations will build the ITER, the European Union (EU), India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States (US senators cut funding for 2014 due to department of energy's unreliable projected funds needed). The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing 45% of the cost, with the other six parties contributing 9% each.

If ITER is successful, then a project named DEMO will step up. DEMO is the plans for a nuclear fusion reactor based of ITER and will be the middle man between experimental and commercial nuclear fusion. DEMO will be bigger and produce power at better efficiency than ITER. DEMO hopes to be operational by 2033, so 13 years after ITER is up and running.

What do you think about all of this? Can we ditch fossil fuels for cleaner more sustainable energy?

Wiki info

-Magnetic Confinement Fusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_confinement_fusion

-JET: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus

-ITER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

-DEMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO

Recent articles

Scientists report on fusion progess

- http://dailyfusion.net/2013/07/scientists-report-on-progress-in-fusion-research-in-china-usa-europe-14556/

Europe's JET Set Ponders Future of World's Largest Fusion Reactor

- http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/07/europes-jet-set-ponders-future-o.html

Million man hours completed on ITER

- http://home.nestor.minsk.by/build/news/2013/07/1901.html

US Senate cuts ITER funding for 2014 and beyond until DOE can give baseline cost, schedule and scope of projected funds.

- http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/06/senate-spending-panel-votes-to-s.html

Some videos-

ITER and the great adventure of fusion

-

World's Largest Puzzle: Assembly of the ITER Cryostat

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKrcws5lY78

Fusion Energy Production by Deuterium Particle Injection

-

[Nuke]

meh, i have my doubts about iter. specifically the amount of time it will take to just build the damn thing, let alone doing science with it. thats why fusion is always 50 years away because every time you need a new tokamak facility it takes 25 years and billions of dollars to build it.

im more enthusiastic about polywell reactors. of course those are being funded by the us navy and are behind a secrecy wall. bussard's google talk is well worth listening to:

Edited July 24, 2013 by Nuke

[Buzzkil88]

meh, i have my doubts about iter. specifically the amount of time it will take to just build the damn thing, let alone doing science with it. thats why fusion is always 50 years away because every time you need a new tokamak facility it takes 25 years and billions of dollars to build it.

im more enthusiastic about polywell reactors. of course those are being funded by the us navy and are behind a secrecy wall. bussard's google talk is well worth listening to:

Hey thanks for the vid link. That was a good lecture.

[PB666]

Science magazine has a new article on ITER. 27 November 2015 p. 1011 if you have a hard copy, follow the link if you don't . . .I always get my copy of science a week later than the normal world, not sure why.

http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2015/11/more-delays-iter-fusion-project

Officially now, things have been delayed for the full startup of ITER. Yes, I know hard to imagine that a fusion reactor project might be delayed.

Completion now to 2025. One of the reasons the French atomic regulatory body has to determine if it might be a scary thing to finish a project on time (whatever excuse they give Im sure) it can all be handled by having a regulator on site during startup).

Now the initial startup costs were 5bE went to 15bE and with the latest change 17bE. Luckily for the US the value of the Euro has fallen since the Greek thing.

 

[Hcube]

 

On topic(since we're here already) :

I'm convinced fusion will be THE energy solution for the future. Even if it's in 50 or 70 years, i'm sure it's the best and maybe only way to go.

I know that Laser Megajoule and Z machine are also doing research on nuclear fusion, but since they are more orientés towards nuclear weapons research i think that ITER is the project that offers the best chances of actually producing energy with fusion

If it's a few years late, well... Big deal ?

[sgt_flyer]

Alongside ITER, there's also the wendelstein 7-x stellarator being assembled in germany.

so, guess we might see some advances in fusion technologies in 20 to 30 years (as they have to make their tests then exploit the results before building the next generation)

Wendelstein 7-x would help research a much more stable plasma field (so lower energy requirements for maintaining the plasma field)

While the objectives of ITER is to test ways to manage the high energy neutrons they get from the kind of fusion it uses (alongside checking if they could find a way to breed additionnal tritium at the same time (would be useful, to limit the need for tritium breeding to power other fusion reactors)

 

now, what i would really want to see direct energy conversion  - that would be a true breakthrough (even through fission (Dusty plasma Fission Fragment reactors) or fusion (Aneutronic fusion))

Given the much higher efficiency of such direct energy conversions compared to thermal conversion efficiency... (And it can even be used as spacecrafts engines with orders of magnitude higher ISPs than what as been built so far)

 

[PB666]

https://www.euro-fusion.org/2015/12/wendelstein-7-x-begins-fusion-journey/

http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3984226/12_15

They are doing (or have done) their first plasma injection test today. Lets hope they can be a tad bit more on schedule than the international effort.

http://imgur.com/a/bncZ9

Its able to make plasma, which is basically bombarding a surrogate for hydrogen (helium) with all the wobble frequencies so that its electrons stay in excited orbitals. By saying it works essentially means the microwave component fries 'hydrogen' the way they expect it to.

Edited December 10, 2015 by PB666

[Shamus6200]

I don't have the educational background to follow everything that's going on here, but I can say that I'm hopeful for the future of things in this field of study. It seems like there is a great deal at stake and the potential benefits of success look enormous. Thank you for the links and the discussion. I'm learning a lot here.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Shamus6200
Because I have the spelling skills of a potato.

[wumpus]

While "we" are researching the next great means of nuclear power, just what will it take to use the means at our disposal?  Must we keep burning coal?

[Hcube]

Well, technically once fusion is doable, there should be absolutely no point in burning coal.

How ever i can see developed countries refusing to sell (or impose prohibitive prices) fusion technology to less advanced states that would keep using coal

 

Until then... Some are trying to reduce fossil fuel usage, but not with a lot of conviction :/

[Elthy]

The main problem with fusion is that it will be to late. When its read we will mostly use renewables or we are doomed anyway.

[Hcube]

4 hours ago, Elthy said:

The main problem with fusion is that it will be to late. When its read we will mostly use renewables or we are doomed anyway.

There's never enough energy. It's not coming soon but don't think that it will have no purpose. Just look at the energy consumption augmentation in the last decades... We use more and more energy, and will always need more 

[PB666]

Right and there are alot of opportunities in alternatives and conservation to negate the too late argument

[justidutch]

And I suppose its possible that there will be places where renewables are just not an option.  Like, perhaps, in space.

Once it is figured out, would building a fusion reactor on the dark side of the moon for whatever purpose be a thing?

[ment18]

55 minutes ago, justidutch said:

And I suppose its possible that there will be places where renewables are just not an option.  Like, perhaps, in space.

Once it is figured out, would building a fusion reactor on the dark side of the moon for whatever purpose be a thing?

What is wrong with solar?  The 'dark' side of the moon is just never seen by Earth, its light ~50% of the time just like our side, one just needs large energy storage banks.  And you have to mine the fuel, helium 3.

Anyway, countries are very likely to allow other countries to get similar fusion technology because they can sell it, for lots of money.  They could probably also sell the electricity for less money than coal to countries that can't build their own reactors.

[Hcube]

1 hour ago, ment18 said:

What is wrong with solar?  The 'dark' side of the moon is just never seen by Earth, its light ~50% of the time just like our side, one just needs large energy storage banks.  And you have to mine the fuel, helium 3.

Anyway, countries are very likely to allow other countries to get similar fusion technology because they can sell it, for lots of money.  They could probably also sell the electricity for less money than coal to countries that can't build their own reactors.

I'm pretty sure some countries (no names but i'm sure everyone will know) would not really be super cool to give fusion technology to some other countries... 

[Bill Phil]

There are start up groups as well. One managed to get a chamber filled with self contained plasma to actually contain the plasma for less than a second. Maybe we'll see a renaissance like computers had. That would be pretty cool.

3 hours ago, justidutch said:

And I suppose its possible that there will be places where renewables are just not an option.  Like, perhaps, in space.

Once it is figured out, would building a fusion reactor on the dark side of the moon for whatever purpose be a thing?

Actually, a Stirling engine in space using focused solar energy could provide power, and pretty efficiently, too. And the bonus is that none of the working fluid has to escape. Although a turbine is probably better. Solar would be good, but it does degrade over time.

[sgt_flyer]

guess the main 'safety' problem for an ITER like tokamak, would be the system needed to absorb neutrons - and the current 'absorption' project would features blankets of
lithium to both stop the high energy neutrons and bred new tritium. however, you need lithium 6 for breeding tritium... guess this would be the main reason some countries would be frisky to hand out fusion technologies

(as lithium 6 is also the precursor used in H-bombs... - granted, you still need an A-bomb to ignite it, but well :))

other than this peculiar problem, the technology should be quite safe - if the magnetic confinment fails in a tokamak, the plasma would disperse quickly. as the molecules disperse when the plasma fails (because heated gases tend to expand - unless when contained :p), the distance between atoms would be much greater, so you'll have a huge drop in the neutrons collisions needed to sustain the fusion reaction - and the reaction would stop very quickly.

Granted, all the remaining heat would probably seriously damage the rest of your tokamak, but the rest of the building should not have lot to worry about, if built properly

still, a runaway reaction wouldn't last long in a tokamak design. (runaway can happen with fission reactors using solid fuel rods, because the fissile atoms can't 'move' but in liquid or gaseous designs, the gases / liquid would expand in case of heat spike, naturally limiting the amount of neutron collisions due to the higher spacing between atoms)

 

 

[PB666]

3 hours ago, sgt_flyer said:

guess the main 'safety' problem for an ITER like tokamak, would be the system needed to absorb neutrons - and the current 'absorption' project would features blankets of
lithium to both stop the high energy neutrons and bred new tritium. however, you need lithium 6 for breeding tritium... guess this would be the main reason some countries would be frisky to hand out fusion technologies

(as lithium 6 is also the precursor used in H-bombs... - granted, you still need an A-bomb to ignite it, but well :))

other than this peculiar problem, the technology should be quite safe - if the magnetic confinment fails in a tokamak, the plasma would disperse quickly. as the molecules disperse when the plasma fails (because heated gases tend to expand - unless when contained :p), the distance between atoms would be much greater, so you'll have a huge drop in the neutrons collisions needed to sustain the fusion reaction - and the reaction would stop very quickly.

Granted, all the remaining heat would probably seriously damage the rest of your tokamak, but the rest of the building should not have lot to worry about, if built properly

still, a runaway reaction wouldn't last long in a tokamak design. (runaway can happen with fission reactors using solid fuel rods, because the fissile atoms can't 'move' but in liquid or gaseous designs, the gases / liquid would expand in case of heat spike, naturally limiting the amount of neutron collisions due to the higher spacing between atoms)

 

 

There is simply not that much fuel in the reactor and its not that efficient, as soon as you kill the rf, it woukd go silent. The neutrons are a hazard for workers and not really anyone else, im sure this problem can be managed. If it can't build a big mulitmetalic shroud around the reactor that can absorb nuetrons of any speed. 

The energy production  density of the human body is more than that sun, thats why fusion is hard, not only do you have to replicate the process in the suns core, but you have to do many magnitudes faster per unit volume.

The plasma is contained in a cross sectional are lees than 1/1000 th crossectional area of the torroid. As soon as containment is lost it expands and rapidly cools, it might end up as a patina on the metals, little more. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by PB666

[manaiaK]

3 hours ago, PB666 said:

The neutrons are a hazard for workers and not really anyone else, im sure this problem can be managed. If it can't build a big mulitmetalic shroud around the reactor that can absorb nuetrons of any speed.

The neutrons produced by D-T fusion are a problem as they have most of the energy resulting from the reaction. Sure they can be trapped by a containment vessel, but the way that works is by the neutrons attaching to nuclei in the vessel and transmuting them (by normal nuclear decay).

Instead of a relatively small quantity of spent fission fuel and moderator to manage, as in a fission reactor, you have thousand-tonne radioactive containment vessels to break up, dispose of, and replace -- every few months.

Aneutronic fusion would be better -- this is the advantage of ³He -- but ³He is rare; proton-lithium fusion is as "easy" to do and the ingredients are much more common.

Earth-side fusion never will make sense economically, unfortunately. Too expensive to build, too expensive to maintain. The alternatives will always be cheaper.

For a somewhat silly example, it'd be way cheaper to build and run an Earth-circling superconducting electrical grid and put large solar PV farms around the world, in the Sahara, the Middle East, the Gobi, Australia, and North and South America than to try to use fusion at a significant scale -- leaving aside the sensible route, fast-breeder fission reactors (which could keep civilisation supplied with 100TW for somewhere between 100,000 and a million years). Even space-based PV with microwave transmission is a much cheaper alternative.

Edited December 12, 2015 by manaiaK
Add link for aneutronic fusion.

[PB666]

As discussed before this either requires extremely rare starting materials or pressures and tempertures that are much higher. 

[Nuke]

one thing i posted elsewhere on another forum is that aneutronic fuels and direct conversion are not going to be used until 3rd and 4th generation fusion plants. those fuels are just too hard to fuse. so all first gen plants are either going to be d-d or d-t and 2nd generation plants are going to be an upgrade to those based on things we learn while operating them. anything in a toroid is going to use d-t, polywell wants to start with d-d and so on. we will probibly skip he3 based fuels unless we can find a way to breed it and probibly shoot straight for p-b11 instead, which is very abundant on earth.

ultimately all reactor systems are going to need special materials for turning neutron radiation into heat, and for d-t reactors, to breed tritium. they will all be steam engines initially. direct conversion is going to really cut down the losses a lot, so the lower cross section fuels will still be competitive with the neutronic fuel based reactors. though i suspect the aneutronic fuels will have lower operating costs.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Nuke

[SargeRho]

Thoughts on Helion Energy? Apparently they're building a larger scale demonstration reactor, and are going for direct conversion/D-He3 fusion.
http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=199

I don't know enough about Fusion to judge how likely they are to succeed, though several big names have invested in them.

[PB666]

3 hours ago, Nuke said:

one thing i posted elsewhere on another forum is that aneutronic fuels and direct conversion are not going to be used until 3rd and 4th generation fusion plants. those fuels are just too hard to fuse. so all first gen plants are either going to be d-d or d-t and 2nd generation plants are going to be an upgrade to those based on things we learn while operating them. anything in a toroid is going to use d-t, polywell wants to start with d-d and so on. we will probibly skip he3 based fuels unless we can find a way to breed it and probibly shoot straight for p-b11 instead, which is very abundant on earth.

ultimately all reactor systems are going to need special materials for turning neutron radiation into heat, and for d-t reactors, to breed tritium. they will all be steam engines initially. direct conversion is going to really cut down the losses a lot, so the lower cross section fuels will still be competitive with the neutronic fuel based reactors. though i suspect the aneutronic fuels will have lower operating costs.

Direct energy has an amperage problem, don't see this as going any were unless neutron absorbtion creates a cascade photoelectric effect. Not likely and the electrons do not have the voltage as seen in the generators of a steam turbine. You have essentially three choices, single loop steam turbine, two loop presuurized liquid sodium(98'C) or liquid lithium (180'C) in which the steam reactor is the second stage. If you place lithium as the first loop you can breed fuels, but you have to extract the fission products during operation, the operating temperature will be higher which can cause problems for superconductors and increase the rate of part wear, and increase the cost of parts. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by PB666

[Elthy]

Helium-3 fusion wont happen. Its simply to rare, and a reactor able to fuse He3-De could also do De-De, which is way, way easier to get.