fusion

[The emperor has no clothes]

Fusion will be a panacea when it's ready for prime time.

And as I stated earlier, this latest breakthrough shows it's when, not if.....

But until then.....

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

As I recall, you recently came thru the Mohave Desert on a visit to see Kali. If you will remember, the lack of space isn’t a problem.

[RP#62]

Fusion will be a panacea when it's ready for prime time.

And as I stated earlier, this latest breakthrough shows it's when, not if.....

But until then.....

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

As I recall, you recently came thru the Mohave Desert on a visit to see Kali. If you will remember, the lack of space isn’t a problem.

That's true.  Probably too many birds there anyway.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-farms-threaten-birds/


-RP

[Serk]

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

Keep everyone's waste in Texas 

-Mike

If it would allow us to build more, now, I'd be okay with it....

Of course, we already have a good place in Yucca mountain, but if we could store it near me AND allow many, MANY more fission plants to be built, sure........

[H*GLEG]

https://naturalnews.com/2022-07-21-cold-fusion-commercial-breakthrough-could-end-food-and-energy-scarcity.html

LENR has been systematically suppressed by governments for decades for the simple reason that governments don’t want humanity to be free. They use scarcity as a weapon of control, and with globalists now trying to achieve global depopulation, they are engineering food scarcity and energy scarcity as leverage to cause mass starvation and economic collapse. This means LENR technology may help free humanity from the death grip of anti-human globalists who are pursuing an agenda of mass extermination of the human race.

[hubcapsc]

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

Keep everyone's waste in Texas 

-Mike

If it would allow us to build more, now, I'd be okay with it....

Of course, we already have a good place in Yucca mountain, but if we could store it near me AND allow many, MANY more fission plants to be built, sure........

I'd be OK with it too, at least it would be all in one place. What do you think
the likelihood of of putting it all at Yucca mountain, or someplace in Texas,
in our lifetimes is?

Right now nuclear waste is stored here:



When you say "build more fission plants", how many more do you mean?
Two? A hundred? A thousand? All waste is stored on site. New waste is in
giant cooling pools (you don't want to drink that water). After several years
it becomes safer and is encased in giant concrete casks. The number of
giant concrete casks is ever increasing. If Yucca Mountain (or Texas) ever
was to open, these casks are what would need to be moved.

-Mike

[MotoRod]

https://www.iter.org/  NIF's experiment used 2.05 megajoules of laser energy to produce 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy, reaching a Q value of 1.5.  1mj = 948.45 btu

[F6Dave]

... build more (fission plants that is).   Just in case you missed it, here are the current plans for the construction of fission power plants (AKA Nuclear) for the world.  

As of May 2022:  China  Fifteen (15), India eight( 8 ), South Korea four (4), and others. Only one in the USA.  Only one.  

Add Japan to the list. They just passed legislation to extend the life of existing nuclear plants, and begin constructing new ones.

But we're building a single new nuclear plant. And we're shutting down coal and even natural gas power plants.

Meanwhile, we'll be forced to drive electric vehicles, heat our homes with electricity, switch to electric stoves, ovens, dryers, water heaters, and even power equipment like lawnmowers and chainsaws.

It's obvious we'll need to generate more electricity. So what's the plan? Sunshine and breezes! This isn't going to end well.

[carolinarider09]

Just for the record.    

The main fuels used in nuclear fusion devices are deuterium and tritium, both heavy isotopes of hydrogen. The Deuterium (D) – Tritium (T) reaction has the largest cross section (in other words, the probability of a reaction to take place) and also the largest Q-value (the released energy of a reaction) of all varieties of fusion reactions. It produces an alpha particle (or Helium-4 nucleus) and a neutron, and releases 17.6 megaelectron volt (MeV) of energy in the form of kinetic energy of the products (3.5 MeV to alpha particle and 14.1 MeV to neutron).

You will note that the fusion reaction does produce what are commonly know as radioactive materials and a high energy neutron (i.e. it's not a 2HE4 but a 2HE3, a 2HE5, a 2HE6, or a 2HE8).  These "isotopes" of HE do undergo radioactive decay, alpha, beta and gamma.   But, in general, the half lives of these isotopes are very short.  It also depends on what fuel you start with.

The 14.1 MeV neutron is how the heat is produced to make "energy available".  Neutrons, since they don't have a charge, are a little harder to slow down.  They make energy by being bounced around in the "blanket" that surrounds the "fusion" chamber".   Or at least that appears to be the most reasonable method.   The energy is produced in the same way you would feel heat if you pounded the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. 

This interaction is basically particle interaction between neutrons and protons in the blanket. 

https://www.iaea.org/topics/energy/fusion/background

Deuterium has a nucleus with one proton and one neutron (common hydrogen has only a single proton) and tritium has a nucleus of one proton and two neutrons.  If you force two tritium atoms to fuse you get 2HE4 and energy release due to he change in binding energy.  If you force two deuterium atoms to fuse, you get 2HE2 and a release of energy, again due to the change in binding energy.  Problem is that if you look at the Chart of the Nuclides (the "book"), you will not see 2HE2 listed as a "isotope" of Helium.  That would be the result of the fusion of two 1H1 nuclides. 

This implies that you have to have both tritium (1H3) and deuterium (1H2) available to make fusion a power source.  So the reality is you cannot use pure H1 (the most common form of hydrogen) in a fusion reaction.   It has to be deuterium and tritium mix.   According to the "book" hydrogen is 99.985% 1H1 and 0.015% 1H2.  Tritium is not listed as an isotope of hydrogen.  That is tritium is very, very, rare.

Just for the record (and I apologize its from Wikipedia but I know its correct)

Naturally occurring tritium is extremely rare on Earth. The atmosphere has only trace amounts, formed by the interaction of its gases with cosmic rays. It can be produced artificially by irradiating lithium metal or lithium-bearing ceramic pebbles in a nuclear reactor and is a low-abundance byproduct in normal operations of nuclear reactors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

Summary:   Fusion is cool to think about but will require that we extract deuterium from water (maybe seawater - what will that do to the fish???)  and produce large amounts of tritium.   

Addendum:
While deuterium can be extracted from seawater in virtually boundless quantities, the supply of available tritium is limited, estimated currently at twenty kilos.  

Also I do not know what the deuterium tritium ratio would have to be in a fusion power plant. One more obstacle to the development of reliable fusion power.

https://www.iter.org/mach/TritiumBreeding

[carolinarider09]

The "Book".  This copy is from 1977 but I don't think much has changed since then.  But I have not slept at a Holiday Inn recently either. 

[The emperor has no clothes]

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

Keep everyone's waste in Texas 

-Mike

If it would allow us to build more, now, I'd be okay with it....

Of course, we already have a good place in Yucca mountain, but if we could store it near me AND allow many, MANY more fission plants to be built, sure........

I'd be OK with it too, at least it would be all in one place. What do you think
the likelihood of of putting it all at Yucca mountain, or someplace in Texas,
in our lifetimes is?

Right now nuclear waste is stored here:



When you say "build more fission plants", how many more do you mean?
Two? A hundred? A thousand? All waste is stored on site. New waste is in
giant cooling pools (you don't want to drink that water). After several years
it becomes safer and is encased in giant concrete casks. The number of
giant concrete casks is ever increasing. If Yucca Mountain (or Texas) ever
was to open, these casks are what would need to be moved.

-Mike

I propose we move it all to Serk’s vacant land, then let Texas secede as he wishes.

[Robert]

Just for the record.    

https://www.iter.org/mach/TritiumBreeding

Thanks for the detail, very interesting. 

[carolinarider09]

One more note, not directly on topic but I was simply trying to find how tritium is made today for use in nuclear weapons.   Having seen one up close I was not deterred, just laying there ready for use.  Not a big deal.   

But if you do a search you get this link (below).

The title of the page is:   TRITIUM from Nuclear Power Plants: Its Biological Hazards

So, if you read down through the article you get these "paragraphs".

The current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for permissible levels of tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter. Please note: permissible does not mean safe.

Nuclear power plants routinely and accidentally release tritium into the air and water as a gas (HT) or as water (HTO or 3HOH). No economically feasible technology exists to filter tritium from a nuclear power plant’s gaseous and liquid emissions to the environment. Therefore, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not require that it be filtered.

In this case nuclear power plants means PWRs and BWRs using U235 and PU239 as fuel. 

And the last paragraph

Routine releases and accidental spills of tritium from nuclear power plants pose a growing health and safety concern. Exposure to tritium has been clinically proven to cause cancer, genetic mutations and birth defects in laboratory animals. In studies conducted by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 1991, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic effects of tritium exposure revealed that tritium packs 1.5 to 5 times more relative biological effectiveness (RBE), or biological change per unit of radiation (one rad or 0.01 gray), than gamma radiation or X-rays.

In essence "Tritium from fission power plants bad.  Making tritium for use in fusion power plants good". 

And, if you can't easily filter it out and retrieve it, how will we make if for use in fusion power plants? 

Just another thought or two.

https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/

[scooperhsd]

Fusion will be a panacea when it's ready for prime time.

And as I stated earlier, this latest breakthrough shows it's when, not if.....

But until then.....

Fission. Build. More. Fission. Plants!

You should have used a new Ford class carrier. Nuc plant produces 3-4 times what the Nimitz class carriers do, and at the beginning of its service (expected to be 50 years), it's only scheduled to use 30-33% of the available electric power from the plant. Foresee laser weapons being deployed (among other things) in the long run.

[RP#62]

I know where lots of tritium is -  look up self illuminated emergency exit signs (we dealt with them on aircraft).  Guess how they self illuminate.

-RP

[MotoRod]

List of nuclear research reactors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_research_reactors

[MotoRod]

One more note, not directly on topic but I was simply trying to find how tritium is made today for use in nuclear weapons.   Having seen one up close I was not deterred, just laying there ready for use.  Not a big deal.  

But if you do a search you get this link (below).

The title of the page is:   TRITIUM from Nuclear Power Plants: Its Biological Hazards

So, if you read down through the article you get these "paragraphs".

The current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard for permissible levels of tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter. Please note: permissible does not mean safe.

Nuclear power plants routinely and accidentally release tritium into the air and water as a gas (HT) or as water (HTO or 3HOH). No economically feasible technology exists to filter tritium from a nuclear power plant’s gaseous and liquid emissions to the environment. Therefore, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not require that it be filtered.

In this case nuclear power plants means PWRs and BWRs using U235 and PU239 as fuel.  

And the last paragraph

Routine releases and accidental spills of tritium from nuclear power plants pose a growing health and safety concern. Exposure to tritium has been clinically proven to cause cancer, genetic mutations and birth defects in laboratory animals. In studies conducted by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 1991, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic effects of tritium exposure revealed that tritium packs 1.5 to 5 times more relative biological effectiveness (RBE), or biological change per unit of radiation (one rad or 0.01 gray), than gamma radiation or X-rays.

In essence "Tritium from fission power plants bad.  Making tritium for use in fusion power plants good".  

And, if you can't easily filter it out and retrieve it, how will we make if for use in fusion power plants?  

Just another thought or two.

https://www.nirs.org/radiation/tritium/

Backgrounder
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0325/ML032521359.pdf

[carolinarider09]

Yes it appears that they are using light water reactors to produce tritium for use in nuclear weapons. 

This production appears to require the removal of the fuel assemblies and removal of rods from those fuel assemblies.   

It also appears that the production rate is about 2,800 grams of tritium per 18 month fuel cycle or 1,870 grams per year.  At least that is/was the prediction for the year 2020. 

Now it is possible to use more commercial nuclear plants and their fuel assemblies to produce tritium.  The question becomes, what would be the cost of producing the amount of tritium needed for 1000 MWE fusion power plant? 

The first link below indicates that there have been issues with tritium production at Watts Bar Unit 2.   Unit 1 also has issues. 

For the production of the necessary tritium to power a fusion reactor, the only economical way that this could be done (according to the second link below) is using the proposed lithium blanket surrounding the proposed fusion reactor. 

A future fusion plant producing large amounts of power will be required to "breed" all of its own tritium, through its Test Blanket Module (TBM) program.  The requirement for a 1000 MWe fussion power plant will be 250 KG of fuel per year.  Half (125 KG) will be deuterium and half will be tritium. 

Note:  The production using the fission plant fuel rods is 1,870 grams per year or 1.87 KG. Or 1.5% of the total needed tritium.   While more fission nuclear power plants could be used to produce the needed tritium, it's probably not very economical. 

Currently the process for producing the necessary tritium via the blanket method is still being evaluated.  In other words, its a work in progress which may or may not work. 

As a comparison, a nuclear power plant using U235 as the primary fuel consumes about 1,000 KG of U235 per years (that is an approximation because some energy will come from the breeding of Plutonium 239). (link three below).

I have no problem pursuing the potential use of the "fusion" process for making the needed energy to do the things we need to do. 

What I have a major problem with is the notion proposed at the start of this thread that basically indicated where were there and we just needed a few more things to make it work.

That is not the case.  And there are many, many if and maybes in the process.   

https://nebula.wsimg.com/77dab2caba65efc5954687e3461d9304?AccessKeyId=40C80D0B51471CD86975&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

https://www.iter.org/sci/FusionFuels

https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-power-plant/nuclear-fuel/fuel-consumption-of-conventional-reactor/uranium-235-consumption/

[The emperor has no clothes]

What I have a major problem with is the notion proposed at the start of this thread that basically indicated where were there and we just needed a few more things to make it work.

I didn’t see ANYONE say we are almost there and just need a few more things to make it work. (If that’s what you are saying, your sentence is a little confusing) Nearly everyone said we are DECADES away from being able to use fusion power.

[hubcapsc]

What I have a major problem with is the notion proposed at the start of this thread that basically indicated where were there and we just needed a few more things to make it work.

I didn’t see ANYONE say we are almost there and just need a few more things to make it work. (If that’s what you are saying, your sentence is a little confusing) Nearly everyone said we are DECADES away from being able to use fusion power.

Enough said.

-Mike

[Moonshot_1]

Are we there yet?