Long live fusion energy

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4629239.stm

The first fusion reactor has been assigned to be built in France. Fusion is of course a dream long away still but it's a dream so good that it would be a crime against humanity not to try and pursue it. I'm fairly optimistic that I will see fusion plants in my lifetime but the result might as well be that we will never see fusion power as an alternative energy source. Anyway now the first political dispute is atleast over and perhaps they'll actually get to start the construction sometime soon.

 

If it's clean and reasonably safe, and the scientific community believes they can make it work, then why not try it?

 

Will we ever have cold fusion?

 

Nah, you need the steam.

 

Steam? "Cold" Fusion means occurring at temperatures well below the ones of thermonuclear reactions - which are in the range of millions of degrees kelvin like in the sun. Steam is not nearly as hot as a cold fusion can be - so what is this about steam?

 

Traditional power plants use some energy source to generate steam which then turns a turbine which in turn spins a generator, etc., etc. The only difference tends to be the fuel used to boil the water. Is this how cold fusion might be treated, as well, or will there be a whole new secondary side to such a plant?

 

If fusion means that we cut back on spewing our fossil fuels into the atmosphere (something I admit I do far too often by driving) then I'm all for it! Cheap electricity for all!

 

I assume that the power plant will run the usual way: generate heat, make steam, rotate turbine, etc. Only the process of generating heat will be different; rather than burning coal, they will split (or rather glue in this case) atoms. Although at some point I read they were trying to figure out a way to generate electricity directly - that would increase the efficiency of the process quite a bit - but nothing came out of it (yet).

Anyhow, they are a long way off, though. What they are trying to build is something one might call proof of concept - they have to show that it can work. Then they have to make it economically feasible - they have to show that you can make money out of it

 

Well, the economically feasible part is easy. If you get a fullscale fusion reactor to work, you could what, provide electricity to a whole state or some such thing?

 

Well, they are planning for it to be net energy producing (they say it will be considered a succes if you get out in the range of 5 to 10 times what you put in). However, the output in absolute terms is not so big (500 Megawats) for comparision the Hoover Dam is ~1,300 MW. I do not think it is easily scalable (that is, you cannot simply pump in more hydrogen (or deuterium) and expect more energy to come out. It will also be quite difficult to increase the dimensions of the ring (if you look at a picture, it is quite huge already) so probably the only way to increase output is to build more of them.

And of course from an investor point of view, just getting more energy than you put in is not enough. Question is, how much this energy is going to cost (after you take into account all the construction costs, etc.) Of course, there are not really other solutions in the long run, so...

 

*sigh* Guys, I was being sarcastic. The comment was a reference to the way that in conventional nuclear power plants the heat from the rods boils water, creating steam, which turns turbines. I know what cold fusion is.

@khaavern, etc:
All new tech is unviable in the short term. It'll improve.

 

Note to self: what is true in science fiction is not typically true in science fact.

*slaps self*

 

Because pollitcians are idiots. You know that...everyone knows that.