Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: It seems we have entrenched competition in the form of the Idaho National Lab, who is apparently already funded to build a Next Generation Nuclear Plant, (High Temperature Gas Cooled), even though its all theory at this point. Their premise is that by using helium cooling (sound familiar?) they can run the reactor around 750 to 900 degrees C, recovering the waste heat as industrial process heat, and boosting overall energy efficiency by 20 to 40%.

The interactive site is at http://www.nextgenerationnuclearplant.com/facility/index.shtml . Even though this is an INL site, the project has its own URL and site with slick interactive graphics. They’ve covered all of our energy, environmental, and economic bases, except they use nuclear fission rather than nuclear fusion to do it. We should look this good and read so well.

https://inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1269&mode=2&featurestory=DA_329615 is the INL page showing the co-generative turbine.

I’ve spent the last few days going through the 2009 budget, House Committees, Senate Committees, Cabinet officers, and the President’s own scientific advisors, and I’m getting mixed signals- the budget says its looking for innovative energy solutions and provides for anticipation and deployment funding of these projects, while the DOE site plainly explains that they aren’t in any hurry to make electricity using fusion reactions. Maybe the red herring designed to test how determined a DPF approach is to find its demo/grid integration funding.

Why worry about what the DOE does or doesn’t signal or support?

“It’s the economics, stupid!” When/if an FF generator with a price tag 1/10 or less of equivalent sources is available, it won’t matter a damn what the DOE, much less the president’s scientific advisors etc., think. What do you think they will say in that situation? I find it hard to imagine them not getting on board.