Reply To: turn heat into electricity

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zapkitty wrote:

A high efficiency, low waste fission system is a real threat to the future of fusion. It’s hard to argue against injecting a few neutrons to start an easily sustained chain of reaction.

I appreciate that there are more efficient energy conversion systems than steam and turbines but they are and will continue to be the backbone of electricity production for a while. They don’t “eat up” any savings compared to another fission power system. Yes, I am comparing to fission for one reason and one reason alone…

Errrrrrrrrrr… but you didn’t 🙂 You were speaking of TWR or similar fission breeders vs fusion.

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Fission power is here and working.

The fission power we have [em]now[/em] is unsustainable and continually creates severe waste problems that future generations will have to deal with… or that we may have to deal with ourselves depending on quakes, floods, wind and human error.

asymmetric_implosion wrote: The problem of fusion for most folks that work in the power industry is that fusion has yet to produce more electricity than it takes in or even less restrictive, more power generated by the plasma than is required to initiate it.

Which is analogous to the case for TWR etc until the first prototype goes live.

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Fukushima was a disaster without a doubt but it placed a reactor in conditions that it wasn’t designed to operate in or deal with in shutdown.

Fukushima is a continuing disaster and the radiation is spreading with various isotopes of extremely recent vintage popping up in the damnedest places.

asymmetric_implosion wrote: I would argue siting a nuclear power plant is critical and whoever sited it along a coast in a high earthquake area was nuts.

… that would be the same sort of people who sited various U.S. plants near faults and water and who will be siting any new fission breeder plants…

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Potential payoff and risk need to be assessed for all these technologies but practicality needs to be mentioned. Fission power works and has worked for over 50 years. Fusion should be the power of tomorrow but we need power now.

And any new type of fission breeder plant is… just how far away from commercial use?

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Even if FoFu or others make a breakthrough tomorrow, it will take a decade to engineer it and start selling electrons.

Why would you think that? Your estimate somewhat differs from the LPP estimate of 5 years from FoFu-1 feasibility to generator. Why would do you think it would take twice as long when there is no radioactive fuel nor nuclear waste nor even a steam loop to deal with?

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Countries like China and India refuse to wait that long. India is heavily investing in a thorium reactors because they see a path to electricity in less than a decade.

? The soonest estimate I’ve seen from India is that they hope to have a prototype by “the end of the decade.” And I’ve not even heard that much from China…

asymmetric_implosion wrote: I’m not against fusion or pursuing it but you will not be able to convince people that are interested in the wall plug when fusion hasn’t produced any net power yet.

I don’t think so. People who are “plugging in” on any commercial scale have a very distinct self-interest in finding, and perhaps funding, the best potential power options. The challenge lies in making them aware of other options.

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Fission and fusion are on two different levels. Fission is into making it better.

Fission “as is” cannot continue and, honestly, fission right now is more into “Researching techniques for not adding to an existing potential disaster.”

asymmetric_implosion wrote: Fusion is still in a “we hope, we think and it should”.

And, aside from the deliberate tar pit that is ITER, the neutronic fusion contenders are on a time-scale competitive with any new fission breeders… and aneutronic fusion could steal a march on them all due to its very nature.

Again, given that the <1% will starve all alternative energy options but the one that they figure will give them the best leverage for control, the rational research triage is aneutronic fusion research first and neutronic fusion research second. Preferably both at once.

The breeders are now funded and might well become the <1% fallback option after fossil but rationally, as I said previously, even fusion-fission hybrid breeders would be the option of last resort.

There is no waste problem with fission. All the high level waste can fit inside a football field that is only about 10 meters deep. The low level waste is safe in about 50 years, and much of the low level waste isn’t even radioactive. This is the shorter than the timeframe of mainstream fusion designs, and is much less radioactive during that timeframe. Besides, the transuranics produced from fission reactors can be very useful once we find better ways to separate them. Fission products are easy enough to dispose of, but why dispose of them when they can be useful in the future? The radiation being detected by Fukishima in “Far-flung places” is less than 1% of background radiation. Levels that are 100X background radiation levels are completely safe to humans. Background radiation levels in certain places of the world are over a 100X background in U.S., and they have lower cancer rates.