BBC Reports on Prometheus Fusion Perfection

[Ivy Matt]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10385853.stm

Fusors and a little ceramic Polywell. Non-disparaging comments from an ITER guy. No mention of boron or aneutronic fusion, however. This story is currently the third most read story on BBC News, and the video is the most watched.

[Phil’s Dad]

Steam age.

Still. it’s good to see folks give it ago.

[Ivy Matt]

Whoa, I take that back. The article does mention boron. I’m not sure how I missed that before. :red: But, still, no mention of why boron is important, and in the sidebar it says deuterium and tritium are the “best” fuels for fusion, even as the article quotes the ITER guy as saying you can’t use fusion for proliferation.

Phil’s Dad wrote: Steam age.

I’m not sure what you mean. If you’re referring to a particular reactor design, I’d say fusion is fusion and breakeven is breakeven. Plenty of people can credibly claim to have achieved the former. Nobody yet has a credible claim to the latter. When somebody does achieve the latter, I’m not going to be too picky about how they did it. I’d like to see lots of people eventually achieve the same thing using a number of different designs. Then, when the inevitable shakeout occurs, we can be assured that the one to three winning designs have weathered real competition.

If you’re referring to the method of generating electricity, well, the Polywell folks hope to fuse boron and hydrogen some day. They haven’t yet, but who has? (Of course, I expect LPP to be the first. ;-))

[Ivy Matt]

http://gizmodo.com/5570817/no-sleep-til-fusion#

This is a more detailed article on the same guy, albeit from a less mainstream source. If other media outlets start investigating this or similar stories, we may be in for a fusion summer.

[Dr_Barnowl]

I think the comment from the ITER communications chief that you can’t use fusion for proliferation is bunk though – it’s true for these small devices, but part of the planning for tokamak reactors is to generate tritium using a breeder blanket … last time I looked, tritium was a key component of all hydrogen bombs, and for D-T fusion to work as a practical energy source you need to generate unprecedented quantities of the stuff. Which would seem to make it easier to make fusion warheads. Just sayin’.

[jamesr]

Dr_Barnowl wrote: I think the comment from the ITER communications chief that you can’t use fusion for proliferation is bunk though – it’s true for these small devices, but part of the planning for tokamak reactors is to generate tritium using a breeder blanket … last time I looked, tritium was a key component of all hydrogen bombs, and for D-T fusion to work as a practical energy source you need to generate unprecedented quantities of the stuff. Which would seem to make it easier to make fusion warheads. Just sayin’.

Not really – H-bombs use Lithium Deuteride as the main fuel. The lithium breeds tritium from the neutrons produced in the fission primary. The only tritium may be in a small trigger, and a little mixed in the outer lay of the lithium deuteride to control the exact timing of the reaction. But tritium is not needed, it just makes the yield better & more predictable.

The Tritium produced at ITER & future D-T fusion reactors would be all used on-site as it’s made and only a few grams would ever be stored at a time.

Here is an old article from 1979 that explains it all: The Progressive

I think some proliferation worries are a bit misguided. Anyone that wants to know how to build a bomb can find out easily enough. The raw materials are fairly easily obtained. The only difficultly is in the technology to refine those materials and the precision manufacturing processes. Of which the most difficult part to hide is the energy intensive separation of the U-235 & Pu-239 to build a conventional fission bomb. And you can’t build an H-bomb without a fission primary. Hence the efforts to restrict the parts & materials needed to build centrifuges.

If you can enrich Uranium from 0.7% U235 to 2-3% for civilian power station then given time you can take it upto the >70% needed for a bomb. Even if a country isn’t allowed/doesn’t have centrifuges and instead is just sold manufactured fuel rods for a civilian plant, it can still make a Pu-239 bomb (& hence an H-bomb) from reprocessing the waste. Hence you need to control that side as well.

[jimmarsen]

I just saw a live interview of Mark Suppes on CNN and found the following links:

http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/05/nuclear-fusion-the-holy-grail-of-green-energy/

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/23/clothing-designer-builds-nuclear-reactor-brooklyn-warehouse/

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/23/2010-06-23_gucci_web_designer_mark_suppes_builds_homemade_nuclear_reactor_in_brooklyn_wareh.html

Maybe someone should contact Mr. Suppes for public relations tips.

[Brian H]

I wrote the gizmodo guy and suggested he might like to check out a project that intends to actually reach unity this year. I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask! :cheese:

[Brian H]

After reading a few of the latest reports there on ITER, with its doubled costs etc., I think it’s going to go the way of the Superconducting Super Collider. Good riddance!

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask!

It’s not a big red button, rather it’s a small lever type switch.

[Tulse]

Could we get a shot of the switch for the gallery? I’m guessing I’m not the only one who thinks that would be cool.

[Aeronaut]

Tulse wrote: Could we get a shot of the switch for the gallery? I’m guessing I’m not the only one who thinks that would be cool.

Quite right, Tulse. We have our own Easy Button. :coolsmile: The copy writing possibilities are endless. After all, what problem can’t be at least partially helped by cheap, clean energy?

[Tulse]

Aeronaut wrote:
Quite right, Tulse. We have our own Easy Button.

Exactly!

And Rezwan, it really should be big and red.

[Rezwan]

Rezwan wrote:

I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask!

It’s not a big red button, rather it’s a small lever type switch.

Well well! For lunch today I had a nice Italian sub and a side order of the above words.

It is, indeed, a red button.

I always thought it was that silver thing they were hitting, but that’s the mode switch, and it’s always on manual. More evidence that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.

But the macrolens is quicker than the eye. Behold, button pictures.

Note, just set up the flickr account today. Also a pBase account for photos. Not sure which one we’ll end up sticking with, but flickr has a handy plugin with lightroom which is about to make short(er) work of the 2650 picture backlog.

And lightroom, what a DREAM!

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote:

I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask!

It’s not a big red button, rather it’s a small lever type switch.

Well well! For lunch today I had a nice Italian sub and a side order of the above words.

It is, indeed, a red button.

I always thought it was that silver thing they were hitting, but that’s the mode switch, and it’s always on manual. More evidence that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.

But the macrolens is quicker than the eye. Behold, button pictures.

Note, just set up the flickr account today. Also a pBase account for photos. Not sure which one we’ll end up sticking with, but flickr has a handy plugin with lightroom which is about to make short(er) work of the 2650 picture backlog.

And lightroom, what a DREAM!
But it’s a very small red button. Your PT engineer should get on the ball right away and wire up a BIG red button, one you can thump with your fist! :cheese:

Attached files

[Author]

Posts