[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

November of 2010 is very realistic, imho, unless Eric posts otherwise. My homepage copy and header are a lot stronger now. Next edit will include how fusion will also be the topic of the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races. The sword of Damocles to keep the pols interested, lol.

I enjoy pushing for public acknowledgment and awareness, too — but I deeply distrust the governmental and corporate mechanisms and interests that might get involved. My preference would be to get all the way to functioning prototype, and then say, “TA-DA! Licenses for sale; cheap energy for all forever!” :cheese:
Distrust is easy when one fells dis-enfranchised. The way around that is to make everybody aware that if they don’t do the right thing they won’t be able to win elections or find support in government any more. :coolsmile:

[Aeronaut]

November of 2010 is very realistic, imho, unless Eric posts otherwise. My homepage copy and header are a lot stronger now. Next edit will include how fusion will also be the topic of the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races. The sword of Damocles to keep the pols interested, lol.

[Aeronaut]

I like your service industry analogy, PD, and the Chinese muscle worries me. https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/268/ is a thread where Rematog and I recently worked out how to power my rural township. As you’ll see, what started out with a few reactors now looks like around 10, on 5 sites. Let’s say 5 big transformers to spike the price, throw in who’s going to service these modules, and the savings of the free fuel continually erodes…

Since fusion IS a nuclear reaction, it will be regulated by the NRC or one of its local assignees in the US. Even if we could get the laws interpreted to distinguish between fission and pB11 fusion, the X-ray emissions would be covered by NRC jurisdiction. This makes partnering with a utility who already has a long track record with operating at least one fission reactor highly desirable from the political and regulatory viewpoints. Not to mention that the utility has all the transmission lines, service, and billing facilities in place.

The only place I don’t follow Rematog right now is how fast the floor will drop out of electric pricing. The reason is that the utility I’m talking about currently has 12 coal-fired plants. Assuming these average 1.5GW ea., similar to Rematog’s plant, this would be around 18GW total capacity. If I could get 1GW out of one of these huge empty factories around here, something like 200M$ and one to five years construction time would reduce fuel costs 5.5%/GW.

I’d sure be looking to using those fuel savings to get the rest of my network upgraded so my utility wouldn’t get railroaded into sequestering smoke stack gasses with shareholder money. Without FF, this State’s laws make scrubbers look like the only realistic way to meet ambitious emission requirements.

Yes, there will be locales where FF makes a lot of sense, but I’d pretty much guarantee that the regulatory groundwork for the required licensing will have to be done by utilities and large corporations for at least ten years before the general population even becomes aware that they can put this up for a vote. Then another five to ten years to get it on one or more ballots…

[Aeronaut]

I like that part about patronage jobs. I hadn’t considered that angle. :-S . And you’re absolutely right about the need to maintain and repair the lines when the weather demolishes them. That part will always take professionals. I think the longer term is going to be a public/private venture, where muni’s may own local plants which are operated by the utilities.

The utilities are secure in the short term due to NRC licensing track records.

[Aeronaut]

‘K. How’s this?

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote: Aero, I think you’re succumbing to the temptation to over-promise in terms of time. The science phase won’t likely be wrapped till mid ’10, and THEN comes the specifics of generator design and prototyping – 3 yrs. or so. So mid/late 2013 is a safer time to target for availability of proven designs. But keep in mind that that is lightspeed compared to either standard nuclear or green alternatives. Those options won’t have traction for about 10 years, at huge expense.

In other words, FF will be a live option in plenty of time to cut those big expenditures and alternatives off at the knees.

What did I actually promise, Brian? Only that the testing phase begins in 2009. 😉

[Aeronaut]

Thanx again, Phil’s Dad. I’m going to do some meatball editing now. Should read a lot better in an hour.

[Aeronaut]

Phil’s Dad wrote: I should start by declaring that I am a politician with an environment brief. I don’t mind being called a ninth grader (or anything else) as long as you vote for me! (Actually I am post graduate educated in a numerate discipline – but not all politicians are.)

I like what you have done so far but could I suggest it be topped and tailed. Nothing wrong with the introduction but it needs an even shorter abstract telling your audience what you are going to tell them. Then finish off with a few sentences in conclusion telling them what you told them. Did any of that make sense? Politicians like to think they are terribly busy and will not read past the first paragraph it they don’t think it will solve their current problem.

The other thing I would have liked to see is just a few details of the alternatives you have looked at – maybe in the form of a comparison table – which I think would help explain why you prefer this particular solution. (So do I by the way)

Thanx for the feedback, Phil’s Dad.

Don’t know if I’m using the right angle, but I’m trying to avoid the chance of a greenwashing backlash by focusing on the “renewable energies” smokescreen so that any thinking person will connect the dots to a cleaner environment. Something that isn’t in there yet is the political strategy page(s) selling the concept that any campaign w/o a plan to rapidly integrate FF will get vaporized by a competitor who has one when we start telling time in terms of After Focus Fusion.

I’m going to eliminate all age references in the next edit, which I expect to have up after noon (EST) Monday. Not sure I follow what you mean by “topped and tailed”, but I will work on the lead-in, trail-out, and executive summary. Everybody’s told all the time how busy they are. In the 80’s we were told how stressed-out we were, lol. Still, I made a formal site architecture this morning, which will give the library, as it grows, a consistent and intuitive nature. I want the user to think, but definitely not about site navigation.

I love tables and graphs! Not only are they decorative, they can save a lot of words. Almost forgot, the header’s graphic has changed since you looked. Should look a lot more professional now, and even more when I get rid of the yellow strings in the margins.

Thanx again for the input.

[Aeronaut]

Rematog wrote: Brian,

Your right, stacking is not critical, any would be based on design and operations considerations. In major urban areas, might be economical….. but you’d need to get the plant permitted first….you know my opinion about that.

Aeronaut,

Example, the switchyard on a 1.7Gw plant I’ve drawings for is a square about 700′ on a side. I’d imagine that there would be some economies of scale for large plants, but remember, high voltages require greater separation, hence more size.

As for transmission design, I’ve no experience with it. I’m an M.E., you need to ask that one of a double E.

Rematog

Too cool for school! I think that former parking lot is big enough for 3 or 4 of those switchyards w/o optimizing. We have 3 utilities statewide, and each is operating a fission plant. I imagine all three are close to retirement age. Might be able to talk one or more of them into a pilot plant…

Found some specs and pix of the UN’s version of FF in case anybody’s interested: http://www.icdmp.pl/pf1000.html Other than 24 cathodes, its in Baby’s ballpark for energy, current, voltage. This is from a very determined string of Google searches for competitors/independent verification candidates that ultimately led to Wiki. Go figure, right?

[Aeronaut]

I know you’re right, Rematog. When I was confused by the National Electric Code book, my dad (a retired production engineer) told me it was confusing because it was written by fire investigators, not electricians. I’ve worked in a lot of factories as an employee and as a contractor, and have only seen a few that used their space and volume anywhere near effectively.

Consider the differences in sea-based reactors. Would you expect an attack sub’s reactor room to be identical to one of a carrier’s reactor rooms?

Nonetheless, I believe the dimensions I floated above should fly at the module level. Can they stack? What do you think minimum spacing for magnetic separation would be for slam-dunk permitting by the NRC and other agencies?

Last but not least, I have no idea what two to eight GW of transmission transformer(s) and switching looks like, but Plant 1 has a huge parking lot under six existing transmission wires. Two other parking lots can easily handle fusion power plant staffers’ parking spaces. Any ideas how many GW the existing transmission lines could handle if they were tee-spliced to act as twelve lines?

Getting even 1 GW out of this building would be 1kW/square foot (!)

[Aeronaut]

Looks like the renewable energies lobby is a force to be reckoned with. According to the BBC’s copy of the article, ITER is the world’s only fusion research, and it’s (sigh) 100 years off.

[Aeronaut]

Thanx, Brian. I’d forgotten all about the Manhattan Project. Doh! I’ll correct that in my next round. I just added the “how to analyze a reactor” page and cleaned up the header. I’ll set up the mailbox later this morning and link to it on the contact page.

[Aeronaut]

http://subatomicprecision.com is my new site designed to educate and pre-sell politicians, editors, and the general public on all of the tradeoffs involved in whatever their individual energy and environmental Causes may be. I’m writing it so that even 9th graders should be able to understand it and come to the conclusion that FF is the only viable way out of all these messes we’re suddenly in. Suggestions? Comments, please?

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

I’m not sure if there is any problem in stacking FF modules, but, e.g., a ‘cube’ of 10x10x10 units would be 1,000, generating 5GW, and would take up perhaps 100′ x 140′ on the ground, plus a certain allowance for internal access corridors and cooling ducting. Connectors and transformers, etc., would occupy more acreage. But it seems like a viable alternative to the side-by-side arrangements envisaged by Rematog.

Of course, co-opting existing plant space being mothballed, etc., has advantages, but if stacking is possible, then all sorts of options open up. Imagine an FF hi-rise or two on the outskirts of a medium-sized city, supplying all commercial, industrial, and residential power. It could even be load-sensitive, since stopping and restarting individual modules to make 5MW changes in output would (I assume) be relatively easy.

To speculate even more widely, embed banks of modules in the ground, in holes left by emptying out landfill sites (by reducing them to valuable elemental form and syngas with plasma-torching). Etc.

That would be really cool to get a module that small. I have a hunch that engineering dogma and fire codes are going to make first generation power station modules more along the size I listed above. There really should be no reason not to be able to stack units, as long as structure and magnetic shielding (if needed) are properly planned. Passive magnetic shielding may be why Rematog envisioned it the way he did, since doubling the distance quarters the field strength. Even if they do have to be arranged horizontally, we have a LOT of large empty factories around here with roughly a million square feet each and ceilings beginning at 14 feet high.

High rise brought the image of an old power plant to mind. Imagine how high you could stack units given an 80 or 100 foot ceiling. In new construction, the FF modules could become an integral part of the building’s structure, much like stacker cranes in “automated” warehouses.

As long as the fuel is heated, load corrections in 5MW chunks could be sensed and executed in less than a millisecond- essentially instantly. Physical relays would probably make it more like a second or two if they are used.

I just changed my profile’s site link to point to the url I got yesterday, Subatomic Precision. I’m working it up to be the 5 to 10 page minisite that I send politicians, reporters, and editors to. Page one is up. Comments are welcome.

[Aeronaut]

I think the first major change FF provides will be reduction of GHG rather than the production of cheap power, as FF begins eliminating coal-fired power plants. The migration to FF would have to be financed, as well as paying off the notes on the existing machinery.

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