Rezwan
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Rezwan
ParticipantThanks Rudy for sending me this link: Will electric cars wreck the grid.
Although the link isn’t about a shortage of energy, but rather about loads.
ParticipantI hear a lot of objections, how are you turning these into selling points on your brochure/one-sheet?
Make the case. You don’t have to convince everyone, just the people with money to invest. Make the case for those people who want their investment in electric cars to have a big return, and who just need a bit of info to realize that investing in fusion research may yield a viable supply of energy, and there are all these great fusion alternatives to be explored – especially aneutronic ones.
ParticipantApologies, this came out sounding negative:
Rezwan wrote:
2) There’s lots of support for solar and wind, but ultimately, these are too diffuse (and require a lot of space) so if we ever want to get to a fully electric vehicle world, we need to get some real power online – we need to make fusion happen.A better way to put this is that solar and wind are great but only cover x% of the ideal world wide demand for electric vehicles, so here’s what we need to go totally electric – here’s how much fusion we need.
Info graphics available at David MacKay’s “Without the Hot air” (although this is all UK data)
Auto demand: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c3/page_29.shtml
Demand vs. Supply: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c18/page_103.shtml
The red stack in figure 18.1 adds up to 195 kWh per day per person. The
green stack adds up to about 180 kWh/d/p. A close race! But please
remember: in calculating our production stack we threw all economic,
social, and environmental constraints to the wind. Also, some of our green
contributors are probably incompatible with each other: our photovoltaic
panels and hot-water panels would clash with each other on roofs; and our
solar photovoltaic farms using 5% of the country might compete with the
energy crops with which we covered 75% of the country. If we were to lose
just one of our bigger green contributors – for example, if we decided that
deep offshore wind is not an option, or that panelling 5% of the country
with photovoltaics at a cost of £200 000 per person is not on – then the
production stack would no longer match the consumption stack.ParticipantTimS wrote:
TimS;
The success of General Fusion could be a very good thing. But its far more probable failure could/would/will further strengthen the eye-rolling reflex of the fusion doubters.… If they sink 20 mil+ of some famous people’s money for nothing, – I do see your point.
This is the story of investing. This is why VC’s don’t put all their money in one project. Only a fool would. Most projects fail. A few of the projects succeed big and mitigate those failures. I think the problem with fusion is it has this mystique about it, so people don’t deal with it the way they would with any other risk.Participantzapkitty wrote: Apparently not mentioned here yet: another update from LPP:
The report was sent on Sept. 21 to dues paying members of the site, and subsequently posted on the LPP site.
FFS has no funding currently, so I have those priorities. Since the info is available to members and also on the LPP site, posting it here is on the back burner.
Several members have the ability to post on the site, and could take advantage of that if they wished. Members will have to get more involved in the day to day operations of the website, and the organization needs more members.
If you are a dues paying member and would like to get involved in posting the LPP newsletters (and other things) to the site, let me know. I’ll activate that layer of permission and you can get to work (pending a little bit of training).
That would be great!
ParticipantCool. There’s also this type of badge: http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=354300034
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), and Mozilla have announced a $2 million Digital Media and Learning Competition for leading organizations, learning and assessment specialists, designers, and technologists to create and test digital achievement badges and badge systems. The competition will explore ways digital badges can be used to help people learn and demonstrate their knowledge; unlock job, educational, and civic opportunities; and open new pipelines to talent.
Participantjamesr wrote: Building a tokamak fusion power plant is not a scientific problem, but an engineering one.
The science works and says for a stable plasma with the temperature & density gradients at the edge manageable, then the device needs to be very big. ITER is just about the smallest size that can achieve Q>1.Just because the first ‘candle’ of fusion needs to operate on a scale larger than our everyday human interactions should not surprise us. Its still a lot smaller than the Sun.
Perhaps we could modify our “energy (in)efficiency” poster on this page (scroll down when you get there) to show the possibilities of ITER. We want a star on earth, without all that mass. And think how much more efficient it is than the sun. It’s like indoor skiing.
To ski, you don’t need a mountain, you just need a slope.
Likewise, for the fusion alternatives, you don’t need to gut the mainline fusion approaches. You need to come up with an assessment of how much money and resources you need, and then look for a diverse revenue base to fund that.
ParticipantSteven Sesselmann wrote:
Sure, I can work out something with those bracelets I designed, will discuss with Rezwan.Fabulous! Also, FYI, I just signed up with the Geek-Chic Meetup Group. Want to expand on this fusion and design theme : )
ParticipantSteven Sesselmann wrote:
On other matters, I have finally got myself a new lab, after almost two years in limbo, so now he race is on to see who will achieve self sustained fusion first.Awesome! You must post about your lab in the ICC forums. A link from here would also be useful. Thanks!
ParticipantI’ll have to agree with Delt0r. Even further, breakthrough energy in general gets so little funding.
There are two kinds of physicists, those who are good at physics and those who are good at getting funding.
A more constructive way to put it is, there are 2 skill sets physicists need, good physics, and good fundraising. We need to work on the latter obviously.
The Focus Fusion Society, as part of its strategic plan, has a “financing fusion research” campaign.
It’s mission? “To bring stakeholders together to provide fusion researchers with the broadest possible funding base; to make the case for funding a diversified, “multi-target” approach to fusion; and to provide a broader range of people and organizations the opportunity to make a difference in creating our fusion future.”
I say it’s best to start with pointing out how little funding fusion gets, and then on top of that, how many other opportunities there are (other projects) that could make a difference.
ParticipantThanks for the info! You should also add a link to your previous suggestions and implications.
From the article, I like:
The source could also be useful in monitoring the integrity of stored nuclear waste.
It’s not a nuclear waste problems, it’s an integrity problem.
ParticipantWarwick wrote:
But it’s probably easier to spread a positive attitude to something than a stoical one.And more fun. But at the same time, you need to cultivate a stoic backbone. (“You need a backbone, not a wishbone!”) I’m working on stamina more than stoicism. See also paradoxical commandments.
I like the distinction made by the Confidence Monitor between optimism and confidence. Optimism is the belief that something is possible – say that net energy from fusion is achievable. Confidence is the calculation that “those who should be doing something about it, are.” Or, “enough/the right resources are being brought to bear on the problem”. If we have optimism about one approach, are we confident that it has enough resources at its disposal to demonstrate the fact? If we aren’t sure that a specific project will work, are we confident that a broad enough range of projects is being pursued?
This is also a cultural thing as what most Americans consider normal may be slightly more positive than in some other countries (in my limited experience). e.g. if you go to watch a film with an American and it turns out to be a bit rubbish, there’s not much point in taking the mick out of how bad it is … they just don’t see why they’d want to get into the hate.
Ooh, yes. Those dismissive folk are “fusion haters”. Show fusion the love!
ParticipantOK, I’ve posted the Fusion paradoxical Commandments on the site, and am now asking for help in turning them into a poster.
For more info on the poster parameters, check out our post in sparked.com
I look forward to your designs!
ParticipantSome suggestions from the folks at sparked:
[Bernie M.] Is it possible for you to post the code somewhere for others to look at? Assuming it is going to be open source software, you could post it someplace like github.com and people could check it out, work on parts of it, and check it back in. Do you know how to do any of that?
To which I said, “We’re thinking this may not be something for Sparked as it will involve more stats and math, and not just java.” And
[Archimedes T.] I think you both have the right idea. Although math and stats would help a lot especially in the “business” aspect. Sharing the existing codebase and improving it would help in the “delivery” aspect.
By sharing the codebase and hopefully improving on it, you can provide a place where people who know the stats and math can have their ideas implemented more easily.
It is the same with any properly run application development shop, the “business” part is translated into the code. However, if the code base is not the best it can be, it would make things more difficult to note just implement, but to test and perform performance analysis.
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