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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2019 18:17:25 GMT
The British government said on Thursday it will invest 220 million pounds ($270 million) in the design of a nuclear fusion power station to enable a commercially viable plant to be constructed by 2040.
Fusion is a potential form of power generation which could produce clean electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactors.
It copies the process which heats the sun and other stars, colliding hydrogen atoms to release large amounts of energy.
Fission, by contrast, splits the nucleus of an atom into two to release a large amounts of energy. It can be controlled more easily and is used in regular nuclear reactors.
Supporters believe fusion could revolutionize energy production, as it does not release carbon emissions and is believed to be safe, but critics say commercially viable fusion remains at least 50 years in the future.
The government said its investment will allow engineers and scientists to produce a conceptual design for the reactor (known as a tokamak) which will generate fusion energy and convert it into electricity.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority and partners from industry will work to complete the design by 2024 at the authority’s Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, which is home to a European fusion research programme.
“This is a bold and ambitious investment in the energy technology of the future,” Andrew Leadsom, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, said in a statement.
“Nuclear fusion has the potential to be an unlimited clean, safe and carbon-free energy source and we want the first commercially viable machine to be in the UK,” she added.
China aims to complete and start generating power from a nuclear fusion reactor by around 2040.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2019 18:18:55 GMT
What did the nuclear scientist have for lunch?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2019 18:25:55 GMT
What did the nuclear scientist have for lunch? No, she went of her own accord.
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Post by naughtyfox on Oct 3, 2019 18:42:38 GMT
Can't wait to see it turned on and the whole planet explode.
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Post by naughtyfox on Oct 3, 2019 18:45:35 GMT
Why not build one of these at the same time?
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Post by bodger on Oct 3, 2019 19:02:11 GMT
funnily enough, I wuz torking to my bruvver about just this today.
he is a chartered engineer who has been following the issues that have prevented fusion from becoming a reality. fusion works - it is simple and very powerful - but it only works for a matter of minutes. trouble is that the reaction needs to be contained and no containment material has been found that is not eroded very rapidly by 'sputtering'. he was at a conference at Culham and asked the question and the scientists said it works fine, if only the engineers could design a containment vessel. it works on the surface of the sun - but the sun's gravity acts as the containment, keeping the components in place. the issue has been known for decades, but little or no progress has been made.
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Post by Telemachus on Oct 3, 2019 19:46:27 GMT
funnily enough, I wuz torking to my bruvver about just this today. he is a chartered engineer who has been following the issues that have prevented fusion from becoming a reality. fusion works - it is simple and very powerful - but it only works for a matter of minutes. trouble is that the reaction needs to be contained and no containment material has been found that is not eroded very rapidly by 'sputtering'. he was at a conference at Culham and asked the question and the scientists said it works fine, if only the engineers could design a containment vessel. it works on the surface of the sun - but the sun's gravity acts as the containment, keeping the components in place. the issue has been known for decades, but little or no progress has been made. All true, but little progress has been made for decades because it remains the domain of the eccentric professor type. If adequate resources were made available globally, I’m sure these difficult problems would stand a chance of being resolved fairly quickly. The ITER project at Caderache is a good step but even that is small fry budget-wise, on a global scale. As for £220mil, that is a pittance and I doubt a working tokamak reactor with net positive output could be built for even 100 times that amount.
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Post by Telemachus on Oct 3, 2019 19:47:42 GMT
I’m not a religious chap but if I were, I think it would be obvious that god has done 2 things to point us in the right direction, one was creating Albert Einstein and the other was providing a working example of fusion power (aka the sun).
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Post by bodger on Oct 3, 2019 21:19:32 GMT
I’m not a religious chap but if I were, I think it would be obvious that god has done 2 things to point us in the right direction, one was creating Albert Einstein and the other was providing a working example of fusion power (aka the sun). yeah but - he allowed us to reap the radiation from the sun, while keeping the origin of the radiation well insulated from us poor mortals by 93 million miles of nothing. he never intended for one minute that we would try to replicate the sun on the perfect little orb that he favoured above the other xty trillion orbs floating around in the universe. if he decides we are upsetting the balance of nature on his favourite orb he will probably decide to allow us to destroy our habitat to the extent that it becomes hostile to us, so that he can promote an alternative life form to be supreme. ....................... ohh, I must have forgotten - he's doing that already.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Oct 3, 2019 21:22:49 GMT
funnily enough, I wuz torking to my bruvver about just this today. he is a chartered engineer who has been following the issues that have prevented fusion from becoming a reality. fusion works - it is simple and very powerful - but it only works for a matter of minutes. trouble is that the reaction needs to be contained and no containment material has been found that is not eroded very rapidly by 'sputtering'. he was at a conference at Culham and asked the question and the scientists said it works fine, if only the engineers could design a containment vessel. it works on the surface of the sun - but the sun's gravity acts as the containment, keeping the components in place. the issue has been known for decades, but little or no progress has been made. That reminds me of the story of the brilliant research chemist who perfected a manufacturing process for a universal solvent. He wasn't able to produce or market the stuff because of difficulties with storage containers and it's severely limited shelf life !
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Post by thebfg on Oct 3, 2019 21:59:01 GMT
funnily enough, I wuz torking to my bruvver about just this today. he is a chartered engineer who has been following the issues that have prevented fusion from becoming a reality. fusion works - it is simple and very powerful - but it only works for a matter of minutes. trouble is that the reaction needs to be contained and no containment material has been found that is not eroded very rapidly by 'sputtering'. he was at a conference at Culham and asked the question and the scientists said it works fine, if only the engineers could design a containment vessel. it works on the surface of the sun - but the sun's gravity acts as the containment, keeping the components in place. the issue has been known for decades, but little or no progress has been made. All true, but little progress has been made for decades because it remains the domain of the eccentric professor type. If adequate resources were made available globally, I’m sure these difficult problems would stand a chance of being resolved fairly quickly. The ITER project at Caderache is a good step but even that is small fry budget-wise, on a global scale. As for £220mil, that is a pittance and I doubt a working tokamak reactor with net positive output could be built for even 100 times that amount. Well the op does say the investment of £220 million is only for the design. If the government build it we all know it's going to cost 10 times the original quote.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 6:07:59 GMT
All true, but little progress has been made for decades because it remains the domain of the eccentric professor type. If adequate resources were made available globally, I’m sure these difficult problems would stand a chance of being resolved fairly quickly. The ITER project at Caderache is a good step but even that is small fry budget-wise, on a global scale. As for £220mil, that is a pittance and I doubt a working tokamak reactor with net positive output could be built for even 100 times that amount. Well the op does say the investment of £220 million is only for the design. If the government build it we all know it's going to cost 10 times the original quote. Yep, £220 million is just the teaser rate....but it also smacks of the same flounce that led to 'the government' announcing the UK will build its own GPS system when the the EU said we can't play with theirs.
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Post by bodger on Oct 4, 2019 7:01:29 GMT
All true, but little progress has been made for decades because it remains the domain of the eccentric professor type. If adequate resources were made available globally, I’m sure these difficult problems would stand a chance of being resolved fairly quickly. The ITER project at Caderache is a good step but even that is small fry budget-wise, on a global scale. As for £220mil, that is a pittance and I doubt a working tokamak reactor with net positive output could be built for even 100 times that amount. Well the op does say the investment of £220 million is only for the design. If the government build it we all know it's going to cost 10 times the original quote. it's an (un)educated guess. you can't design something until the basic parameters are established and AFAIK they are not, because of the issues I raised above. if you don't know what it is that you are designing then you can't begin to estimate the cost of designing it. simple logic applies.
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Post by Telemachus on Oct 4, 2019 7:04:42 GMT
Well the op does say the investment of £220 million is only for the design. If the government build it we all know it's going to cost 10 times the original quote. Yep, £220 million is just the teaser rate....but it also smacks of the same flounce that led to 'the government' announcing the UK will build its own GPS system when the the EU said we can't play with theirs. However, it will be money well spent. Culham has a long history of fusion research. Now if they were to definitely scrap HS2 and divert all the money to building a working fusion reactor, that would be a massively better use of all those billions.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 7:13:39 GMT
Yep, £220 million is just the teaser rate....but it also smacks of the same flounce that led to 'the government' announcing the UK will build its own GPS system when the the EU said we can't play with theirs. However, it will be money well spent. Culham has a long history of fusion research. Now if they were to definitely scrap HS2 and divert all the money to building a working fusion reactor, that would be a massively better use of all those billions. It would be a massive coup for British prestige if this country achieved on its own what several working in collaboration failed to. I hesitate to draw a comparison of the last time such a thing was achieved. But Bodger has it right; the design is not so much 'in development' but more 'unknown'. Also, I hope no-one starts talking about energy 'too cheap to meter'.
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