The Return Of Nuclear Power !?!

[mike os]

Ps if you believe all that why are you using unnecessary power on a whim?

 

[mike os]

Planning? Our government? Are you insane?

We haven’t had one of those since the 50’s

 

[My Old Landy]

I will just leave this here.....

Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK

Canadian company General Fusion is set to build a $400m fusion demonstrator near Oxford.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[8ob]

I will just leave this here.....

Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK

Canadian company General Fusion is set to build a $400m fusion demonstrator near Oxford.

www.bbc.co.uk

Great that fusion is getting some investment, shame it has to come from a man that wants to own the world

Bob

 

[My Old Landy]

Great that fusion is getting some investment, shame it has to come from a man that wants to own the world

Bob

It makes you think there maybe something in it now! I got out just when it was getting interesting it seems

 

[Ross365]

I may have posted previously that there are now 15 different sites applying to be the home of the Government Fusion project; I need to read the Bezos article again - I'm not sure whether he's chasing the same project or something different. Either way, something seems yo be happening with Fusion after all these years.

 

[mike os]

It’s had 20 bn in France alone…. How much does it need with exactly nothing to show for 50 years research?

 

[Ross365]

For sure, fusion has proved hard to do, but the prize is potentially so great that no nation can walk away. Men were trying to fly for centuries, with miserable failure and often ending in death, but that's pretty much forgotten now. This would be totally the wrong time to give up on fusion, when just about every country in the World is collaborating with the ITER project in France. Whether or not the folk down at Culham have already made their own breakthrough - only time will tell.

 

[Guzrik]

Maybe some of you are not familiar with ITER

https://www.iter.org/album/construction

You can get an idea where the money went. I think a lot of people did proper work for it, I prefer my tax to be spent on stuff like this rather than moving the European Commision from Brussels to Strassbourg every month.

The question of course is if it will ever pay off.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Nuclear fusion can be done on earth, right now.
What is holding going from small scale to big scale is just that.
Scale.
The money can be found.
The sites will be found.

But the scale of time. What is practable and workable now will be so out of date when they have built the reactor it will be uneconomical to produce energy to be be of any use.

 

[Ross365]

Am I right that ITER hasn't got to the "best bit yet" it's still being commissioned, but they admit it is experimental and will never supply power.

Culham seem to be saying the problem is getting the heat out sufficiently quickly while keeping the core stable, but the hints are that they have now made some breakthrough. Going back to the flying analogy, think how fast and furious the progress was after the Wright brothers!

 

[Guzrik]

All or at least a lot of counties have complete institutes doing additional research in to every aspect of fusion and tokamak reactors.
Migth be the biggest research field worldwide at the moment?

 

[Ross365]

Nuclear fusion can be done on earth, right now.
But the scale of time. What is practable and workable now will be so out of date when they have built the reactor it will be uneconomical to produce energy to be be of any use.

This issue has happened before; you have to freeze a design and then build it, but by the time it's working, it's already out of date.

The computers on the Space Shuttle were a good example, and they just side-stepped that by taking modern laptops with them. Currently, it's CO2 which is driving timescales, so even if the first fusion reactors were pretty inefficient, they could still be extremely helpful.

 

[not done it yet]

Butm can big enough profits be found.

I would consider saving the planet (from human destruction by climate change, due to burning fossil fuels) would be more than sufficient ‘profit’. It’s not always the simple monetary profit that needs to be considered. It can be what the alternatives actually lose, that is important.

 

[mike os]

AGW, the 21st century’s version of snake oil?

 

[not done it yet]

Yes, but when climate change really takes hold, governments might take more of an interest, even if the monetary profit is not there. Emergencies concentrate minds a bit more than at present, when too many are still climate change deniers.

 

[Ross365]

So, HMG still going for nuclear fusion and today short listed just 5 sites for the project;

Ardeer, North Ayrshire
Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire
Moorside, Cumbria
Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire
Severn Edge, Gloucestershire.

I'd bet a few quid on Ratcliffe.

 

[Munkul]

Moorside, please.

 

[toddy]

They have confirmed their site in Rotherham.

that site is just a single lab for a piece of equipment called CHIMERA
https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/first-look-at-yorkshire-fusion-technology-facility/


and as for the location for STEP my money is on Ratcliffe-on-Soar...... and i have to say i have no inside info at all about the locations etc,

 

[JohnH]

I've always enjoyed Sabine Hossenfelder's assessment of these kind of scientific topics.

How close is nuclear fusion power?

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