Nuclear Fusion? You Must Be Staring Into the Sun.
I have a big government liberal friend who studied economics and finance. I am always forwarding to him anti-government propaganda from Mises.org and Cato. This is his latest attempt to justify government spending for stimulation of the economy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4629239.stm#
This concerns the nuclear fusion plant to be built in France and its promise of unlimited and clean energy for the future. His argument is that no private enterprise could afford to pursue this technology now. To tell the truth, the whole things seems a little dubious to me and rather like a lot a country size back-slapping and deal-making. And I honestly don't know much about the present state of the technology nor do I understand who is doing what. A little help here would be greatly appreciated! FRANCO DELENDUM EST.
posted by Publiix at 10:15 PM
8 Comments:
A weird thing happened tonite when I got online to check this damn blog out. At first I was excited because I saw that there were six comments posted on this here Post. Unfortunately, they were all "anonymous" posts, i.e. they were junk mail, spam, selling shit. Oh, I was mad. Anyway, I deleted the previous post and put it up again. So to any who might have noticed the new time of post, this is edition 2.
You know it's getting bad when the guy who writes the Post has to add the comments to it.
Hello Joseph:
I follow your reasoning. I must point out that the plant being built in France is being designed for nuclear fusion, not fission. Thus the arguments that: no private enterprise could at this time pursue the technology and (2) the promise of clean and abundant energy from fusion is worth the invested effort now.
What say you?
Thank you Priscillia. But let's take France out of the picture. Let's say that Country A (A) is healthy and everyone has a job, or whatever. Would A still be the only player in a real attempt to produce energy from fusion, because of its ability to draw huge sums of taxes from its wealthy citizens, at a small diluted cost but to the benefit of all? And let me say that I follow you on your argument about France. FRANCO DELENDUM EST, obviously. But what I am getting at is something like the game we played at Pitzer. Remember? The only real public good that everyone would have benefit from, and that could possibly only be provided by the coercions of government, was the Earth Meteor Defense Shield. Could Nuclear Fusion be something like that?
Hey Philippe and Priscillia!
Good to hear from you both! First of all, where are you moving to Priscillia? I almost went to Boston College for a Masters Program. Perhaps you can tell me a little about the city and your time there.
And concerning the fusion plant: might it be that my big-government liberal friend has got on this one? It sounds as if the potential benefits of fusion energy, being attainable in the next half-decade, outweigh my natural reaction against governement interference in the economic and technological sphere.
Ok, some comments on this by a student of engineering. First, most (if not all) nuclear power plants in the world were constructed and maintained with government subsidies, otherwise they wouldn't deliver cheap energy.
This is a tragic, but true fact. However, the question is whether Nuclear power can be produced without government subsidies and still be comparable cheap or not.
This is intriguing, because it would also give a chance to so-called ecologic and environmentally-friendly energy sources like Solar-, Water-, Geotherm- and Wind power plants.
The sad thing is that you have to evaluate power plants by their efficiency to translate from own force to electrical energy.
And this is the true problem, because only coal power (55%) and Nuclear Power (15-20% but huge output) are affordable by now.
There are also other future means to generate power in production (like a new form of plasma-breaker, fusion power (as mentioned above)). However, the first is still in the research phase and the second is under scrunity for a long time, because there hasn't been any progress.
So, we are left with few choice and all have negative side-effects.
To use regenerating power plants like water/solar/wind etc. will slow down the econmy, will produce many bird-kills and devastate huge countrysides (because of the number of plants necessary).
The use of nuclear power will have only small sites, no CO2-output and much needed energy. However, it will have toxic waste as a by-product.
Coal power is also small in size, generally has a high output, but it will emit CO2 (which is called a greenhouse gas (because of its reflective component that can increase temperatures).
So, if you want the environmentally friendliest energy source: Use Nuclear power.
On Nuclear fusion and Nuclear waste:
Nuclear fission will most likely not be around for another 100 years (if ever). The research goes on for almost 50 years now, with no progress and ever more problems.
It is true that several nations are working with top specialists on this problem, but they are no closer to a solution than many years ago.
The problem lies in the magnetic field and the amount of energy necessary to generate the magnetic field. The Fusion of H and O cores in a donut-shaped facility is an enormous process (which actually works naturally on the sun) and similiar research can be found at the CERN centre at the border between Swiss and France.
On nuclear waste, salt caves are the best hiding place and are safer than safe. I have been visiting nuclear power plants and the storage facilities twice (due to my uncle working at a nuclear power plant) and they are impressive. More over, the stored material are burnt-out elements that emit alpha-radiation, which is very deadly, but also stoppable by a mere paper-sheet.
Yes, thank you for the info. Max. I am not clear on some of it though. My question is this: are you saying that fusion technology is perhaps a century away from any worthwhile advancement?
A bit late at the moment here in Europe, but I will try to answer your question.
Yes, Fusion power still (you could say) in its infancy. That's why all the hype from the 70s and 80s has vanished and Fusion power hasn't appeared in the major headlines of science mags.
The problem is that the collusion that would lead to the creation of power needs more power than it gains, so the net is negative.
This is the problem we have with a lot of potential energy sources. They could spend much energy at a very efficient and environmentally friendly level, but to get to the point of net return, the energy necessary is too big.
While the nuclear fusion is easy to accomplish, when it comes to bombs (hydrogenium bomb). It is hard to control.
To utilize a fusion power, you need a controlled environment, or you will have a bomb-like scenario.
To accomplish this, engineers and physicists are capturing atoms in a gravitational web (easily explained ;) ). However, the generation of this web is still very expensive(energy-wise) and to construct a probable neutron source is a design-problem (currentyl discussed in the ITER and IFMIF stage of development).
I could go on about the difficulty to find the right chain-reaction that meets the criteria for nuclear fusion on terra, but this would extend way beyond the point and get technical.
Also, fusion power has one drawback: Tritium, which is an H-Isotope.
And last, but not least, there has been a scientifically disagreement, between Japan and the European states, leading to a leave of Japan. This will be a major know-how loss to the project and most likely slow the progress down again.
So, the estimation of consumer-usable fusion energy is still far, far away.
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