More media reports on Fusion advances 1

[JoshPlumSE]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/nuclear-fusion-energy-us-scientists-climate/index.html

On a related note, I just learned that my backyard neighbor is a physicist who's working on a nuclear fusion project. He loves his job, but he's a bit skeptical that we'll see true practical results in the next 40 years... if ever.

Clean, practical, and efficient Fusion energy is the holy grail of reducing carbon emissions. So, it really is a major swing for the fences. It's funny though, his skepticism was a bit deflating for me. I was hoping he'd be really excited at the possibility of crossing the finish line in our lifetime.

 

[rb1957]

I liked the UK research raining on the US's parade ! I'm sure the UK celebrated their achievement (in Feb), but such is "Science" these days.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[CWB1]

It'll be alright, we just need to legislate the end of other power sources for fusion to be perfected.

 

[TugboatEng]

I wonder how one would cold start a fusion powered grid without a well established conventional power grid?

 

[MJCronin]

Hey,... Tugboat !!! .... We don't like those kind of practical, reasonable questions here on eng-tips !!

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I wonder how one would cold start a fusion powered grid without a well established conventional power grid?

Not sure I understand the question. What is different about Fusion (as far as requirements for the electrical grid) as any other source of power?

As I understand it Fusion is just the reaction that creates the heat. Which produces the steam, which drives the generator. So, it would behave just like a Fission reactor, or natural gas or coal power plants.... At least as far as hooking up to the grid.

I suppose the question could be WHERE would be put the fusion plants. But, it's not like we'd have to put them out in the middle of nowhere like we might have to do for wind and solar. Large Wind and Solar plants have the drawback of needed to go places where land is cheap which ends up being far away from where people live. Which then necessitates building new power lines to get from the wind and solar source to the main grid. But, that doesn't really apply to Fusion. Even if it did, my expectation is that the Fusion plants wouldn't be a bunch of 100 MegaWatt plants, but rather more like San Onofre which had 1500MW capacity.

 

[TugboatEng]

I had to ask because during the early construction of the National Ignition Facility, it was common for the press releases to compare the energy rate to the total consumption of cities and states ~1000 GW.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/news/pk_fun_facts2.pdf

The difficulty of cold-starting a conventional grid is still fresh in our minds after the recent Texas outage.

Current fusion technology uses capacitor banks to store energy for a single shot but a grid level system would likely require a constant high power rate supply to sustain itself.

On a side note, interesting that the laser pulse duration takes longer to reach its target than the duration of the pulse itself.

 

[dik]

It may not be an easy fix, and there may be a 'whole bunch' of interesting questions to be asked. We may be in some 'new territory'. I don't know what a plurality of 'questions' is...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[rb1957]

what a plurality of 'questions' is ? ... "obviously", a confusion of questions !

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.