Fission and fusion

[beansbaxter]

There was a recent article about France winning the bid to build the first fusion reactor with help and finacial back from the other nuclear powers of the world. What are your thoughts on this since this won't be a viable energy source till at least 2020 if not later. Also why persure this (other than a new form of weapon) since most Americans have a fear and distrust of nuclear fission reactor.

 

[Mark R]

Well, the ITER project isn't the first fusion reactor- there are many around the world. However, the ITER project will be the biggest to date, and is designed as an experiment to learn how large fusion reactors behave. The key point is that current reactors are only able to run for a few seconds at a time. The ITER reactor is designed to run for up to 10 minutes. See here for more information.

By 2020, the results should be available, and it may then be possible to design a fusion reactor which is capable of producing electrical energy. This prototype 'DEMO' reactor is expected to be built around about 2030.

The ITER project itself is enormously expensive - estimated to be around $10 billion - and it will not produce any energy. All it will produce is scientific data. It will also require development of new technologies (new materials, new construction technologies, advanced magnets, etc.), and just like the US space program, these spin-off technologies may be highly valuable in their own right. That several countries were desperate to have the reactor built on their soil, indicates just how much value they put on building and developing the technology - as well as providing a lot of very skilled jobs.

As for the reason for fusion power, proponents have a list of major advantages:
Fusion fuel (deuterium and lithium) is 'hyperabundant' - The reserves are so large that it will be impossible for humanity ever to deplete them.
Fusion produces less radioactive waste than fission - and the radioactivity is shorter lived (half life 30-40 years, instead of 10,000 years)
No weapons proliferation issues - dueterium and lithium are of no weapons value on their own. Refining of uranium and plutonium is the fundamental technology that enables fission weapons, but is also the same technology needed for fission power.
Intrinsically safe - fission reactors are 'critical'. There is more fuel in the reactor than is needed to keep the reaction going. Inhibitors are used to prevent the reaction from going out of control - bad things happen if something goes wrong (e.g. Chornobyl). In fusion, there is a lower concentration of fuel in the reactor than needed - the reaction relies on the constant input of energy with a laser or ion beam. Stop the energy injector and the reaction instantly stops.

 

[Ruptga]

I've read that the fusion reactor is safe because there's only enough fuel in the reaction chamber for perhaps a few minutes of reaction, not because you can flip it off by turning off your laser. Either way, yes, it's supposed to be a lot harder to bork than fission reactors (which are actually far safer than most people would imagine, especially if you have a containment building unlike the idiots at Chernobyl).

Anyway OP, as mark said, this reactor will be useless for weapons, which is part of why fusion reactors are so interesting to us. Theoretically, in forty years we could install plants like this in nations like Iran, they'd have their electricity without any bomb-making potential, and everyone would be happy.
I think you're referring to hydrogen bombs, aka fusion bombs. They're not fusion bombs, but rather they're fission-fusion bombs or fission-fusion-fission bombs. You can't makes such a bomb without the fission part because the fusion part simply increases the yeild of the bomb; it's physically impossible to make a nuke out of the fusion part of those bombs because it's merely an enricher of sorts.

 

[BrownTown]

Mark R pretty much got it. Fusion is like taking all the good things about fission and getting rid of all the bad things. You don't have the long lived nuclear waste, there is not weapons proliferation problems, and you never have to worry about running out of fuel. However, all the good qualities have led some people to put it up on a pedastel, but it is not a solution to everything. It still requires building a very expensive fusion reactor and all the other problems assocated with large scale power production namely considerable water use. Even if fusion becomes a reality any time soon it will still be VERY expensive, and it not a source of CHEAP power, but it is a source of a LOT of power.

Also, there is NOT a new bomb associated with fusion power, the H bomb was developed 50 years ago, and it is quite easy to make an uncontrolled fusion reaction, it is actually conrolling it that is hard. Also, coincidentally, while the H bomb is alot mroe powerfull than the fission bomb the amount of extra energy is about 50% FISSION, not all fusion. The fusion reaction produces lots of neutrons which fission the fissile fuel much more effectively than in a pure fission bomb. For example the 100 megaton "Tsar Bomb" had its yield reduced to 50 megatones when the uranium casing was replaced with lead. If the uranium has been used it would have doubled the yield, but also produced as much nuclear fallout as every nuclear bomb detonated before it combined.

 

[f95toli]

It is definitly worth the gamble. All available information tells ut that is will work, and if it doesn't we will still have learned a lot.
And time is not really an issue. it will take several decades to replace the current power-infrastructure regardless of technology (even a new generation of fission reactors would take around 20 years to plan and build, mainly because the political process is so slow).

Moreover, I can't see any reason why if wouldn't be possible to speed up
the construction of DEMO if needed , just add more money and resources.
If the price of oil keeps going up and fusion looks like a viable option money simply won't be an issue (just think of the Manhattan project during WWII, but on a global scale).

This project is very expensive but considering that it is the best interest of the whole world to get this to work it is well worth it(also, it is still only a few dollars per person on the planet).

Also, it is worth mentioning that the reason why it has taken so much time to get the ITER project started is because of politics, NOT science.
The contruction plans have been ready for almost 15 years but the political process has been very,very slow; it took more than 5 year to decide in which country to build it.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: f95toli
And time is not really an issue. it will take several decades to replace the current power-infrastructure regardless of technology (even a new generation of fission reactors would take around 20 years to plan and build, mainly because the political process is so slow.

I can't agree enough.

But actually, the US government has finally moved to advance our fission technology; they've offered pretty sizable incentives to the next six plants to be built, and a few companies have taken them up on the offer. Also, next-gen plant designs have been in-process for quite some time since it's the construction that's the real kicker with nuclear power, not so much the design end of it.

Believe it or not, France gets 98% of its electricity from nuclear power (although because of FUD they don't have any waste processing plants in the nation), that's because they licensed one good reactor design and replicated it all over the country, which drastically cut down on red tape.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger

Originally posted by: f95toli
And time is not really an issue. it will take several decades to replace the current power-infrastructure regardless of technology (even a new generation of fission reactors would take around 20 years to plan and build, mainly because the political process is so slow.

I can't agree enough.

But actually, the US government has finally moved to advance our fission technology; they've offered pretty sizable incentives to the next six plants to be built, and a few companies have taken them up on the offer. Also, next-gen plant designs have been in-process for quite some time since it's the construction that's the real kicker with nuclear power, not so much the design end of it.

Believe it or not, France gets 98% of its electricity from nuclear power (although because of FUD they don't have any waste processing plants in the nation), that's because they licensed one good reactor design and replicated it all over the country, which drastically cut down on red tape.

Really... we certainly need to build more nuclear reactors in this powerless country. I had almost given up on there ever being another. Nuclear power is seriously the best option we have, and we need cheap energy to keep the country running. Well, actually hydro is probably better but cannot simply be built anywhere.

 

[BrownTown]

Well first off just to keep everything accurate France is 80% nuclear not 98% nuclear. Also, in all honesty that is too high a percent of nuclear since it takes days to turn nuke plants on and off and the power demands fluctuate considerably between night and day (something like 40%).

As for new plants, the last time a nuclear plant was brought online was Watts Bar 1 in 1996 by TVA. Also owned by TVA, Brown's Ferry 1 which has been shut down for 22 years will restart in May of next year, it is currently loading new fuel for the first time in 2 decades after 1.8 Billion was spent to completely rebuild the plant. If that goes well then Watts Bar 2 will be finished ~2012 and become the last of the "current" generation of nuclear plants to be built. As for next generation plants, liscensing for the first new plants bill begin in late 2007 and probably take for freaking ever like it always does, but eventually maybe somone will start building one around 2010. The two big areas that will likely see new plants are the southeast and Texas. Texas because it currently uses alot of very expensive natural gas plants, and the southeast becasue people here arent a bunch of liberal hippies who hate nuclear power (pardon the liberal/hippie comments, but you know what im getting at in terms of the political differences between the south compared to say the northeast or California). I think about 20 new nuclear pants have been proposed, but so far only 1 company has actually spent any money, and even that company isn't risking its neck too much since the parts it has bought could also be used in Europe if they don't get used here. Realistically the first of the "next generation" plants are about 10 years off, but if they go well hopefully it will take off.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492

Really... we certainly need to build more nuclear reactors in this powerless country. I had almost given up on there ever being another. Nuclear power is seriously the best option we have, and we need cheap energy to keep the country running. Well, actually hydro is probably better but cannot simply be built anywhere.

I don't like the idea of nuclear because it's cheap, I like it because it doesn't put tons of crap into the air. I'm not sure how much global warming stuff I agree with, but I can tell you without any doubt that asthma etc rates would drop like a rock if we even replaced coal-fired plants with natural gas (which I understand is a mostly-clean fossil fuel). Now imagine if there were zero-emission power plants. Think about it man, it's not all about the buck; although that certainly helps, and does drive industries, there are more things to consider from the bigpicture governmental/regulatory point of view.

Browntown, would you say it's fair to say that 80-90% of France's base-load power is nuclear? I know nuclear plants aren't suited for peak-power, but I also know that I read at least 80%. Also, was this Watts Bar 1 a new plant, or a new reactor at an existing plant? I'd read that only new reactors had been added, with no new plants per se. Then again nuclear power isn't a pressing debate in the States and good information is kinda hard to find.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
I don't like the idea of nuclear because it's cheap, I like it because it doesn't put tons of crap into the air. I'm not sure how much global warming stuff I agree with, but I can tell you without any doubt that asthma etc rates would drop like a rock if we even replaced coal-fired plants with natural gas (which I understand is a mostly-clean fossil fuel). Now imagine if there were zero-emission power plants. Think about it man, it's not all about the buck; although that certainly helps, and does drive industries, there are more things to consider from the bigpicture governmental/regulatory point of view.

In my opinion, I don't think natural gas will ever be used more than coal for power generation in the US. The US has more oil-equivalents of coal than any other nation's total oil- and oil-equivalent sources. It's cheap, readily available domestically, and the infrastructure is in place. We are working diligently to make it cleaner, but I'm not sure how effective these efforts will be, as we are still working on them only in lab-scale processes (by 'we' I mean 'other people in my department' ).

 

[Ruptga]

I knew coal was dirt-cheap, but had no idea we had so much of it, that's interesting. Anyway, I just mentioned natural gas as an example of anything not standard coal in a standard plant. I knew plants like that were dirty, but had to laugh when was told that the radiation in the fly ash is enough to set off alarms at downwind nuclear plants. I'm sure you already knew that, but for the sake of conversation...

Anyway, I know that neither natural gas, clean coal, or nuclear power will be fully adopted quickly simply because of economics (specifically sky-high start-up/construction costs for nuclear), and that's a major point in the final paper I'm making for my research and argumentation class. But economics aside, we can still look to the future, for coal and fusion.

 

[BrownTown]

Yes, coal is way cheaper than natural gas or oil (its probably 20% the cost of them per BTU), and we have 200 years supply of it, so there is no impending crisis on running out of electricity. However coal prices are going up, and the cost of burning coal is also going way up because you have to spend a sh|t ton on polution equipment. I'd bet alot of coal plants nowadays have spend ore money on pollution controls than the plant cost to build origionally (this really doesn't get said enough with everyone bashing coal power plants as evil and convieniently forgetting that emmissions of NOx, SOx, particulates et al. are all fractions of what they once were). As for ADDAvenger, yes, its fair to say that 90% of France's BASE load plants are nuclear. Also important to note that France is a considerable exporter of electricity, so their nuclear plants also end up supplying energy to other countries when Frances doesn't need it all. Watts Bar 1 was a new plant (hence the number '1' after its name), construction started in the 70's and wasn't finished until 1995. It was one of those nuke plants that ended up costing 10 times what it was origionally supposed to(8 Billion $$$) after an absurdly long series of unfortunate events. Watts Bar 2 is the second unit at that sight and like I said, it will be the last of the current generation plants to come online. Technically it will have taken 30 years to construct, but in reality they stopped building on it a long time ago and will restart working in 2008.

EDIT: Check here to see the cost of coal compared to natural gas and fuel oil. Its on the bottom left of the last page.

 

[Ruptga]

Interesting stuff, all of it.

 

[DrPizza]

The price of coal hasn't gone up that much... I use coal to heat my house (as someone mentioned above, it's the cheapest fuel per btu.) I believe that since last year, the price has gone up about 3%.

 

[BrownTown]

Well, thats not nescecarrily true, I can't speak for the prices of coal in your area, but I know for a fact that the prices of coal for big utilities is going up. Like I said before though, i think part of it may be due to the problems of pollution controll. I know looking at the TVA plants which are the ones I know about the ones with pollution controls can use low quality coal which is really cheap, but if you don't want to spend a Billion dollars to add pollution controlls then you have to get alot higher quality low sulfur coal which is much more expensive. Also, it is possible that it didn't go up much this year, I was more talking about over the last decade or so. Also, the price of coal you pay might not be as influenced by the transportation costs of the coal. Alot of these coal fired power plants were built litterally at the mouth of a coal mine (they are know as "mine mouth" plants), but after operating for several decades the mines they were origionally built on have ran out and they have to import coal from farther away regions on barges of trains. So even if the coal costs the same to dig up the price they have to pay is increasing due to the transportation costs.

 

[Cogman]

Fusion is the way to go. I think that if enough is put into you will get more out of it. Yes initial costs will be high, but I think that once the research is done with it cost will come down. Fision used to be pretty cheap, but then security measures got rediculuse (can't blame them though as its a case of not wanting a melt down) I took a tour of a fission reactor and the guide was enlightning. Basicly you can be layed off from a nuclear power plant if you get the same amount of radiation in one year that you would get from a dentists xray in one sitting. thats a bit crazy.

anyways, fusion will last forever if we get it going and can easily remove oil/coal as energy providers. So I say let fusion go forward.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: Cogman
Fusion is the way to go. I think that if enough is put into you will get more out of it. Yes initial costs will be high, but I think that once the research is done with it cost will come down. Fision used to be pretty cheap, but then security measures got rediculuse (can't blame them though as its a case of not wanting a melt down) I took a tour of a fission reactor and the guide was enlightning. Basicly you can be layed off from a nuclear power plant if you get the same amount of radiation in one year that you would get from a dentists xray in one sitting. thats a bit crazy.

anyways, fusion will last forever if we get it going and can easily remove oil/coal as energy providers. So I say let fusion go forward.

Ehhmm, you're a little too rosy on fusion and a bit too negative on fission. Security/safety stuff got ridiculous because of FUD, not so much because of actual threats. Don't get me wrong, before Three Mile Island we were a bit lax in those areas, but it's safe to say that we swung too far the other way, especially in light of the new designs that are being built. Basically, they're building nuclear reactors that don't require pumps to cool them, and that's only one example of their next-gen stuff.
one example => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESBWR

Anyway, fusion will be sweet once we get it figured out, but there's never going to be a 'magic bullet' for anything.

 

[Cogman]

Don't get me wrong, I think that fission should be implemented more frequently, as it is probibly the best power source avalible today. On the other side, I think that Fision better then fusion. I think that if it can make main stream it will be a great power source with few negitives (cost being the main one)

 

[Ruptga]

Yeah, what do the geniusses (genuii?) around here think of nuclear power's costs, for fission and fusion. You'd think they'd go down over time like any technology, but how fast and when do you all think it will level out?

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
Yeah, what do the geniusses (genuii?) around here think of nuclear power's costs, for fission and fusion. You'd think they'd go down over time like any technology, but how fast and when do you all think it will level out?

I think what you will find is that the initial cost of fission was fairly cheap. The reason the price has gone up with it is because of safty measures. Fission can still be pretty cheap, but probibly never as cheap as it was to start with. Fusion on the other hand will start out expencive, however my hope is that as manufacturing is perfected it will get cheaper.

 

[bwanaaa]

the rebirth of interest in going to the moon is now about helium-3. apparently this isotope is so abundant in lunar soil that 1 space shuttle's worth of moon dirt has enough to run the entire US for a year. Now I always thought that fusion required heavy hydrogen but apparently the chinese announced last week they are going to the moon to get some of this stuff. the russians are egging them on by saying that if the US gets to the moon first, the rest of the planet will be kneeling before us, like it was 50 years ago, for the cheap energy we will produce. And btw, the 2 millenia of middle east conflict will become moot.

 

[f95toli]

It is easier to reach break-even using He-3 than deuterium meaning a He-3 reactor would probably be cheaper and easier to build. However, He-3 is rare here on earth which is why most of the focus so far has been on deuterium reactors.
However, the Japanese have been talking about mining operation on the moon for years and apparantly the possibility of He-3 mining is a major driving force in their space program.

 

[LeatherNeck]

It's been a few years (~18 years) since I took a course on Fusion for my undergrad in Nuclear Engineering. While the promise of practically limitless power is alluring there are significant hurdles to a functioning power plant and it's one of the reasons they haven't "turned on" a big reactor even decades after they've had a functioning design.

One of the biggest hurdles is containment of the reaction. You're basically dealing with superheated plasma and a deuterium or trititum-deuterium reaction. Most thinking back then was that the H3-H2 reactor was most promising. The design has a tokamak, which is a donut shaped superpowerful magnet, with H2 and H3 plasma rotating around it. The magnetic field contains the nuclei within the core.

If all that was needed was to let the reaction occur and harvest the heat energy to create steam to turn a turbine then they would have functioning reactors right now. The biggest problem is the superfast neutrons produced in the process - they basically destroy the shielding of the reactor over a pretty short period of time. This is the reason they've been experimenting forever and not turning these things on full blast.

Regarding its use in a weapon, it's not quite true that the H2 and H3 have no nuclear weapons usage - they form the basis for Hydrogen bombs. To build a hydrogen (fusion) bomb, you need a fission bomb and the latter is scary enough.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
Yes, coal is way cheaper than natural gas or oil (its probably 20% the cost of them per BTU), and we have 200 years supply of it, so there is no impending crisis on running out of electricity. However coal prices are going up, and the cost of burning coal is also going way up because you have to spend a sh|t ton on polution equipment. I'd bet alot of coal plants nowadays have spend more money on pollution controls than the plant cost to build origionally (this really doesn't get said enough with everyone bashing coal power plants as evil and convieniently forgetting that emmissions of NOx, SOx, particulates et al. are all fractions of what they once were).

Yeah, but even if you manage to scrub out all of the NOx, SOx, particulates, radioactive bits and pieces, and all of the other contaminants that come with coal, you're still left with pretty much the highest level of CO2 emissions possible per unit energy. Sure, coal's a lot cleaner than it used to be, but that's not saying so very much.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Wow, does any of this strike anyone as sci-fi material? I mean, for crying out loud - mining the moon for fuel for a fusion reactor? I love it!