New energy development

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050628/...ce_nuclear_col

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Science's quest to find a cheap and inexhaustible way to meet global energy needs took a major step forward Tuesday when a 30-nation consortium chose France to host the world's first nuclear fusion reactor.

The 10-billion-euro (C$14.9-billion) experimental reactor that should now begin taking shape in Cadarache, southern France, will seek to turn seawater into fuel by mimicking the way the sun produces energy.

But critics argue it could be at least 50 years before a commercially viable reactor is built, if at all.

"We are making scientific history," Janez Potocnik, the European Union's Science and Research Commissioner, told a news conference in Moscow, where the multinational partners in the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project were meeting.

The partners also reached preliminary agreement on how to fund what will be one of the world's most expensive scientific experiments.

A nuclear fusion power station is the 'Holy Grail' for scientists trying to find a viable alternative to the world's depleting stocks of oil and gas.

The search took on new significance as crude this week reached a record price of $60.95 a barrel in some trading.

Next week, a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations in Scotland is to discuss climate change, widely blamed on burning fossil fuels for energy.

DECADES OF RESEARCH

Unlike fission reactors, which are used in existing nuclear power stations and release energy by splitting atoms apart, ITER would generate energy by combining them.

Nuclear fusion is the process by which the sun and stars produce heat and light, and where hydrogen bombs get their destructive power.

Power has been harnessed from fusion in laboratories but scientists have so far been unable to build a commercially viable reactor, despite decades of research.

The 500 megawatt ITER reactor will use deuterium, extracted from seawater, as its major fuel and a giant electromagnetic ring to fuse atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures.

One of the biggest challenges facing scientists is to build a reactor that can sustain temperatures of about 100 million Celsius (180 million F) for long enough to generate power.

"I give it a 50:50 chance of success but the engineering is very difficult," said Ian Fells of Britain's Royal Academy of Engineering. "If we can really make this work there will be enough electricity to last the world for the next 1,000 to 2,000 years."

The ITER project began in 1985 but the scientific challenges and wrangling between its partners over the site and financing have caused repeated delays.

At their meeting in Moscow, officials from ITER partners China, the 25-nation EU, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States chose Cadarache, near Marseille, over a rival bid to host the project from Japan.

"We believe that the ITER project should start as soon as possible for the sake of mankind's future," said Nariaki Nakayama, Japan's science minister.

The EU is to take on 40 percent of the project's cost, France will pay 10 percent and the remaining five partners 10 percent each. Building the reactor is expected to take about ten years at a cost of 4.6 billion euros ($6.14 billion).

But some scientists say it could take three times that long and the sides have yet to reach a final agreement on a number of issues, including financing, before the builders can move in.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace estimates that if the project yields any results at all, it will not be until the second half of this century.

"At a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project," it said.

France has been a big producer of nuclear energy since the oil shocks of the 1970s and has 58 nuclear reactors, the most in the world after the United States.

"It is a big success for France, for Europe and for all the partners of ITER," French President Jacques Chirac said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in London, Swaha Pattanaik in Paris, Elaine Lies in Tokyo and Brussels newsroom)

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I thought that this was interesting and seems like a good/dangerous undertaking.

very interesting the only downfaslls are risks and time

I'm curious how many of the detractors are on the oil companies' payroll or have some stake in the oil industry.

I don't know but I can't imagine that it is a huge amount give how long this project is expected to take. They said 50 years? By that time most of the fossil fuel will be used up and other stuff will have come around.

Assuming we get this to work, and work well, it will pretty much be the end of all energy concerns for the rest of humanity's existence.

Sure, it won't be the magic spell that solves our fossil fuel woes; we'll have already found workable alternatives by 2055. But fusion power will still be vastly superior to whatever we'll be using by then.

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Originally Posted by omnitarian

Assuming we get this to work, and work well, it will pretty much be the end of all energy concerns for the rest of humanity's existence.

Sure, it won't be the magic spell that solves our fossil fuel woes; we'll have already found workable alternatives by 2055. But fusion power will still be vastly superior to whatever we'll be using by then.

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There are already alternative fuels than fossil fuels. A man drov ehis van across the country through using garbage that he throws away.

A group of college students did it with vegtable oil..

yeah lol.Its jsut that the oil tycoons never plan ahead they think here and now.

This how thing sounds familar. Didn't some people already try to make a fusion power plant. Spent whatever it was... built it up.

I remember doing a report on it. I think it is used mostly for testing what and how fusion power works right know.. the actually validitity of it as a commercial power source failed. However the prediction was once it was running it could easily power the united states.

It was in a National Geographic issue a few years back.. Perhaps I still have it somewhere.


I think this fusion plant is trying a different approach however so maybe they'll have more success.


But this is hardly new(not meaning to sound mean... but really I have read about this stuff for years.. of it being attempted to be put in pratcie.. so I am wondering if this thing is pulling a trick out of its hat that makes it sound so special.. of if they think they'll have more success).

So if fusion ever reaches widespread use, I wonder what the millions of tons of helium we would pump into our atmosphere would do, as opposed to the millions of tons of carbon we're currently pumping in.

Just so I can get a visual, is this something like in Spider-man 2?

hmm.... that is a good question... I guess you could have a fusion-fision if that is possibly... using some sort of permanant cycle.. thus nothing but power woudl be realeased... of course this has to have flaws... No way you could just use something like that indefinately... could you?

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Originally Posted by Hawkeye

Just so I can get a visual, is this something like in Spider-man 2?

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VERY loosely. They used tridium instead of deuterium. And of course, there's no way some guy can go in with four arms and meddle around with it.

I've been studying these reactions for some time, and I have serious doubts about any solid structure withstanding 100 million C. I don't know enough nuclear physics to fully comment on the solution they propose to build it, but I know enough to know that this is going to require a hell of a lot more than 6.18 billion dollars. It will be a time and money suck, and I don't expect results for at least 30 years.

That being said, I'm really excited about its prospects. I'd love to work on it, but alas, I'm afraid I wish to apply my skills elsewhere.

edit: [q=ShunNakamura]hmm.... that is a good question... I guess you could have a fusion-fision if that is possibly... using some sort of permanant cycle.. thus nothing but power woudl be realeased... of course this has to have flaws... No way you could just use something like that indefinately... could you?[/q]Standard fission reduces to lead and, um, whatever's #35... radioactive krypton? Yeah, fusion requires hydrogen isotopes, around #1. You can't create a cyclic process, because it would take too much energy to further fiss the fission products down to hydrogen isotopes, and most likely the intermediate products would be too unstable.

Well they have 14.8 billion invested in it now so I image that money will grow to insane proportions by the time 50 years passes. If from investing that 14.8 or just keep throwing money at the situation.

I would like to understand more about how they plan to keep contained and control of anything that reaches 100 milllion degrees Celcius.

Actualy -N- I was refering to fission and fusion in the most basic sense.

Fission is spliting apart, fusion is putting together. Since matter is not created or destroyed should it not be possible to set up some sort of continous cycle with the two?

I don't know if you can fission water molecules apart at intense heat.. but lets say you can.

You fuse hydrogen and oxygen into water.. water is heated and split due to the heat produced from the fusion reaction, you thus can then re-fuse the molecules back together.

Only problem is I know I have missed something.. I can feel it in my bones. but from a basic logical sense this looks plausable(as long as intense heat can actually split water molecules).

-Absorbtion of the energy for human use... would this break the cycle?

-how would one absorb the energy?

-etc....

-Broken theory... but I used it to try and get across what I mean...

The problem is that that would break the laws of thermodynamics. What you described would work under the same incorrect principle as a perpetual motion machine. You can't just produce energy from nowhere, so the kind of cycle you're describing could not work - it would take far more energy to fission helium apart into hydrogen than we could hope to get out of it. That's also why the heaviest stars in the universe produce iron, and nothing heavier unless they supernova - once you hit iron, it takes more energy to fuse atoms than you get out of it.

By the way, what you're talking about with hydrogen and oxygen to produce water is something else entirely - a fuel cell. It doesn't involve any fusion, as it is chemically combining hydrogen and oxygen into a molecule, not combining two atoms to form a new atom. And while you can produce energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen into water, when you try it in reverse you once again hit thermodynamics - it takes more energy to break apart the water molecules than you could get out of it.

Well I know my example wasn't the best but it was the easiest way I could think of explaining it.

But the breaking part I guess holds true. that and the energy would eventually pale out.. but meh... I still think you could set it up so that it would be some form of controled chain so it would take less energy imput(the cycle I would hope would help reduce energy input requirement.)

The reason being last I read the amount of energy required to start any true fusion reaction actually takes so much energy that the actually benifit is little.

Let me state it more simply for you then.

It is not possible. There is no "basic" sense of fission or fusion. That is meaningless.

Clearer?

edit: Looks like you're getting it.

I thought fusion was the making of an atom (which is how stars make energy) and fission was the splitting of an atom right?
this is not creating nor destroying matter, simply converting matter into different forms therefore a cycle wouldnt be necessary.
I don't know much about this apart from doing it in school and a little in A level chemistry I think. Its all very confusing.

deary me people do i need to explain nuclear physics to you again? come on class it's very simople.

fission is when you fire a neutron at a rather large, dense and unstable atom. this breaks it into smaller bits. and neutrons. the neutrons then go on to hit other atoms and so the process continues. this is called an uncontrolled chain reactiion. how does it produce energy? well energy = mass multiplied the speed of light squared. (e=mc2) mass is lost during a chain reaction somewhere. and the loss mass becomes energy. not alot per atom really. but there area few billion atoms in any given lump of stuff. so alot of enery is produced.

fusion is when two aroms hit together and join together. like two hydrogen isotopes (just read isotope as atom if you don't know what an isotope is) when the get bashed together they can join and become a helium isotope. and again the combined weight of the two hydrogen is more than the product helium so the mass is given off as energy. it's a cleaner and more effeceint method of generating energy than fusion as it doesn't produce all sorts of nasty radioactive waste. also salt water is far easier to come by than plutonium and uranium. and cheaper to get out too.