Have they reached the break even point yet? For many years, the energy produced was a fraction of the input energy. The situation has so far been worse than indicated by the above. The input/output comparisons only included energy input directly into the system. They did not include additional energy required to produce the input energy. Magnetic confinement has always been leaky. Implosion systems not relying on magnetic confinement have had problems utilizing the energy produced & and avoiding destruction of the equipment by the heat involved. For many decades, the break even point has been 20 years in the future. I am not sure what the current time estimate is.
There appears to be a great deal of faith. From the article: "The tokamak is expected to generate 500 megawatts of power once it is running at full power. The first plasma is expected to be generated in 2020 and fusion might be seen in 2027." This is being funded, in part, through CERN. But there has not been a demonstration yet showing better than break-even, and I don't believe they've achieved break-even on the smaller versions. It appears to be -- 'let us build a bigger one, and we can tweak the magnetic field to make it work', while keeping their fingers crossed that that is so. It does not appear to be a strong game-plan, but it does keep it 'in the news' and keeps the funding money coming in. That's how CERN works, and now this CERN off-shoot is following in those footsteps - though without an actual working model, unlike the LHC that works according to its design.
Well I have my fingers crossed and am going to be optimistic about this because the payoffs for the planet are so huge. Here's to hoping.
While it seems cool, fusion isn't even on my wish list for future energy production. Its advantage over fission is mostly just from it's inverted public ignorance factor: people both like fusion and dislike fission mostly for wrong reasons.
I worked in nuclear power for 8 years (US Navy), in radcon, nuclear chemistry and fluid systems. The problems I see with fission is the huge amount of waste, the ease at which enriched Uranium can be converted into a weapon, the cost of the power and the fact that we will run out of U235. Fusion is expensive but produces much less waste and the fuel is very plentiful. It does not have the gigantic footpring that solar would need, it doesn't require damning rivers and doesn't cover the land with giant windmills.
Conventionally speaking, what you wrote is true. However, more efficient, safer and effective fission reactors are possible. One young start up company, Transatomic Power, intends to make such a reactor within the next few years. http://transatomicpower.com http://transatomicpower.com/company.php The sodium reactor would use spent fuel from conventional reactors as fuel.
Very cool. What does huge mean/compared to what? Even if the term "waste" were accurate -- which it almost entirely isn't -- all of it could be safely stored in a single, small repository. And unlike its primary current competitor, coal, none of it is ever released into the environment. The "waste" issue isn't a problem with nuclear fission, it is a glorious benefit. But yes, technically, fusion should produce even less, making it an even gloriouriouslyer benefit than fission. How is that relevant? We (in the US and the major EU powers) already have nuclear weapons, so our nuclear power doesn't create a risk that we will get them. Beyond that, nuclear power is the primary method for disposing of nuclear weapons. Are you worried about Iran? Me too, but our building more nuclear fission plants doesn't have anything to do with whether they will get nukes (they are going to get them even though we have all but stopped building nuclear fission plants). Is artificially high for political reasons. But even at that, it remains one of the biggest energy producers in the US. And regardless of fission's costs, do you really think fusion is going to be cheap compared to other sources, given just how difficult it is to even make it work at all? Even if this project works, I wouldn't bet on its viability. Totally irrelevant, almost on par -- for practical purposes -- with saying we will eventually run out of sunlight. With or without reprocessing, we have the ability to power the planet with fission for the foreseeable future. Whether it is thousands of years or merely hundreds doesn't have any impact on whether we should build new power plants today. But technically, yes, the fuel for fusion is more plentiful. As above -- so far, that's an understatement. Still at infinity $/mWh and ITER will cost more than a fission reactor while producing nothing. Even if it eventually becomes a fraction the cost of fission, the already sunk costs alone will take tens of thousands of megawatts produced for decades to break even -- on the order of similarity to an entire fission plant operating for its entire lifespan for free.
If I'm not mistaken... didn't the USS Seawolf use a Sodium based LMFR? And was removed and replaced with a pressurized water one? Not saying there's anything wrong with their design, just curious Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Given the scale of nuclear waste we will probably end up fissioning het waste further until we reach a element that decays spontanious in a safe product over a reasenable time frame. Fusion on the other hand also produces waste products but because of it's nature their half times are many times shorter (for example tritium has a halflife of 12.32 years VS several (tens of) Thousand years for fission waste). some interesting projects: 2015 wendelstein 7-x 2015 JET ( Iters older smaller brother) will also try new experiments Further out you have devices that call the Polywell, and many more
