Fusion Energy

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What are the advantages and drawbacks of fusion energy, and about when would it be widely available?

One of the advantages of nuclear fusion power would be that it would be very nearly devoid of unpleasant byproducts - no spent fuel to worry about, as it's done by fusing light elements (usually hydrogen to helium) rather than fissioning heavy ones.

Drawbacks include the fact that by any current design, if anything causes the fusing plasma to touch the walls of the containment vessel, it cools the plasma to below fusion temperatures (and, of course, melts the vessel).

When will it be widely available? It's been forecast to be about twenty years out for about fifty years now...

Waste heat that contributes to Global Warming.

Any form of generated energy will produce waste heat, however.

While the incredible abundance of fuel for fusion and the clean byproducts make fusion extremely attractive, the fact is it's extremely difficult to control. Anyone with some heavy water and a nuclear bomb can create the fusion reaction, it's much more difficult to create something you can actually use to draw energy out of. As far as a timeline, I don't think we will see a viable fusion reactor for at least 50 years. Though there have been sudden breakthroughs that advance technology by a generation before so you never know.

i think people get confused on the subject,

continous stable plasma fusion (ie. tokamak reactors like JET and ITER) have run into a lot of setbacks and the scale of the research and funding doesnt expediate things either.

pulsed fusion has moved forward by leaps and bounds compared to stable fusion, for them the problem is not as much the fusion process but containing the huge amount of energy released over a very short amounts of time and harnessing that energy, the Z-machine looks promising in this regard with much better results than they expected in their last published tests.

i think it might be viable if a low maintenance up scaled version is possible, how to accomodate consecutive firings is a bit of a mystery to me.

One problem which I imagine will keep some of the more zealous environmentalists from ever accepting fusion is that the reactor vessel itself (regardless of whether it's pulsed fusion or continuous) will become radioactive because of neutrons released in the fusion process. It's not much radioactive waste considering the amount of energy you get out before you need to throw away the vessel, but it is still some and there are a lot of people who have an irrational fear of even the slightest bit of radiation.

As for a timeline... Well, there's a popular saying that "Fusion is 50 years away and always will be." I've heard one astronomer say that she's not sure we'll ever be able to break even and that trying to build a functioning fusion power plant is just distracting from the legitimate research that can be done on stellar processes using these devices. Admittedly, she would not have all of the specialized knowledge in this field, but I thought it was an interesting statement nonetheless. I rather suspect that by the time fusion power becomes available our renewable technologies will have gotten so good that we wouldn't need it--on Earth. I love the thought of fusion reactors in space, however. You could scoop up your fuel of out Saturn or get it from lunar regolith and then send spaceships zipping all across the solar system... [goes into nerdy fantasy].

The Rossi reactor is being tested today. Low energy reaction 'cold fusion' .

http://peswiki.com/index.php/News:Real- ... E-Cat_Test


So far its running smoothly in self-sustaining mode.

Heh i'll be believe it when I own one .

nonetheless i keep my fingers crossed for this one. The big issue is not 'if' it works but 'if' the powers that stand to lose tons of $$ because of it will allow it to happen.

The only thing that is preventing this guy from telling the world what the catalyzers are and how it works is the patent. Once he has it he gets the rights to profit from it... and all the oil, coal and nuclear power infrastructure and big money associated with it goes down the drain in less than a decade. You can bet these powers are doing their darn best to block the patent.

Just because it hasn't been done in 50 or 100 years doesn't mean it can't be done. You may just need the right tech to come along or a stroke of luck/inspiration...or both. There's plenty of examples in history of scientists that stumble onto something, research it, become outcasts in the scientific community of the day and later they are proven right & they change the world.

I'll point you to the Israeli chemist that won the nobel prize this year for his quasicrystal research. He was ridiculed by the same academia system that you say needs to 'prove' things... and in the end he was proven right. His discovery was almost accidental to boot.

The thing with the Rossi LENR (E-cat or whatever) is that he would reveal the entire process once he is given a patent. If its bogus then that's that and the patent becomes worthless. However... if it does work that patent makes the guy sole financial beneficiary of the thing and that you can be sure has the established energy infrastructure elites sh*****g bricks. Blocking this patent by whatever means is no different than what large corporations do when they muscle individuals using the law: delay the process for so long the individual gives up, settles on terms beneficial to the large corp or just how insurance co's do it, delay+deny until the problem dies.