Nuclear Fusion, will it ever be viable?

[R1Geezer]

I had a debate with a mate of mine the other day and he seems to think that NF is pie in the sky and will never be commercially viable, comparing it with the likely hood of developing an anti gravity machine. Anyway I tend to think that it's the sort of thing that will be persued relentlessly until we can make it work, the prize is too great to give up on it. Progress has been made. So what are your views? Can you point me at some articles that give a heads up on where we are and where we are going and what the "experts" think. Cheers

[jake-the-peg]

Well I don't know where your friend gets his information from so it's difficult to answer his skepticism but I used to work as a physicist for the UK Atomic Energy Authority on Nuclear Fusion Experiments at Culham next door to JET.

Jet was the first Tokamak ( a type of Fusion reactor) to achieve fusion. It took more energy than it released - this was a consequence of the design and not a failure.

The next generation machine is ITER ( http://www.iter.org ) currently being build at Cardace in France.

This will have the capabilty to generate more energy than it takes. but will not be a comercial generating site.

That will be DEMO probably in Japan (as they let the French have ITER)

A lot of the physics is sorted now. Iter will address a lot of the engineering challenges like how you divert plasma, how you maintain the reactor vessel etc.

If people continue to fund it properly ( and it's not that expensive ) there is absolutely no reason why it should not be commercially viable.

Quite a lot of the "It'll never happen" comes from some rather early enthusiasm in the 50s with claims like "Power too cheap to meter" from people who really didn't understand the difficulties - or did and knew that if you promissed results 70 years away they'd not get funding.

This is just one arm of fusion (Tokamaks) Laser systems are gaining ground but are still some way away. There are also "Pinch" systems too but currently Tokamaks lead the pack.

Check out the Iter site for a lot more detail

[R1Geezer]

Thanks Jake very helpful.

[BillyBB]

Student Achieve fusion, http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2008/06/stud ents-achieve-fusion.html

Now up to Wiffle Ball 8 with a $2 mill commission from US Navy.

[jake-the-peg]

The fusion reactor in the above link is a Farnsworth-Hirsch or Fusor reactor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

They have been around for 40 years and several have been built in Universities around the world.

They are basically small accelerators.

Unfortunately due to a number of factors they just do not scale so although you can create some fusion with them it looks highly unlikely that you could ever achieve breakeven.

They are however a source of neutrons where you cannot have or don't want a nuclear reactor.


So a curiosity rather than a dead end