This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Someone writes "The proposed ITER would use magnetic confinement, effectively killing off research into the inertial design regardless of its merits."
What is this supposed to mean? Inertial fusion designs won't suddenly die off due to some ITER conspiracy. I don't get why someone feels like adding funding to one type of research will kill off all other types. [[ RK]]
Because:
Someone else writes:
What's the difference between the first two points? I'll leave this as it is in the hope that the original writer will correct it. -- user:Heron
Deleted two things from the article - an sentence about the risks of meltdown or otherwise in modern fission designs (didn't really belong)... Robert Merkel 01:37, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
...and a paragraph about the claim that fission is somehow more environmentally sound because it "uses up" the earth's net supply of radioactive material rather than creating more radioactive material. This argument is a) completely nonsensical and b) unattributed. Unless it is a common claim made by some group of importance, it doesn't belong here. Robert Merkel 01:37, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Andrewa, how does that work? Less radioactive materials are made into more radioactive ones, aren't they? Even if the net radioactivity of the world is decreased because some radioactive material is converted to energy, there will be regions of much higher radioactivity than would naturally occur and the associated risks of contamination through dispersal of this material (which would not be dispersed homogenously throughout the world should that happen, of course). Am I missing the point?
Which bad science are you refering to, by the way? Mr. Jones 13:22, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I made a diagram displaying the renewability of fusion by products by incorporating them into other fusion reactions. I would like somebody to review the diagram to make sure there isnt any mistakes/impossibilities. If there is simply mistakes, i would enjoy fixing them myself, but if its impossible dont jump to add it. Also if you are an expert in the field and have reviewed it and think its worthy of the article, ADD IT BECAUSE I DONT KNOW HOW. the image is: (html code version) <a href=" http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=model1cf8.png" target="_blank"><img src=" http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/6029/model1cf8.th.png" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
look, if you re going to talk about waste levels and the environment, why dont you put some numebrs in there?
1. How much energy does it take to extract deuterium from water 2. How much energy does it take to extract tritium from wherever it comes from 3. If the tokamak irradiated its shell, how long will it be irradiated for? And where will it be stored while it 'cools down'? And how much energy will that take? 4. You say it must cost less money than the money it would bring in. well, currently, how much money does it take to build an experimental reactor. how much have the costs changed over time? How has the energy produced changed over time? 5. more detail about potential accidents.
6. 'government regulation' is not the problem with fission. there is a reason government regulates it, and that is because it is deadly and dangerous, and the industry has been careless. the science geeks running this type of project dont care about that because 1. they can buy a nice house far away from any nuke plant, or 2. they have let their work go to their head and are more concerned with fame than with providing clean energy, or 3. they are extremely conservative and blame everything on 'crazy liberals' instead of analyzing the issues objectively, or 4. they are just plain stupid.
it is nice to pretend that you live in a world where you dont have to clean up your own poo. but someone always does, and it always costs money. if the fusion people are going to stick their heads in the sand about this issue, like they did with fission, then fusion is doomed. if they applied as much analysis and brainstorming to the environemtnal and health problems as they do to getting themselves published and doing 'k3wl stuff', maybe things would be different.
68.14.170.144 (the origin of such vignettes as this, but also some useful edits Mr. Jones 13:22, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC))
Although the original questions were posed in a highly NPOV way, the questions themselves are valid enough.
Maury 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
"... the point where the system is generating enough money to pay for itself. This last goal looks to be at least 50 years off at any given point in time."
Not entirely sure what this sentence means, therefore, I don't know how to correct it. If a goal "looks to be 50 years off at any given point in time," that goal has been 50 years away for the past 5 billion years. I think what the writer may have meant is 50 years away from the present, but...
If you're looking for the full original context, it's the second paragraph under "Power Plant Design." StellarFury 21:42, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This doesn't really belong here, it applies only to magnetic fusion systems. Inertial, pinch and electrostatic systems self-heat. I'll move it into the correct article later.
I don't think the line "No possibility of nuclear runaway, as there is no chain reaction" is accurate. An ignited fusion reaction IS a chain reaction. D+T=high energy He which further heats the plasma increasing the fusion reaction rate. This is a kind of chain reaction no? Not all chain reactions need involve only neutrons I should think. Obviously fusion reactions are inherently safe, the plasma quenches at the slightest purturbation, but I dont think "because there is no chain reaction" is one of those reasons. Thoughts? -- Deglr6328 08:10, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
no comments....removed mention.-- Deglr6328 08:56, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Someone touting himself as a "skeptic" deleted a critical historical reference with scanned in images of original source material so that he could express his contempt for the person who provided this material: me. This sort of ad hominem attack might be little more than a demonstration of hypocrisy in such a supposed "skeptic" were it not for the fact that the original source material is from a founder of the US fusion energy program claiming that the tokamak program was never "real" -- that it was, from the outset, a budgetary vehicle promoted for its political appeal. As such it must not be excluded from the Wikipedia article on fusion.
Jim Bowery 20:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not publish original research, which includes novel claims published only on the web site of a particular individual. This is not a reflection on the merit of those claims — Wikipedia is simply not the proper venue. We have to stick to material already well-established in traditionally reviewed publications, sorry. —Steven G. Johnson 01:04, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
There is a real difference between "original research" and "primary documents". There simply is no venue for a primary document of the type Bowery hosts on his website. Claiming that the document is fabricated strikes me as an act of extreme paranoia. This guy is someone that gave congressional testimony-not some UFO cult leader.
The stuff from Bussard aside, it is rather pollyannish to discussion fusion energy with no references to the controversy around fusion power. There is a history here that needs to be discussed for this article to be meaningful _and_ the simple fact is that some non-mainstream characters are involved at times.
A discussion on slashdot regarding this talk page. — Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 05:41, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
This is a link to the statements Hirsch made about Tokamak-which tend to support the authenticity of Bussard letter.
[14]
This article was full of POV and unsubstantiated claims (both ways), so I've cleaned it up. I should confess to being possibly biased, as I previously worked at JET. Dan100 17:45, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
How dow they extract the energy from the fusion going on in a tokamak to finally power my TV at home? Is this done in the regular "heating water and moving a steam turbine" process? Thanks, -- Abdull 6 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)
The article gets almost all the way by saying ...they may fuse to a single nucleus with a slightly smaller mass than the sum of the two reactant nuclei. The difference in mass is released as energy, following the relationship E = mc².
What particles, exactly, are converted to energy? Can someone explain this right in that sentence? Tempshill 7 July 2005 23:58 (UTC)
No particles are converted. Two protons and three neutrons are in a lower energy state as 4He and n, than as D and T. A watch that has run down is in a lower energy state than when it was wound up, and will weigh less. The only thing unique about nuclear is that these energy differences are enough to actually be weighed. pstudier 2005 July 8 00:52 (UTC)
The section on "Safety and environmental issues" is very enlightening, and appears to rebut some of the claims Greenpeace has made about the environmental dangers of Tokomak fusion power. However, it would be nice if some rough idea of numbers could be provided. How much radioactive material would be released in the worst-case scenario (a bomb under the torus)? How much tritium would be released per joule? What's the half-life of radioactive stainless steel, and how much of it would have to be disposed of on decomissioning a fusion reactor? Even if the error bars were an order of magnitude or more wide, some sort of idea of the quantities would be better than none at all. — ciphergoth 09:00, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
We must however note that current economy can be in a "local minimum" of oil age, where cheapness of oil is determined by available infrastructure and experience. It is not sensible to compare the price of oil industry with already build ports, pipelines and oil rigs to completely pioneering technology where the effect of scale is not visible yet. We are in the position of a lazy person who has basic food at hand so does not have to seek for better, althought he knows that it is probably somewhere.
Safe and standard fusion plant could increase availability of energy 10 or maybe even 100 fold. With such energy we could probably get unlimited access to mineral resources getting it from ordinary earth crust if necessary [1]. We could desalinate sea water and irrigate whatever we need. It would have positive impact on environment comparing to fossil energy (no toxic and CO2 emmision) and renewable energy which has to occupy large land areas.
This doesn't sound right at all. If it isn't omitted, it ought to be condensed or changed completely. Most of it is superfluous and speculative, and the personal pronouns "We are..." make it sound very unprofessional. I did remove the entire thing, but apparently this is bad etiquette, so I apologize and put the matter here for discussion. -- Goodkarma 19:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Does this have even an inkling of truth or feasibility in it? Article in Open Source Energy Network. Khokkanen 12:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The reaction is one way, right? So how does it meet the definition of "renewable"? Hydrogen fuel cells combine Oxygen and Hydrogen, yielding water, and then you split them again and reuse them. When you combine Hydrogen atoms to produce Helium you are stuck with the Helium, right? So it is renewable only in the sense that we cannot imagine using so much power that we would use up the available Hydrogen, right? But who would have thought one hundred years ago that we would use as much electricity as we do now? If it is available and cheap, we will find a way to use it. Does the yield reach the point where it would make economic sense to mine the fuel from neighboring planets - even when there is plenty of Hydrogen industry could extract more cheaply here? At what point would fusion power plants start using up too much of our Hydrogen? Are we talking Ring World construction projects, or something on a more imaginable scale?
Rarebird 14:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Should Z-pinch be under magnetic confinement or inertial confinement? User:DeepakKumar
I think there should be a section on the social implications of such energy sources as fusion power. For example, the Unified Social Model proposes it may conclude the Industrial Revolution here.
This is too speculative to be included, I would argue. Danielfong 20:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
How about mentioning notable speculations?
I found this article interesting, thought you might want to make some changes to the containment section of the page, I dont want to touch it since my knowledge of fusion is very limited.
Heres an extract: "Researchers at General Atomics, a company based in San Diego, California, US, discovered a simple way to prevent ELMs from occurring. By using a separate magnetic coil to induce small perturbations in the reactor's main magnetic field, they found they could bleed off enough of the plasma particles to prevent the ELMs from bursting out. The solution was tested at an experimental reactor based in San Diego called the DIII-D National Fusion Facility."
Heres the link: Nuclear fusion plasma problem tackled
I know that the largest fusion reactor is a star, but how small could a fusion reactor be made. For example, could it be the size of a computer monitor?
From what I understand the point where the amount of energy used to power the reactor compared to the amount of energy produced is the same is the point is when it already pays for itself. Anything more is free energy. What would the possibilities of a fusion reactor in high orbit have similar abilities to a small sun. Would the lesser amount of gravity help the reactors plasma to keep itself from hitting the walls and causing the energy to disrupt?
Gravity doesn't really have much of an effect on most fusion plasmas because the other forces are so incredibly strong. I say most because stars do exist ^^ Danielfong 05:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
"The largest current experiment, JET, has resulted in fusion power production somewhat larger than the power put into the plasma, maintained for a few seconds." This is referring to a Q greater than 1, which apparantly was never achieved by JET ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus). Is there a source for JET having a higher output?
I read in Chemistry World that a device called The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (East) is being built in China. I cannot find the article on the Chemistry World website, it appears to be only in the magazine. It says it 'will be the first of its kind in the world' but will be 'much smaller than ITER.' It also claims it is intended to be up and running 'by the end of the year.' I'm sure other people have picked up on this as an article exists on Wikipedia about it, but I think it should have a mention in the fusion power article. The prospect of learning more about fusion so soon certainly interests me atleast.
EDIT: Found the link, www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2006/July/InPapers.asp
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here know if anyone's experimented(even just theoretically) with a staged or fusion-boosted power plant? Seems like something too obvious to have never been considered. BioTube 23:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
The section on effluents in normal operation says that "During normal operation, some amount of tritium will be continually released. There would be no acute danger, but the cumulative effect on the world's population from a fusion economy could be a matter of concern." I disagree based on the quick calculation that a 1GW plant must destroy about 1kg of mass per year, therefore yielding ~100kg of tritium. This can't be hazardous, even if it were all vented. Maybe someone could do the calculation accurately, since I am not quite confident enough to edit the article itself.
The unit used to measure the amount of energy generated in a fusion reaction is the MeV (Million of electron volt). I removed the reference to a so called "Fusion Energy Unit" which is fact not used. ClaudeSB 08:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I think there should be a chart comparing the different methods of fusion power. I have done my best to organize the different methods in the following, and would appreciate any help with this incomplete, and possibly erred list:
Thanks, Kevin Baas talk 03:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
^ = capable of aneutronic fusion
! = uses superconductors
Yes - this should be covered, there has been research and some publications that can be referenced. although MTF could be considered a type of magnetic CF it is very different in many ways. www.nifs.ac.jp/itc/itc12/Siemon.pdf MTF- Implodable liner eg at LANL http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/Physics/Magnetized_Target_Fusion.htm http://wsx.lanl.gov/mtf.html MTF - Collapsable liquid vortex General Fusion Inc www.apam.columbia.edu/SMproceedings/11.ContributedPapers/11.Thio_etal.pdf I'll add something to the "Other methods" section when I get time. Rod57 11:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC) I'm inclined to make a separate article for magnetized target fusion. Any comments ? Rod57 12:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added a section on the social implications of fusion power. I know it seems like the article is gung-ho on this new source of power, and indeed it may provide a source of clean energy for the future. However, this discussion must also be applied to the potential problems that this source of energy could create. Advances in chemistry led to chemical weapons; in aviation, carpet bombing; in physics, to nuclear weapons. With each technological advance, mankind must take responsibility to ensure that it is only properly used; therefore, a candid discussion regarding the potential negative impacts of this technology on the face of social conflict must be included in this article. Amend as you like, or discuss with me, but please do not remove this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sven43 ( talk • contribs)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Someone writes "The proposed ITER would use magnetic confinement, effectively killing off research into the inertial design regardless of its merits."
What is this supposed to mean? Inertial fusion designs won't suddenly die off due to some ITER conspiracy. I don't get why someone feels like adding funding to one type of research will kill off all other types. [[ RK]]
Because:
Someone else writes:
What's the difference between the first two points? I'll leave this as it is in the hope that the original writer will correct it. -- user:Heron
Deleted two things from the article - an sentence about the risks of meltdown or otherwise in modern fission designs (didn't really belong)... Robert Merkel 01:37, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
...and a paragraph about the claim that fission is somehow more environmentally sound because it "uses up" the earth's net supply of radioactive material rather than creating more radioactive material. This argument is a) completely nonsensical and b) unattributed. Unless it is a common claim made by some group of importance, it doesn't belong here. Robert Merkel 01:37, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Andrewa, how does that work? Less radioactive materials are made into more radioactive ones, aren't they? Even if the net radioactivity of the world is decreased because some radioactive material is converted to energy, there will be regions of much higher radioactivity than would naturally occur and the associated risks of contamination through dispersal of this material (which would not be dispersed homogenously throughout the world should that happen, of course). Am I missing the point?
Which bad science are you refering to, by the way? Mr. Jones 13:22, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I made a diagram displaying the renewability of fusion by products by incorporating them into other fusion reactions. I would like somebody to review the diagram to make sure there isnt any mistakes/impossibilities. If there is simply mistakes, i would enjoy fixing them myself, but if its impossible dont jump to add it. Also if you are an expert in the field and have reviewed it and think its worthy of the article, ADD IT BECAUSE I DONT KNOW HOW. the image is: (html code version) <a href=" http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=model1cf8.png" target="_blank"><img src=" http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/6029/model1cf8.th.png" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
look, if you re going to talk about waste levels and the environment, why dont you put some numebrs in there?
1. How much energy does it take to extract deuterium from water 2. How much energy does it take to extract tritium from wherever it comes from 3. If the tokamak irradiated its shell, how long will it be irradiated for? And where will it be stored while it 'cools down'? And how much energy will that take? 4. You say it must cost less money than the money it would bring in. well, currently, how much money does it take to build an experimental reactor. how much have the costs changed over time? How has the energy produced changed over time? 5. more detail about potential accidents.
6. 'government regulation' is not the problem with fission. there is a reason government regulates it, and that is because it is deadly and dangerous, and the industry has been careless. the science geeks running this type of project dont care about that because 1. they can buy a nice house far away from any nuke plant, or 2. they have let their work go to their head and are more concerned with fame than with providing clean energy, or 3. they are extremely conservative and blame everything on 'crazy liberals' instead of analyzing the issues objectively, or 4. they are just plain stupid.
it is nice to pretend that you live in a world where you dont have to clean up your own poo. but someone always does, and it always costs money. if the fusion people are going to stick their heads in the sand about this issue, like they did with fission, then fusion is doomed. if they applied as much analysis and brainstorming to the environemtnal and health problems as they do to getting themselves published and doing 'k3wl stuff', maybe things would be different.
68.14.170.144 (the origin of such vignettes as this, but also some useful edits Mr. Jones 13:22, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC))
Although the original questions were posed in a highly NPOV way, the questions themselves are valid enough.
Maury 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
"... the point where the system is generating enough money to pay for itself. This last goal looks to be at least 50 years off at any given point in time."
Not entirely sure what this sentence means, therefore, I don't know how to correct it. If a goal "looks to be 50 years off at any given point in time," that goal has been 50 years away for the past 5 billion years. I think what the writer may have meant is 50 years away from the present, but...
If you're looking for the full original context, it's the second paragraph under "Power Plant Design." StellarFury 21:42, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This doesn't really belong here, it applies only to magnetic fusion systems. Inertial, pinch and electrostatic systems self-heat. I'll move it into the correct article later.
I don't think the line "No possibility of nuclear runaway, as there is no chain reaction" is accurate. An ignited fusion reaction IS a chain reaction. D+T=high energy He which further heats the plasma increasing the fusion reaction rate. This is a kind of chain reaction no? Not all chain reactions need involve only neutrons I should think. Obviously fusion reactions are inherently safe, the plasma quenches at the slightest purturbation, but I dont think "because there is no chain reaction" is one of those reasons. Thoughts? -- Deglr6328 08:10, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
no comments....removed mention.-- Deglr6328 08:56, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Someone touting himself as a "skeptic" deleted a critical historical reference with scanned in images of original source material so that he could express his contempt for the person who provided this material: me. This sort of ad hominem attack might be little more than a demonstration of hypocrisy in such a supposed "skeptic" were it not for the fact that the original source material is from a founder of the US fusion energy program claiming that the tokamak program was never "real" -- that it was, from the outset, a budgetary vehicle promoted for its political appeal. As such it must not be excluded from the Wikipedia article on fusion.
Jim Bowery 20:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not publish original research, which includes novel claims published only on the web site of a particular individual. This is not a reflection on the merit of those claims — Wikipedia is simply not the proper venue. We have to stick to material already well-established in traditionally reviewed publications, sorry. —Steven G. Johnson 01:04, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
There is a real difference between "original research" and "primary documents". There simply is no venue for a primary document of the type Bowery hosts on his website. Claiming that the document is fabricated strikes me as an act of extreme paranoia. This guy is someone that gave congressional testimony-not some UFO cult leader.
The stuff from Bussard aside, it is rather pollyannish to discussion fusion energy with no references to the controversy around fusion power. There is a history here that needs to be discussed for this article to be meaningful _and_ the simple fact is that some non-mainstream characters are involved at times.
A discussion on slashdot regarding this talk page. — Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 05:41, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
This is a link to the statements Hirsch made about Tokamak-which tend to support the authenticity of Bussard letter.
[14]
This article was full of POV and unsubstantiated claims (both ways), so I've cleaned it up. I should confess to being possibly biased, as I previously worked at JET. Dan100 17:45, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
How dow they extract the energy from the fusion going on in a tokamak to finally power my TV at home? Is this done in the regular "heating water and moving a steam turbine" process? Thanks, -- Abdull 6 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)
The article gets almost all the way by saying ...they may fuse to a single nucleus with a slightly smaller mass than the sum of the two reactant nuclei. The difference in mass is released as energy, following the relationship E = mc².
What particles, exactly, are converted to energy? Can someone explain this right in that sentence? Tempshill 7 July 2005 23:58 (UTC)
No particles are converted. Two protons and three neutrons are in a lower energy state as 4He and n, than as D and T. A watch that has run down is in a lower energy state than when it was wound up, and will weigh less. The only thing unique about nuclear is that these energy differences are enough to actually be weighed. pstudier 2005 July 8 00:52 (UTC)
The section on "Safety and environmental issues" is very enlightening, and appears to rebut some of the claims Greenpeace has made about the environmental dangers of Tokomak fusion power. However, it would be nice if some rough idea of numbers could be provided. How much radioactive material would be released in the worst-case scenario (a bomb under the torus)? How much tritium would be released per joule? What's the half-life of radioactive stainless steel, and how much of it would have to be disposed of on decomissioning a fusion reactor? Even if the error bars were an order of magnitude or more wide, some sort of idea of the quantities would be better than none at all. — ciphergoth 09:00, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
We must however note that current economy can be in a "local minimum" of oil age, where cheapness of oil is determined by available infrastructure and experience. It is not sensible to compare the price of oil industry with already build ports, pipelines and oil rigs to completely pioneering technology where the effect of scale is not visible yet. We are in the position of a lazy person who has basic food at hand so does not have to seek for better, althought he knows that it is probably somewhere.
Safe and standard fusion plant could increase availability of energy 10 or maybe even 100 fold. With such energy we could probably get unlimited access to mineral resources getting it from ordinary earth crust if necessary [1]. We could desalinate sea water and irrigate whatever we need. It would have positive impact on environment comparing to fossil energy (no toxic and CO2 emmision) and renewable energy which has to occupy large land areas.
This doesn't sound right at all. If it isn't omitted, it ought to be condensed or changed completely. Most of it is superfluous and speculative, and the personal pronouns "We are..." make it sound very unprofessional. I did remove the entire thing, but apparently this is bad etiquette, so I apologize and put the matter here for discussion. -- Goodkarma 19:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Does this have even an inkling of truth or feasibility in it? Article in Open Source Energy Network. Khokkanen 12:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The reaction is one way, right? So how does it meet the definition of "renewable"? Hydrogen fuel cells combine Oxygen and Hydrogen, yielding water, and then you split them again and reuse them. When you combine Hydrogen atoms to produce Helium you are stuck with the Helium, right? So it is renewable only in the sense that we cannot imagine using so much power that we would use up the available Hydrogen, right? But who would have thought one hundred years ago that we would use as much electricity as we do now? If it is available and cheap, we will find a way to use it. Does the yield reach the point where it would make economic sense to mine the fuel from neighboring planets - even when there is plenty of Hydrogen industry could extract more cheaply here? At what point would fusion power plants start using up too much of our Hydrogen? Are we talking Ring World construction projects, or something on a more imaginable scale?
Rarebird 14:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Should Z-pinch be under magnetic confinement or inertial confinement? User:DeepakKumar
I think there should be a section on the social implications of such energy sources as fusion power. For example, the Unified Social Model proposes it may conclude the Industrial Revolution here.
This is too speculative to be included, I would argue. Danielfong 20:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
How about mentioning notable speculations?
I found this article interesting, thought you might want to make some changes to the containment section of the page, I dont want to touch it since my knowledge of fusion is very limited.
Heres an extract: "Researchers at General Atomics, a company based in San Diego, California, US, discovered a simple way to prevent ELMs from occurring. By using a separate magnetic coil to induce small perturbations in the reactor's main magnetic field, they found they could bleed off enough of the plasma particles to prevent the ELMs from bursting out. The solution was tested at an experimental reactor based in San Diego called the DIII-D National Fusion Facility."
Heres the link: Nuclear fusion plasma problem tackled
I know that the largest fusion reactor is a star, but how small could a fusion reactor be made. For example, could it be the size of a computer monitor?
From what I understand the point where the amount of energy used to power the reactor compared to the amount of energy produced is the same is the point is when it already pays for itself. Anything more is free energy. What would the possibilities of a fusion reactor in high orbit have similar abilities to a small sun. Would the lesser amount of gravity help the reactors plasma to keep itself from hitting the walls and causing the energy to disrupt?
Gravity doesn't really have much of an effect on most fusion plasmas because the other forces are so incredibly strong. I say most because stars do exist ^^ Danielfong 05:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
"The largest current experiment, JET, has resulted in fusion power production somewhat larger than the power put into the plasma, maintained for a few seconds." This is referring to a Q greater than 1, which apparantly was never achieved by JET ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus). Is there a source for JET having a higher output?
I read in Chemistry World that a device called The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (East) is being built in China. I cannot find the article on the Chemistry World website, it appears to be only in the magazine. It says it 'will be the first of its kind in the world' but will be 'much smaller than ITER.' It also claims it is intended to be up and running 'by the end of the year.' I'm sure other people have picked up on this as an article exists on Wikipedia about it, but I think it should have a mention in the fusion power article. The prospect of learning more about fusion so soon certainly interests me atleast.
EDIT: Found the link, www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2006/July/InPapers.asp
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here know if anyone's experimented(even just theoretically) with a staged or fusion-boosted power plant? Seems like something too obvious to have never been considered. BioTube 23:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
The section on effluents in normal operation says that "During normal operation, some amount of tritium will be continually released. There would be no acute danger, but the cumulative effect on the world's population from a fusion economy could be a matter of concern." I disagree based on the quick calculation that a 1GW plant must destroy about 1kg of mass per year, therefore yielding ~100kg of tritium. This can't be hazardous, even if it were all vented. Maybe someone could do the calculation accurately, since I am not quite confident enough to edit the article itself.
The unit used to measure the amount of energy generated in a fusion reaction is the MeV (Million of electron volt). I removed the reference to a so called "Fusion Energy Unit" which is fact not used. ClaudeSB 08:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I think there should be a chart comparing the different methods of fusion power. I have done my best to organize the different methods in the following, and would appreciate any help with this incomplete, and possibly erred list:
Thanks, Kevin Baas talk 03:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
^ = capable of aneutronic fusion
! = uses superconductors
Yes - this should be covered, there has been research and some publications that can be referenced. although MTF could be considered a type of magnetic CF it is very different in many ways. www.nifs.ac.jp/itc/itc12/Siemon.pdf MTF- Implodable liner eg at LANL http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/Physics/Magnetized_Target_Fusion.htm http://wsx.lanl.gov/mtf.html MTF - Collapsable liquid vortex General Fusion Inc www.apam.columbia.edu/SMproceedings/11.ContributedPapers/11.Thio_etal.pdf I'll add something to the "Other methods" section when I get time. Rod57 11:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC) I'm inclined to make a separate article for magnetized target fusion. Any comments ? Rod57 12:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added a section on the social implications of fusion power. I know it seems like the article is gung-ho on this new source of power, and indeed it may provide a source of clean energy for the future. However, this discussion must also be applied to the potential problems that this source of energy could create. Advances in chemistry led to chemical weapons; in aviation, carpet bombing; in physics, to nuclear weapons. With each technological advance, mankind must take responsibility to ensure that it is only properly used; therefore, a candid discussion regarding the potential negative impacts of this technology on the face of social conflict must be included in this article. Amend as you like, or discuss with me, but please do not remove this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sven43 ( talk • contribs)