Horizon nuclear fusion episode Tonight 20.00

[mistermack]

Don't know if I've seen this episode.

Fusion might suffer from the low oil price too, although it's such a long term project, the current oil price will probably just be a blip in comparison.

[klr]

Presented by Prof. Brian Cox. I was watching another program at the time, and recording some different again, so I'll record the re-run tonight at ... 0035 hrs.

And yes, I could upgrade to something that allows me to record 4 programs while watching a 5th, but there's only so TV I can watch.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

It's an old one from 2009 in any case.

[trdsf]

The fusion project to watch right now is Lockheed Martin. They seem to think they're on the brink of small, efficient fusion reactors. It's at a minimum the first time a serious project has claimed they can demonstrate proof of concept in five years, rather than twenty or thirty.

I don't know if they can manage it. I hope they can; fusion is very much the power source we need to have, if we want to dispense with non-renewables.

[mistermack]

The fusion project to watch right now is Lockheed Martin. They seem to think they're on the brink of small, efficient fusion reactors. It's at a minimum the first time a serious project has claimed they can demonstrate proof of concept in five years, rather than twenty or thirty.

I don't know if they can manage it. I hope they can; fusion is very much the power source we need to have, if we want to dispense with non-renewables.

Lockheed Martin are big on claims, and completely lacking in detail, on how their ideas will work.

Maybe this is to maintain commercial secrecy, but it also might be to avoid criticism.
After all, most of their money probably comes from government sources, and criticism might stem the flow.

Huge money has gone into the problem of how to contain a working plasma, and for everyone else, the answer always seems to be that bigger vessel is better.
They are claiming to have a design that works, and is small. But they don't say how.

[klr]

It's an old one from 2009 in any case.

Ah OK. I'm watching it anyway, as I can't remember it from the first time around.

[trdsf]

The fusion project to watch right now is Lockheed Martin. They seem to think they're on the brink of small, efficient fusion reactors. It's at a minimum the first time a serious project has claimed they can demonstrate proof of concept in five years, rather than twenty or thirty.

I don't know if they can manage it. I hope they can; fusion is very much the power source we need to have, if we want to dispense with non-renewables.

Lockheed Martin are big on claims, and completely lacking in detail, on how their ideas will work.

Maybe this is to maintain commercial secrecy, but it also might be to avoid criticism.
After all, most of their money probably comes from government sources, and criticism might stem the flow.

Huge money has gone into the problem of how to contain a working plasma, and for everyone else, the answer always seems to be that bigger vessel is better.
They are claiming to have a design that works, and is small. But they don't say how.

Well, yeah, they have to put up. It'll be interesting to see what they do between now and 2019. It's still an unusual step for them to make a public pronouncement.

[JimC]

I tell my Yr 11 Physics students that I expect at least one of them to either win the Nobel prize for Physics, or develop a working fusion reactor. I have one, or maybe 2 more years to get one of them to achieve that...

[cronus]

I'll watch the documentary they make in fifty years time, be closer to a answer then? In the mean time geothermal is the way to go. Imagine how much energy is within the core? That's free and clean. Drill a big hole and put the pump in. Europe is on a massive basaltic layer ready for drilling. 'Merica too. Anywhere away from the subduction zones and not too far is lucky. Hope from scumple. (don't read small print, please?)

[klr]

As I watched it, I remembered seeing it back in the day. It seems not much progress has been made since then, but that could be misleading. There might have been important developments or breakthroughs that were just not headline-grabbing.

[trdsf]

Historically, fusion power has always been twenty to fifty years away... regardless of what year you're in. It was twenty to fifty years away in 1960, and if the Rockwell thing doesn't come off, it's still twenty to fifty years away in 2015. It is to physics what AI is to computer science.

[klr]

Historically, fusion power has always been twenty to fifty years away... regardless of what year you're in. It was twenty to fifty years away in 1960, and if the Rockwell thing doesn't come off, it's still twenty to fifty years away in 2015. It is to physics what AI is to computer science.

Yep, good comparison.

[cronus]

Historically, fusion power has always been twenty to fifty years away... regardless of what year you're in. It was twenty to fifty years away in 1960, and if the Rockwell thing doesn't come off, it's still twenty to fifty years away in 2015. It is to physics what AI is to computer science.

Yep, good comparison.

AI is showing progress though. It is also economic since computational tech is expanding without added investment. What you have with fusion is a 700 year project and with AI a 70 year project. In that there is a big a difference.

[hackenslash]

Still a good comparison, despite the fact that, with fusion, we know what all the obstacles are (we can already do fusion, but it runs at a massive energy loss, rather than energy profit (i.e. input is greater than output) while, with AI, we still don't have a complete picture.

There are still massive challenges in both areas.

[mistermack]

Still a good comparison, despite the fact that, with fusion, we know what all the obstacles are (we can already do fusion, but it runs at a massive energy loss, rather than energy profit (i.e. input is greater than output) while, with AI, we still don't have a complete picture.

There are still massive challenges in both areas.

While it's obvious what you mean, and I'm not picking faults, that's not actually literally true.

The fusion that people can manage now actually does run at a massive energy profit. But it's at a loss of USEFUL energy. ie, electricity.
It takes more electricity to run the reactor, than you can make from the reactor.
But they do knock out huge amounts of heat energy. That heat energy doesn't really have much of a value in the locations of the test reactors. It's just wasted to the atmosphere via cooling mechanisms.

It does seem a shame that it can't be made use of.
You would think that in the far north or south, they could site a plant near conurbations and use the heat for domestic heating or greenhouse agriculture. But I guess the sums don't add up at the moment.
But if the energy price got really high, it could make fusion plants attractive in some places, even if there wasn't much of an electricity gain.