Clean Fusion Power Could Be Feasible by 2017

[Ralen-Sharr]

So how long until big oil buys this out and then buries it to never be seen again?

depends on if they actually think it will work

Even if they kicked out a working fusion reactor today, we'd still be using petroleum products. Not like we can power cars or make plastics with a fusion reactor.

Well electric cars are becoming more common every day........ They are still insanely outnumbered, to be sure.... But we CAN power cars with electricity which is what this would generate. (assuming it works)


If this works, I would be ecstatic!!!

yeah, I know electric cars are becoming more popular and viable, but a full electric car is not a car with a fusion reactor on board (which is what I was meaning).

I'm sure one of the testbeds for using this to power vehicles (on board fusion power) we'll likely see it first in military navy vessels, possibly later in something like trains and cargo ships. I'm guessing it would probably take a century before the tech will be safe and cheap enough to put in an everyday car.

 

[Plasmadamage]

Well if were lucky it works. If we're not, well I hope I'm out of the radius of the fallout zone.

Uh, a fusion reactor would have no unstable inputs or outputs, so there would be no fallout if a meltdown happened.

Admittedly, there would be a big boom

 

[rednose1]

Yea, not gonna happen. It'd be great if it was true, but just jumping up and saying, "You know that whole fusion problem? We're gonna have it licked in 3-4 years."

I'd much rather see more advances in nuclear fission. Smaller reactor designs, thorium reactors, waste recycling...
Hell, even making it so reactor designs are similar from one site to the next would save tons of $$, making it all the cheaper.

As a not very related fun fact: Because of all the granite, The U.S. Capitol building and Grand Central Station release more radiation to the public than is allowable by a commercial nuclear reactor.

 

[SD-Fiend]

Would that be the same way we were all meant to have jet-packs and flying cars by now?

Well we do technically have (Martin) jetpacks at this point but they use propellers instead of rockets.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

If this is truly possible and if I live to see the day fusion becomes the main energy producer of Humanity I will weap tears of fucking joy.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Even if you had 100% effective clean power, with no downsides. The majority of the population would still rally against it, afraid of how it was going to unmake the world and change is bad. They'd also be unwilling to approve any spending to construct plants, because everyone is massively short sighted.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

After all the rampant speculation about alternative energy sciences being quietly squashed by oil interests, its nice to have a major engineering corporation saying they can get this done once and for all.

 

[Eppy (Bored)]

Of course, no military project ever comes in under budget, but the F-35's total pricetag is almost two trillion(!) dollars and growing.

The actual cost of the F-35 project development up to this point is around $11 billion, not trillions of dollars. That figure (being and estimated $1.5 trillion) is the projected cost to purchase, equip, and maintain all ~2,400 F-35's the U.S. plans to acquire, aggregated over the fighter's 50-year lifespan.

1.51 trillion dollars now, which is, as in most things involved in military spending, a significant underestimate. The national debt is...?

 

[Thamian]

They might have gotten something working, but from where I'm standing it's most likely to be laser fired (high energy laser efficiencies have skyrocketed in recent years, mostly driven by defense research, and what are Lockheed again?), and hence not very efficient.

Still would be quite portable, but I'm really dubious about it's supposed output capacity. Be great for militaries and the like, but for civilian power, large scale tokamak fusion plants are pretty much guaranteed to be better in the long run.

I'd much rather see more advances in nuclear fission. Smaller reactor designs, thorium reactors, waste recycling...

Fun fact: There's a company in the UK that are developing small fusion reactors which have among their uses, disposal of waste from nuclear fission.

Spoiler

Basically, the tokamaks these people were talking about were too small (3 metres across in total, so fusion bottle of what? 1 metre in diameter roughly?) to actually generate energy, but would produce plenty of neutrons, and by exposing nuclear waste to large amounts of neutrons it's possible to convert most of the unstable waste isotopes into much more stable ones.

Other projected uses include researching and testing new materials for lining all up fusion reactors, and production of medical isotopes, hopefully finally putting paid to the world-wide shortage of the damned things.

 

[Thommo]

So how long until big oil buys this out and then buries it to never be seen again?

Don't need to. Fusion has for the past 50 years been a pipe dream and everything that i have read about today's work on we wont see it used commercially for 30 years. besides if they did try and cover this up they would have a hell of a time doing it as, right now, the quest for fusion power is publicly known

 

[rapidoud]

Well if were lucky it works. If we're not, well I hope I'm out of the radius of the fallout zone.

Uh, a fusion reactor would have no unstable inputs or outputs, so there would be no fallout if a meltdown happened.

Admittedly, there would be a big boom

So you're saying The Dark Knight Rises still has no realistic parts to the movie?

 

[Plasmadamage]

That was a reactor that was deliberately modified into a fusion bomb, not a accidental meltdown.

Also, no, it doesn't.

 

[Strazdas]

Not like we can power cars or make plastics with a fusion reactor.

Actually, we can. well, almost. we got fission reactors that can power cars based on uranium, but security is an issue (crash = boom?), we are working on thorium based one, wehere crash = no boom. plastics are a bit harder, but we use it simpyl becuase its cheap and convieninent. not so when oil ends.
we already got alternatives, like liquid wood http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28283260/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/greener-alternative-plastics-liquid-wood/#.UTxVxldtP3M
we also got bioplastic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic
in fact bioplastic is used regulary by us every day. all oru bags are biopastic (except for one brand and older ones). problem with it, it being biodegradable, their life is not long for some purposes. it will work you as good as any other plastic for first 3 months, thne it starts falling apart. keep a bag in place for a year, then try to pick it up, it will crubmel to ashes

 

[Barciad]

So how long until big oil buys this out and then buries it to never be seen again?

It's made by Lockheed Martin. They're one of the biggest companies in the world, not far off the big oil boys, so I don't think it's quite so easy to be bought out by them.

Quite, all he has to do is tell the executives and shareholders that there is a very good chance of them actually doing it. And thus meaning that all involved will make more money than Bill Gates and the Sultan of Brunei combined.

 

[Andrew_C]

This is news how? ITER, the Tokamak fusion reactor under construction in France is projected to be capable of producing economically viable amounts of energy. Lockheed are just getting cranky because they think they are losing out on government money because Europe is doing more ground-breaking fundamental research because the EU actually understands the importance of funding research.

Here's a fun fact. We have been 20 years from having viable fusion power for about 60 years

 

[Dryk]

>Lockheed Martin

So it'll be 20 years late, cost about a hundreds times more money and be worse then what we've got today?

I was at a conference once where a guy from Lockheed Martin, a guy from ArianneSpace and a guy from SpaceX were on a panel talking about launching their rockets. The Lockheed Martin transport procedures were ludicrously overblown for a reason I can't remember but I think it was along the lines of:

"We use this sophisticated system to transport the rocket to the facility ready to launch"
"We transport it in pieces and assemble it there"

It also didn't help that LM sent a guy from marketing and the other two sent senior engineers

Such an awkward panel but it illustrates the problems Lockheed Martin are suffering from well I think

So you're saying The Dark Knight Rises still has no realistic parts to the movie?

The depiction of fusion reactors in that movie was laughable, not only do that not use radioactive material to function if removed from their control system they'll just shut down because they require specific conditions to be self-sustaining

 

[Syzygy23]

Well if were lucky it works. If we're not, well I hope I'm out of the radius of the fallout zone.

You're thinking of fission, fusion is completely safe. Worst case scenario, it just sputters and dies.