Large Hardon Collider

[Kaylia]

You guys are more optimistic than i am about nuclear fusion. It would be awesome if we manage to do it efficiently, but there is a lot of technological constraint at the moment, and who knows how long it could take to overcome them.

[Kryssan]

You can choose to be that way if you wish, but the elements you speak of aren't really as high a hurdle as you think.

ITER is not an end in itself: it is the bridge toward a first plant that will demonstrate the large-scale production of electrical power and Tritium fuel self-sufficiency. This is the next step after ITER: the Demonstration Power Plant, or DEMO for short. A conceptual design for such a machine could be complete by 2017. If all goes well, DEMO will lead fusion into its industrial era, beginning operations in the early 2030s, and putting fusion power into the grid as early as 2040.

While ITER is being constructed and DEMO is in its conceptual phase, several fusion installations, with different characteristics and objectives, will be operating around the world to conduct complementary research and development in support of ITER. In Japan, the construction of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) has started. This installation, part of the "Broader Approach" Agreement, will test and qualify the advanced materials needed for a full-scale fusion plant.

By the last quarter of this century, if ITER and DEMO are successful, our world will enter the Age of Fusion - an age when mankind covers a significant part of its energy needs with an inexhaustible, environmentally benign, and universally available resource.

30~50 years is a very reasonable estimate. There is no reason to believe that you will not see fusion power by the time you die, assuming you live a 'normal' lifespan as it is currently clarified in today's standards.


And I'm still personally planning on living far longer than the 'normal', regardless of the way I have to go about achieving it.

[Eliseos]

We should just focus all our efforts on building a Dyson sphere, then we would never have want of energy ever again.

The fusion stuff is incredible though, here's hoping the various facilities around the world don't get their funds cut and can continue their research.

[Kaylia]

You can choose to be that way if you wish, but the elements you speak of aren't really as high a hurdle as you think.



30~50 years is a very reasonable estimate. There is no reason to believe that you will not see fusion power by the time you die, assuming you live a 'normal' lifespan as it is currently clarified in today's standards.


And I'm still personally planning on living far longer than the 'normal', regardless of the way I have to go about achieving it.

I thought the biggest problem was that they couldn't operate on a long time period.

[Kryssan]

Tell me what you mean by 'long time period'.


The ICF reactors are pulse reactors, with each pulse lasting fractions of a second; in this design you just keep feeding holhgrams in and the reaction isn't a continuous event.


For MCF, the largest problem they've had is plasma containment, which leads to the reactor shutting itself down if the regions of edge localized modes become too large to contain. ELMs are where bursts of energy manage to escape the magnetic fields.

The Tore Supra Tokamak that is part of the Cadarache nuclear research centre holds the record for the longest plasma duration time of any tokamak: six minutes and 30 seconds. The Japanese JT-60 achieved the highest value of fusion triple product - density, temperature, confinement time -of any device to date. US fusion installations have reached temperatures of several hundred million degrees Celsius. Achievements like these have led fusion science to an exciting threshold: the long sought-after plasma energy breakeven point.

There are some very interesting ways of controlling the ELMs that ITER is going to be implementing. The one that supposedly has the most potential is developing ways to inject fuel and have it fly 'around' the tokamak, injecting it into the plasma in the ELMs. The frozen fuel pellet's interaction with the field causes a stabilization of the field. JET got up to 70% (so JET was able to produce 70% of its input power) without these methods, and technology for the superconductors and magnets has gotten much better than it was in the previous two decades.


The goal of ITER is to achieve Q>=10, where its producing 10 times as much power as its using. We've come a long way since the first controlled release in '91. The ITER control systems will have power levels almost an order higher than any other tokamak currently in existence.

[Kaylia]

Tell me what you mean by 'long time period'.

Long enough to be a reliable source of energy that run indefinitively, and not just an experimental power generator that cost millions to maintain between every attempt.


What I heard is similar to what you just posted, except that people thought the technology gap was too large to make any prediction on the time frame where it would be possible. I'm all for research in the domain, and I really hope they will managed to do it as soon as possible, but there is no guarantee we will do it in the next next century (or ever depending how much the universe hates us).



[edit]
I just read on wiki the project cost is 16 billions....that's so little compared to money wasted everywhere

[Psion]

US military spending for 2008 was 564 billion for comparison... Seriously, the funds are there, if we even cut out 5% of that budget for a year or two we'd have more than enough to fund things on the fast track. >.>

[Demosthenes11]

US military spending for 2008 was 564 billion for comparison... Seriously, the funds are there, if we even cut out 5% of that budget for a year or two we'd have more than enough to fund things on the fast track. >.>

610! and other countries put it around 900 with how much we don't report (just took a final on this ^_______^ )

[Kaylia]

Per year. Other project last 30 years.


Could build a motherfucking deathstar with 900billions x30.

[Max™]

Could build an orbital loop for $20 Billion or so.

[Woozie]

[edit]
I just read on wiki the project cost is 16 billions....that's so little compared to money wasted everywhere

This was always my complaint about stopping the SSC. A few years ago, we were spending enough money in iraq to build an LHC every week. So just a few weeks in Iraq would add up to a SSC.

[Kryssan]

"Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute science!"

.

[Kuya]

Spending for defense is spending for science! It's just that the advancements in that area are largely for our own mutual destruction...

[Psion]

For once, Kuya posted something that made sense and wasn't really trollbait. Shall we celebrate this momentous occasion?

[Kaylia]

For once, Kuya posted something that made sense and wasn't really trollbait. Shall we celebrate this momentous occasion?

Some people say he is trolling, other believe the message is between the line. It's Schrodinger's box all over.

Spending for defense is spending for science! It's just that the advancements in that area are largely for our own mutual destruction...

As long physicists get rightfully paid for it, instead of these dirty thieves (commonly called en-gee-neers), I'm fine with it.

[Kuya]

The funny part is that he thinks he knows whether i was trolling or not this time.

[Psion]

Beautiful thing about written words, you don't know if I was being sarcastic or not. Therefore, you can't say for sure whether I was being sincere in my comment.

[Eliseos]

instead of these dirty thieves (commonly called en-gee-neers)

I love money.

[Kryssan]

Spending for defense is spending for science! It's just that the advancements in that area are largely for our own mutual destruction...

I still don't have gravy guns or jet backpacks or orbital laser cannons or hyper grenades or hover tanks.






Your defense spending is a sham. They lack true understanding of destruction. It's all about "survival" now. Pffft.

[Kuya]

Beautiful thing about written words, you don't know if I was being sarcastic or not. Therefore, you can't say for sure whether I was being sincere in my comment.

I don't think you understand the full extent of my powers.

gravy guns

Gravy guns? How delicious!