Fusion Energy (Part II) - Prof. Steven Cowley

[@naimulhaq9626]

Extremely important lectures, promising new era, almost a divine gift.

[@TechNed]

Great couple of lectures. Some of those kids will go away thinking of ways of solving the issues raised.

[@gunnarkaestle9405]

There is still an open question in the "difficult challenges to solve" section in the D-T-fusion cycle. If D + T gives an alpha particle plus a neutron, and the neutron breeds trition from Li-6, then you must not miss a single neutron, else your tritium breeding cycle is not sustainable and you need a constant import of tritium from somewhere else. How large is the percentage of neutrons that do not hit a lithium nucleus in the blanket? If scaled up, where will the tritium come from?

[@geraldh.8047]

In a video about the MIT/CFS reactor I remember them saying they plan to breed 1.1x more tritium than consumed… not quite sure what are the physics behind the ratio though.

[@OlivierSuire]

I wish that the speaker's pointer was visible on the graphics

[@rudyberkvens-be]

If the Lithium 6 fission by neutrons is the easy part and is exothermic, then why don't we have lithium fission reactors and power plants?

[@robertpeters8920]

Professor Cowley asked for ideas... perhaps different orientations and locations of the neutral beams would be useful for inducing additional plasma flows which might help stabilize the plasma. I don't know, of course, but it looks like Professor Cowley's group has the tools to simulate the results.

[@terminusest5902]

We need many more options for low carbon energy. We can not ignore serious options due to personal bias. GENERATION 4 FISSION reactors are a real and promising field of safer, cleaner and cheaper reactors that are highly resistant to meltdowns. Including reactor designs that can use nuclear and mining waste, as well as weapons material, as fuel. Renewable energy is not enough. We should build prototype GEN4 reactors to prove this technology. We have the resources and technology to do so.

[@MrPalmadores]

Exactly right. Companies like Seaborg and Terrestrial Energy and Thorcon have real projects that are proven to work, to produce Energy-cheaper-than-coal. Price and scalability are key.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

If ITER passes a current of 15 megamps through the plasma, how many watts of power does that produce? Or equivalently, effectively, how many ohms of resistance?

[@eruza1501]

what if we get the fusing atoms "stabilized" inside a lets said Carbon nano tube (forest) on top of each other, and then shoot a superfast laser at the right frequency to force the top atom to fuse with the bottom atom

[@incognitotorpedo42]

Hot fusion may eventually be practical, but I seriously doubt it will ever be economically competitive. I hope they can prove me wrong, but I don't think they will.

[@gunnarkaestle9405]

1:03:38 I don't believe that the CAPEX can be reduced in such a way that a fusion reactor is more attractive than a fission reactor or the combination of wind, solar, hydro and some other storage.

[@saketg5954]

11:08 He could've said, "if V were like that, and B were like that, then V cross B would be the direction of my erection"

[@valo8691]

What if the catalyst of the isotopes sequentially radiate to increase the chromosomes?

[@escaraskaskosky9]

39:36

[@sd_pjwal]

Why doesn't he mention Sparc ever?

[@geraldh.8047]

Because his time machine was broken. MIT/CFS announced Sparc about 9 months after he gave this talk.

[@geraldh.8047]

Check out his newer talk here, especially at Timecode 46:06 where he directly mentions Sparc and compares it with ITER: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aWamYXWbrNmZrKMm6s

[@anchorbait6662]

Now I can tell everyone I go to Oxford

[@tricky778]

He says nobody wants to buy energy from you if you keep turning it on and off, so how do wind and solar work? I think their existence disproves that claim.

[@geraldh.8047]

Wind and Solar are at least somewhat predictable. A fusion reactor run by physicians and engineers to figure things out will not be predictable and can go from 100% to zero in an instant. Also running it constantly will probably not be in the best interest of figuring stuff out, because maybe at least initially they might want to limit how much radioactive activation they want to put in the walls (this is a guess on my side)?

[@jeebus6263]

@110 Toss a penny in for good luck :)

[@jeebus6263]

ideas? take that funding and build proven safe thorium reactors as a stop-gap!