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Monday, March 25, 2024
Is NIF going to save the world?
Ok maybe we need a bit more work but even Sabine a famous naysayer is now starting to say positive things about NIF and nuclear fusion.
There is also First Light teaming up with Sandia with Z-machine.
The Z machine does not look promising. They have a scheme called MagLIF that produces 1 kJ DT equivalent. Their technology doesn’t scale to higher current because of losses. It’s a dead end.
First Light Fusion people are liars. I think they got 50 neutrons from that gun experiment that Sabrina showed. They publish nothing.
If one believes global warming is happening or imminent (not naturally cyclical), due to CO2 emissions, then NIF and an unproven, undefined, non-peer reviewed (not a LLNS echo chamber), decades out, “LIFE” power plant, are likely too late. Especially when one admits that, in real time, China and India are building coal fired CO2 emitting power plants at a rate of one every ~2 weeks. While at the same time, CA politicians continually add to CA emission restrictions, but remain completely silent on China and India coal plant emissions. Incredibly odd. Materially safer modern fission plants are likely the bridge technology for the next 25-50 years.
No matter what we need to green due to the coming climate catastrophe, we either stop it or slow it down. Doing nothing will mean the end of life on earth or living hell close to it. That is what I read anyway, so yes we need NIF, wind, hydro, electric cars, we need to stop eating so much meat, living in such big houses and living a capitalistic lifestyle of private ownership. China and India may be an issue but we cannot use them as excuse not to take action.
9:53pm, yes, doing nothing is not a wise path forward. However, banking on NIF, the topic question, wouldn’t be wise either. Solar and wind power are helpful but not adequate. Germany went “green” using solar and wind power, but simultaneously have been buying fission plant generated electricity from France for years. Fission plants will likely be in play for the next 25-100 years, before a viable fusion plant goes online. The production related carbon footprint of most EVs is about the same as a modern gas engine Toyota Camry by the time the EV is delivered to your doorstep. Most EV owners are not made aware of this fact. If federal funding is infinite, then we can fund all technologies endlessly. If not, fund accordingly. We could go zero CO2 in the USA, and the current rate of coal plant construction in the rest of the world will make our efforts moot.
I agree, I think we need a much more radical approach where we change completely our lifestyle. Sure China and India may do what they want but what they do or do not do, should have no bearing and what we need to do. We need to drastically cut our energy consumption.
“…Sure China and India may do what they want but what they do or do not do, should have no bearing and what we need to do…”
The United States doesn’t have an isolated atmosphere, we share the atmosphere with the rest of our planet. Your stated approach is equivalent to being out to sea in a boat, finding and patching a hull water leak, while at the same time, not caring or verbally objecting to occupants at the other end of the boat, drilling holes in the hull with a fence post power auger. Good intentions aside, this approach is doomed to failure.
How long does it take to saturate the atmosphere which is 4.2 B cubic kilometers. We sent 31 cubic tons of CO2 in 2021. Assuming the trend will continue, how long before we choke? I am hoping a scientist can figure that out.
3:27 -- I think, roughly there are 5000 trillion tons of air, as opposed to 30 or 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year, some of which acidifies the ocean, this is why the CO2 concentration goes up a few parts per million every year.
The earth's air isn't close to any level that would impact breathing:
The design of NIF will not provide unlimited energy that the political types would hope for. Hopefully it will provide insights that lead to a breakthrough, but it was designed for weapons work.
As to other countries following the lead of the US in pollution reduction, well, the US stopped doing nuclear weapons testing thinking others would stop their research and that didn't work well with North Korea and Iran. Also, other countries, especially China, are quite willing for the US to spend themselves into a third world economy. It reminds me of how the US falsely touted Star Wars and watched the Soviet's spend themselves into oblivion. This time, the shoe is on the other foot.
11:10 -- NIF wasn't a major contributor to us "spending ourselves into oblivion" as COVID was estimated to have a 14 trillion impact on the economy that might be a major cause of our current economic problems.
The impact on other governments including China was also profound, as there were severe lockdowns there, followed by a poor economic recovery, property market crash, debt crisis, capital flight, stock decline, high unemployment, etc:
11:10 here. I did not state that NIF was a contributor to our financial woes. The original premise of this thread was NIF saving the world, I thought the implication of that question was NIF providing endless cheap and pollution free energy. I don't think it will.
Indeed the world suffered economic disaster with Covid. We will bounce back from that. Pushing windmills, solar and a fully electric lifestyle will send the economy of the US into a tailspin. We could build nuclear reactors but the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl fears keep up from doing so. The green agenda tied with DEI is much like shooting ourselves in the foot, then reloading and shooting the other foot.
11:18 -- I'm not sure I buy your argument. Clean energy spending seems to be 1 or 2 percent of the US economy, and in many cases it is better than cost parity with some payback time of a few years.
There is actually no reason that nuclear energy is harder to produce than in the past, when many of our existing plants were constructed. We can now operate existing plants with higher capacity factors and longer service lifetimes.
This thread demonstrates that people on this blog know nothing about ICF, the labs, or physics for that matter. The OP puts up an article about the physics of NIF and Z. People then start talking about carbon emissions, green energy, and all sorts of garbage irrelevant to the original post. All stuff you can read in the press and talk on and on about. It would be impossible for people here since they have no knowledge of physics to actually respond to the First Light Fusion claims. Because they have never been near a national lab, they have no idea what the Z machine does or their history. For instance, sandia has a thirty year history or predicting big fusion success and promising to build a new machine based on their ideas.
10:04 -- without going into all the details of what fusion concepts are viable, there could be a more general criticism. These all look like very complicated Rube Goldberg ways to generate energy even if they work. Sometimes the better technologies are the ones which were discovered first, as something which is easier to do will be more practical in the end. We are still using Diesel engines for example, that were developed in the late 1800's, and silicon solar cells dating from 1954. Integrated circuits are made from silicon in general, because it works well.
Ordinary fission reactors have existed since the 1940's and the underlying concept is simple : assembling a critical mass comprised of certain metals, using a working fluid to extract heat, and shielding radiation with thicknesses of various materials including concrete, water, or lead. The resulting waste has a small volume and the most dangerous components decay more quickly.
Fusion could share some of the drawbacks of fission in fact, for example proliferation risks if they produce neutrons, and in that case also the difficulty of handling material that has become radioactive through neutron activation. So when the much simpler and easier approaches related to nuclear fission are readily available, how would fusion ever be commercially viable or something we would want to do?
There is also the issue of course, that many fusion concepts could require tritium which is expensive and hard to handle in the appropriate quantities. Other options such as a rare isotope of helium, might be possible, but a civilization able to obtain it, would no doubt already have access to abundant energy through other means.
Finally of course, to build very complicated devices for energy might be difficult or aspirational given that we now have shortages of basic items at various times, and there are quality issues with existing technologies such as automobiles and aircraft. It is difficult of course, for any enterprise to find skilled workers when it is a struggle to have a middle class life.
Also of course, large scale energy programs require consistent government support and intervention over the long term. Biden has done some of this with his energy programs of course, but quite possibly Trump will unravel what he has done. This happened once before when Jimmy Carter was president as I recall, he had a very large energy program, Reagan came in and killed it.
China has of course, given long term support to electric vehicles and their solar industry, as well as other key technologies and factors such as production of rare earth materials and batteries.
It is not just that tritium is expensive but that, even with breeding, there is not enough tritium in the world to get fusion energy production going with those methods using tritium. A minor, not very relevent point, remember that you loose about 5% a year to decay. The existing stockpile is not waiting for us.
There was a recent book dealing with Tritium, in particular dealing with various potential health and safety issues, the dangers of environmental contamination, and so forth. This would all add a lot of cost and expense (and regulatory burden) to any possible scheme for dealing with it in a terrestrial environment, perhaps it would be more practical to deal with on a celestial body such as the moon which lacks an atmosphere or bodies of water, and which lacks a significant human population which could undergo any form of harm whatsoever. Obviously though, it is a challenge to build infrastructure in outer space with current technology, and difficult to beam power back to earth.
19 comments:
The Z-machine looks more promising.
The Z machine does not look promising. They have a scheme called MagLIF that produces 1 kJ DT equivalent. Their technology doesn’t scale to higher current because of losses. It’s a dead end.
First Light Fusion people are liars. I think they got 50 neutrons from that gun experiment that Sabrina showed. They publish nothing.
3/25/2024 7:24 PM
Did you watch the video?
I get some friendly rivalry between NIF and Z FLF but keep civil. I find it kind funny someone from NIF is saying Z cannot scale up.
If one believes global warming is happening or imminent (not naturally cyclical), due to CO2 emissions, then NIF and an unproven, undefined, non-peer reviewed (not a LLNS echo chamber), decades out, “LIFE” power plant, are likely too late. Especially when one admits that, in real time, China and India are building coal fired CO2 emitting power plants at a rate of one every ~2 weeks. While at the same time, CA politicians continually add to CA emission restrictions, but remain completely silent on China and India coal plant emissions. Incredibly odd. Materially safer modern fission plants are likely the bridge technology for the next 25-50 years.
3/26/2024 7:22 PM
No matter what we need to green due to the coming climate catastrophe, we either stop it or slow it down. Doing nothing will mean the end of life on earth or living hell close to it. That is what I read anyway, so yes we need NIF, wind, hydro, electric cars, we need to stop eating so much meat, living in such big houses and living a capitalistic lifestyle of private ownership. China and India may be an issue but we cannot use them as excuse not to take action.
9:53pm, yes, doing nothing is not a wise path forward. However, banking on NIF, the topic question, wouldn’t be wise either. Solar and wind power are helpful but not adequate. Germany went “green” using solar and wind power, but simultaneously have been buying fission plant generated electricity from France for years. Fission plants will likely be in play for the next 25-100 years,
before a viable fusion plant goes online. The production related carbon footprint of most EVs is about the same as a modern gas engine Toyota Camry by the time the EV is delivered to your doorstep. Most EV owners are not made aware of this fact. If federal funding is infinite, then we can fund all technologies endlessly. If not, fund accordingly. We could go zero CO2 in the USA, and the current rate of coal plant construction in the rest of the world will make our efforts moot.
3/27/2024 10:48 AM
I agree, I think we need a much more radical approach where we change completely our lifestyle. Sure China and India may do what they want but what they do or do not do, should have no bearing and what we need to do. We need to drastically cut our energy consumption.
“…Sure China and India may do what they want but what they do or do not do, should have no bearing and what we need to do…”
The United States doesn’t have an isolated atmosphere, we share the atmosphere with the rest of our planet. Your stated approach is equivalent to being out to sea in a boat, finding and patching a hull water leak, while at the same time, not caring or verbally objecting to occupants at the other end of the boat, drilling holes in the hull with a fence post power auger. Good intentions aside, this approach is doomed to failure.
How long does it take to saturate the atmosphere which is 4.2 B cubic kilometers. We sent 31 cubic tons of CO2 in 2021. Assuming the trend will continue, how long before we choke?
I am hoping a scientist can figure that out.
Good intentions aside, this approach is doomed to failure.
3/28/2024 9:09 AM
Doing nothing is going to fail for sure.
3:27 -- I think, roughly there are 5000 trillion tons of air, as opposed to 30 or 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year, some of which acidifies the ocean, this is why the CO2 concentration goes up a few parts per million every year.
The earth's air isn't close to any level that would impact breathing:
https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/chemical/carbondioxide.htm
The design of NIF will not provide unlimited energy that the political types would hope for. Hopefully it will provide insights that lead to a breakthrough, but it was designed for weapons work.
As to other countries following the lead of the US in pollution reduction, well, the US stopped doing nuclear weapons testing thinking others would stop their research and that didn't work well with North Korea and Iran. Also, other countries, especially China, are quite willing for the US to spend themselves into a third world economy. It reminds me of how the US falsely touted Star Wars and watched the Soviet's spend themselves into oblivion. This time, the shoe is on the other foot.
11:10 -- NIF wasn't a major contributor to us "spending ourselves into oblivion" as COVID was estimated to have a 14 trillion impact on the economy that might be a major cause of our current economic problems.
https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/article/covid-19s-total-cost-to-the-economy-in-us-will-reach-14-trillion-by-end-of-2023-new-research/
The impact on other governments including China was also profound, as there were severe lockdowns there, followed by a poor economic recovery, property market crash, debt crisis, capital flight, stock decline, high unemployment, etc:
https://time.com/6835935/china-debt-housing-bubble/
11:10 here.
I did not state that NIF was a contributor to our financial woes. The original premise of this thread was NIF saving the world, I thought the implication of that question was NIF providing endless cheap and pollution free energy. I don't think it will.
Indeed the world suffered economic disaster with Covid. We will bounce back from that. Pushing windmills, solar and a fully electric lifestyle will send the economy of the US into a tailspin. We could build nuclear reactors but the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl fears keep up from doing so. The green agenda tied with DEI is much like shooting ourselves in the foot, then reloading and shooting the other foot.
11:18 -- I'm not sure I buy your argument. Clean energy spending seems to be 1 or 2 percent of the US economy, and in many cases it is better than cost parity with some payback time of a few years.
There is actually no reason that nuclear energy is harder to produce than in the past, when many of our existing plants were constructed. We can now operate existing plants with higher capacity factors and longer service lifetimes.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191201/capacity-factor-of-nuclear-power-plants-in-the-us-since-1975/
This thread demonstrates that people on this blog know nothing about ICF, the labs, or physics for that matter. The OP puts up an article about the physics of NIF and Z. People then start talking about carbon emissions, green energy, and all sorts of garbage irrelevant to the original post. All stuff you can read in the press and talk on and on about. It would be impossible for people here since they have no knowledge of physics to actually respond to the First Light Fusion claims. Because they have never been near a national lab, they have no idea what the Z machine does or their history. For instance, sandia has a thirty year history or predicting big fusion success and promising to build a new machine based on their ideas.
10:04 -- without going into all the details of what fusion concepts are viable, there could be a more general criticism. These all look like very complicated Rube Goldberg ways to generate energy even if they work. Sometimes the better technologies are the ones which were discovered first, as something which is easier to do will be more practical in the end. We are still using Diesel engines for example, that were developed in the late 1800's, and silicon solar cells dating from 1954. Integrated circuits are made from silicon in general, because it works well.
Ordinary fission reactors have existed since the 1940's and the underlying concept is simple : assembling a critical mass comprised of certain metals, using a working fluid to extract heat, and shielding radiation with thicknesses of various materials including concrete, water, or lead. The resulting waste has a small volume and the most dangerous components decay more quickly.
Fusion could share some of the drawbacks of fission in fact, for example proliferation risks if they produce neutrons, and in that case also the difficulty of handling material that has become radioactive through neutron activation. So when the much simpler and easier approaches related to nuclear fission are readily available, how would fusion ever be commercially viable or something we would want to do?
There is also the issue of course, that many fusion concepts could require tritium which is expensive and hard to handle in the appropriate quantities. Other options such as a rare isotope of helium, might be possible, but a civilization able to obtain it, would no doubt already have access to abundant energy through other means.
Finally of course, to build very complicated devices for energy might be difficult or aspirational given that we now have shortages of basic items at various times, and there are quality issues with existing technologies such as automobiles and aircraft. It is difficult of course, for any enterprise to find skilled workers when it is a struggle to have a middle class life.
Also of course, large scale energy programs require consistent government support and intervention over the long term. Biden has done some of this with his energy programs of course, but quite possibly Trump will unravel what he has done. This happened once before when Jimmy Carter was president as I recall, he had a very large energy program, Reagan came in and killed it.
China has of course, given long term support to electric vehicles and their solar industry, as well as other key technologies and factors such as production of rare earth materials and batteries.
It is not just that tritium is expensive but that, even with breeding, there is not enough tritium in the world to get fusion energy production going with those methods using tritium. A minor, not very relevent point, remember that you loose about 5% a year to decay. The existing stockpile is not waiting for us.
There was a recent book dealing with Tritium, in particular dealing with various potential health and safety issues, the dangers of environmental contamination, and so forth. This would all add a lot of cost and expense (and regulatory burden) to any possible scheme for dealing with it in a terrestrial environment, perhaps it would be more practical to deal with on a celestial body such as the moon which lacks an atmosphere or bodies of water, and which lacks a significant human population which could undergo any form of harm whatsoever. Obviously though, it is a challenge to build infrastructure in outer space with current technology, and difficult to beam power back to earth.
https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/exploring-tritiums-danger-a-book-review/
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