Nuclear Fusion, The Old Fashioned Way......

And your question is how to build one?

No, he wants to know if anyone knows where Novaya Zemlya used to be.

I hope nobody lived near there; that was a lot of bomb. I remember the times and the sense of dread we all felt whenever the Russians tested a bomb. I suppose they felt the same way when we did also. What the heck were we all thinking?

Nah, no question here, I just think we forget things sometimes. This was built about 50 years ago. A fusion bomb. Look at the yield, 50 megatons. Dwarfs all fission bombs and no fallout except from the fission trigger. The power is 5.4 Yottawatts, which is 1.4% the power output of the sun (except of course the sun's power is continuous, this bomb only lasts nanoseconds, but still that's a lot of power).

My point here is 50 years ago, back when the U.S. and Soviets were trying to develop the biggest bomb possible, there wasn't a debate of Fission or Fusion, everyone knew that Fusion bombs were much much more powerful and cleaner. Somehow, 50 years later, we've decided to forget Fusion. Now we say dumb things like Fission and Fusion are equivalent or Fusion isn't possible, or Fusion isn't cleaner. You know why this nonsense didn't happen when they built bombs? Because there isn't B.S.ing when you build bombs because everyone knows that the country that B.S.s in war is the country that loses. I wish we understood that it was the same way in peacetime as well.

Until we collectively wake up, cut the bull, and attack peacetime Fusion the way we attacked wartime Fusion, we simply won't resolve our energy issues. That's just how it is.

Good point Roger, I think the emphasis for the weapon designers was developing a deliverable device. First they had the fission/fusion bomb, then that led to the fission-fusion-fission device, I think they eventually became more interested in making the weapons more material efficient and physically smaller, rather than more powerful. The civilian fusion power side was most likely just window dressing.

Hi,

the big yield nuclear bombs were related to bad accuracy of inertial guidance.

Now the situation may change again with installations deep down in rocks also in states not thought and not accepted to be nuclear weapons owners.

I have no idea how much of the blast energy may be directed by mass "concentrators" but there will be limits.

Localisation may be also an issue to be solved by next generation of butterfly robots.

(I would like Novaja Semlja as a test basis - fewer problems with cooling and limited access to journalists?)

RHABE

RHABE

Hi Rhabe,

Was reading about using nuclear explosions to propel spacecraft. Lotta research done , we cut-off our noses to spite our faces to keep Russki nukes out of space, no nukes in space treaty. Discussed using mass as you suggest to achieve shaped charge effect analogous to conventional explosive. Maybe U.S. can become only country to use nukes in two wars.

Pac

"no fallout except from the fission trigger"

Hi,

unfortunately this is only half the reality!

There is a super-intense (high energy 15 MeV) neutron-flux that is absorbed in the surrounding material of the bomb and atmosphere and is thus converting this material into other isotopes and elements - most are radioactive, activity may be worse (per kg of matter) than in fission but decay is faster.

So this radioactivity is estimated to be low (to be allowed to be deposited without precautions) after 1000 to 5000 years! This is an estimate for the future maybe fusion reactor. Depending on the materials that absorb the neutrons more or less bad radioactive elements are generated.

As today there is no material testing facility that can do the material test for a future fusion reactor we cannot be sure about the material (nor the cooling and the Tritium extraction).

The neutron flux will be 100 times higher than in todays fission reactors - and this will very likely aggravate the problems with embrittlement and blistering of the tubes. A neutron source of this intensity is not available today, so in parallel with ITER there will be a materials testing institute (extra 3 to 5 billion$).

As the plasma container will have nearly 1000 cubic meters! this may limit the economic breakthrough if frequent replacements will be necessary.

I agree that we should do a lot of funding to push the known limits of fusion technology (including inertial confinement and laser-triggered fusion as in NIF).

But I insist that we cannot be certain that we will be successful within the next 100 years.

RHABE

You Wrote:"But I insist that we cannot be certain that we will be successful within the next 100 years."

I'd appreciate it if you'd give some kind of timeline for your seemingly arbitrary "100 years" development time. Or should I just take your word for it?

Material design has come a long way. We can design materials or coatings for desired properties using ab initio methods. These methods are only going to become more powerful over the next 50 years as we get faster and faster computers. All the pieces are in place, we could get this thing running in 25 to 30 years and improve efficiencies and shielding as we go.

http://www.jspf.or.jp/Journal/PDF_JSPF/jspf2005_09/jspf2005_09-645.pdf

http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/2007/3_10.html

http://www.johncaunt.com/pages/shielding/neutron_shield.html

"We can design materials or coatings for desired properties using ab initio methods"

Hi Roger Pink,

the plasma chamber of a fusion reactor has to be very different from anything we know today.

The links you posted are for plastic material -not at all suited for the necessary high vacuum, high tightness, ultra-high neutron flux, high heat transport necessities that are required together with ultra-high-purity with respect to dirty elements, that are converted to unwanted radioactive elements.

Also ultra-low water and oxygen as this will be one cause of blistering at high neutron flux.

This cannot be calculated - the international community agreed to spend nearly 4 billion $ to start a lab to investigate. They would not do this if calculations existing.

You can calculate optical thin films (see the books from McLoed) but this is straightforward and is considering only one property: refractive index (and thicknesses of the different layers).

I would be happy if there is a fast breakthrough but I would not at all be sure. The 100 years is an arbitrary number - doubling the "official" estimate.

RHABE

I thought MIT and Princton were expermenting with containing the heat with magnets in a torrodial chamber. I also thought they were looking at a commercial unit this century.

Hi, you are right,

but not only these you mention but almost all countries with active physical research are contributing - this is areal community as long as there is no reality within sight.

The magnets are part of the experiments since 60 years and intended to form a magnetic bottle to enclose the very hot plasma and to hold it near the center of the toroidal chamber. You will find some drawings if you search for JET or ITER.

Research people told the funding governments that a commercial unit will be existing within 50 years. They to so today and they do so since now 55 or 60 years.

RHABE

To suggest that Fusion reactors have to be efficient the first time out is unreasonable. You build it, tinker with it, then figure out why it worked. Develop the shielding along the way (I wasn't suggesting that shielding had been developed completely, I was just pointing out that the neutron shielding isn't exactly a nascent field, there's data and work to build from). We have enough data and parts now to make rough working copies of Fusion reactors. The faster we build and tinker with them now, the faster fusion will proceed as a technology, but only if we invest.

You know Rhabe, at the turn of the 20th century, many engineers and scientists spoke out against heavier than air flight (air planes). So it took a couple of self taught engineers to do it. Unfortunately it takes more than a few engineers in the country to build a Fusion reactor. It requires scientists with the guts and fearlessness to tackle a problem they might not know the complete solution to when they begin it.

I can tell you're smart Rhabe, my only question is are you smart enough to realize you're part of the problem here. Don't underestimate the human beings ability to devise the solution first and figure out the math later. Instinct is as much a part of physics as derivation. Your mistaking your hesitation for prudence, and glorifying our timidness by calling it experience. Stop it. Fusion is the only viable solution to our energy needs. It will happen because it has to happen. We need to act with foresight now or force our children to act out of necessity later. Either way it's going to happen.

And yes Rhabe, you can use ab initio methods to create films and materials for shielding by determining the stability of desirable arrangements of neutron absorbing atoms by binding energy calculations.

Extra Stuff

Selected Quotes Regarding Flight:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/speeches/fg_kitty_hawk_12.17.03_prt.htm

Some Neutron Shielding Material Papers (for Tokamak)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TXN-4CK7XY4-C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bf9d4e63528eb97ec199cad7b9205934

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3495965

Dear Roger Pink,

I have a feeling that you misunderstand my intention.

I am fully at your side that it is very well worth while to fund any reasonable fusion reactor technology.

And I would urge any state to spend much more than is done today.

The international community quarrelled 5 or so years to agree about the 15 to 20 billion $ for ITER and the related materials lab.

What did the US and European governments decide in the last weeks to fight the financial crisis? : to guarantee and/or spend more than 2000 billion $.

I do not hesitate - not at all - but I know that this will be a completely new field of material science (which is no real science as material is not calculable - we are far away from being able to calculate material data alloy composition and heat treatment - we have to measure these.

We have to enter a totally new field of ultrahigh neutron irradiation and we have to combine this with ultra-pure material composition (absence of unwanted elements).

We have to design a cooling system that has to have unique properties.

We had to learn that we do have limitations in materials: strength (any type), modulus, density, reflectance, creep, magnetics... any of the many data has its own limits.

We cannot push material limits up to any wanted limit - maybe what we need is beyond the possibilities of any material!

"It will happen because it has to happen"

This is dreaming but we need reality. There are many examples of technology that did not succeed. We will try but we can never be sure unless we reached the goal.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

So try everything possible to make the dream real but prepare to survive in not too bad a condition if this approach will not work.

Thank you for the link to the superconducting material for the magnet coils. I would like to read the full text, if you have access please post or send a copy.

The necessities of the material for the chamber-walls are much more stringent.!

Neutron-flux endurance, tightness, heat-conduction, corrosion resistance, nearly total freedom from cobalt and maybe other elements, what else?

"you can use ab initio methods to create films and materials for shielding by determining the stability of desirable arrangements of neutron absorbing atoms by binding energy calculations"

This is not working as the energy of the neutrons is near a factor of 10.000 above the binding energies! In addition neutron scattering is more important!

So I agree that a lot of research is necessary but I disagree that a success is guaranteed.

RHABE

Yes, I know neutron energies are many orders of magnitudes above binding energies. Obviously it's nuclei that do the absorbing, what I'm saying is we can take a nuclei that is particularly good at it and create a coating or material that has the physical properties necessary for it to be successful at shielding (dense packing, resistance to magnetic flux, resistance to high temperature, etc.). Basically design the material from the ground up from ab initio methods.

As for "dreaming". I'm not saying "warp travel will happen because it has to happen", I'm saying "fusion power will happen because it has to happen". The first statement is a hope or dream, there is no scientific basis for it, the second is a fact because it only faces TECHNOLOGICAL hurdles, no fundamental scientific ones. The concept has been proven, it just needs to be made more efficient (reactors have run for short times, just not energy positive yet).

I love your suggestion of "trying everything". This is precisely why science is held with so little regard anymore. Could you be anymore wishy washy? I guess if you don't commit to anything, you can't fail right? We don't really succeed though, do we? We just find more uses for nanotubes.

What you don't understand Rhabe is that I don't misunderstand your intentions at all. We take comfort in our good intentions even as we do nothing. In the end, is that really any better than having no intentions at all? No, it isn't, it just makes us feel better.

Our inaction, our lack of a voice condemning those who would confuse the issues of Global Warming, Evolution, Energy Solutions, etc. is shameful. We've become politicians, compromised by our compromises. I know you don't believe this to be the case, and that's the problem. For what its worth, I'm just as bad.

Hi Roger Pink,

"many orders of magnitudes above binding energies"

so this will result in heavy damage to any crystalline metallic material and will disintegrate any chemical bond and today there is no indication that the material will survive the neutron bombardment long enough to enable a suitable fusion reactor. Self-healing by recrystallisation is no way as this will give grain growth and embrittlement.

"we can take a nuclei that is particularly good"

this we know not to be existing, that is why the internal liquid Lithium blanket would be much better than an outside Lithium blanket, so that the Lithium will absorb a considerable part of the neutrons and thus producing Tritium - to be used in the fusion process.

dense packing: - no choice as packing density is not very much different within the suitable elements,

resistance to magnetic flux: nearly nonmagnetic is a necessity

resistance to high temperature: the product of heat conductivity and temperature resistance to be a maximum

Basically design the material from the ground up: would be fine to have, thousands of material scientists would like to get the Nobel-prize for finding such such a procedure, we are very far away from a realisation. I once talked to a material-scientist who wanted to calculate the interactions of 8 atoms and complained that the biggest European computers (year 2004) were not able to do this.

I agree to your statement about warp-drives but I do not agree that any technological hurdle can be overcome. Will we ever be able to have a metallic material with a tensile strength of 6000N/mm² (only twice the today limit)?

My statement "trying anything" is to be interpreted as "trying anything that a reputable group of scientists and engineers suggests".

I feel that you still do not understand me: I f I could I would bring much more money than today to fusion for energy research - and I am telling this to everybody who is willing to lend me an ear - especially journalists and politicians besides engineers and scientists. But at the same time I have to caution: it not at all certain if and when we will have this fusion-reactor.

Global Warming: mother nature has much more power for temperature excursions than we will have to may be counteract, I see only one good reason: do not waste energy.

Evolution: everybody will wait until something really bad will happen, not enough persons are aware of the problems that will arise,

I hope we will see some progress with ITER.

RHABE

I'm currently working with a cluster of over 100 silicon atoms in an ab initio calculation with a manganese for the purpose of developing ferromagnetism in silicon and I'm doing it with a rather robust basis set (6-311g(d,p)) and I'm even doing MP2 second order many-body perturbation to capture the electron correlation effects.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008APS..MARX33006P (my work (RH Pink)

As for your statements regarding shielding I recommend you read the following (you need only read two pages before you get to the use of iron as a shielding mechanism).

http://www.tpub.com/content/doe/h1017v2/css/h1017v2_79.htm
http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/2007/3_10.html

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985tfe..meetQ....L

John Pople has already won the Noble Prize in 1998 for developing much of the quantum chemistry methods used in programs today. So I think 1000s of scientist would be pretty behind the curve if that is what they are shooting for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pople

Given this new information, what is your feeling regarding your previous post?

Hi Roger Pink,

I appreciate your work and wish you that a breakthrough will be the result,

unfortunately I can get only the abstracts.

The "8-atoms-statement" I made above is not from my work and I do not know the situation that should be calculated.

Your calculation may be much different as silicon for semiconductor use is many orders of magnitude purer than metallic alloys, is mono-crystalline, is one basic element and not many, and your 100+ atoms are equivalent to a cube of 1nm sidelength so have far from bulk properties.

The other link regarding the tokamak shielding is ok -naturally straightforward and in the requirements not at all adequate to the here discussed fusion reactor primary plasma chamber material (as being expressedly a low neutron flux material).

So once more: the international community would not spend nearly (or may be more than) 5x10⁹ $ for a materials research institute if the way to develop this material would be easy.

I hope that there will be fast results but once more: we cannot be sure if and when we will have success.

Do you know or can you give an estimate about allowable cobalt content? And which other elements are to be banned?

RHABE

Rhabe,

You Wrote:"Your calculation may be much different as silicon for semiconductor use is many orders of magnitude purer than metallic alloys, is mono-crystalline, is one basic element and not many, and your 100+ atoms are equivalent to a cube of 1nm sidelength so have far from bulk properties."

As long as there is some sort of pattern to the crystal, which even alloys have, then we can most certainly calculate binding energy and other local properties. As for the bulk properties, there are many techniques that can be used to determine them from the local properties (here is but a small example).

You Wrote:"The other link regarding the tokamak shielding is ok -naturally straightforward and in the requirements not at all adequate to the here discussed fusion reactor primary plasma chamber material (as being expressedly a low neutron flux material)."

That's fine. But the first link I provided is quite clear that it is appropriate given the following introduction from it:

"In the reactor plant, the principle source of radiation comes from the reactor core. Attenuation of this radiation is performed by shielding materials located around the core. This chapter discusses the various materials used in a reactor plant for shielding."

It goes on to say on the second page:

"At higher energies (10 MeV), the cross section for interaction with hydrogen (1 barn) is not as effective in slowing down neutrons. To offset this decrease in cross section with increased neutron energy, materials with good inelastic scattering properties, such as iron, are used. These materials cause a large change in neutron energy after collision for high energy neutrons but have little effect on neutrons at lower energy, below 0.1 MeV."

And continues later down that page:

"Iron turnings or punchings and iron oxide have been incorporated into heavy concrete for shielding purposes also..........With heavy concretes, a given amount of attenuation of both neutrons and gamma rays can be achieved by means of a thinner shield than is possible with ordinary concrete. Various kinds of heavy concretes used for shielding include barytes concrete, iron concrete, and ferrophosphorus concrete with various modified concretes and related mixtures. Boron compounds (for example, the mineral colemanite) have also been added to concretes to increase the probability of neutron capture without high-energy gamma-ray production."

Clearly solid state materials can and will be used in Fusion reactors. Ab initio methods can be used to help design these materials. Certainly the boron compounds mentioned in the end could easily be determined by ab initio methods.

You Wrote: "So once more: the international community would not spend nearly (or may be more than) 5x10⁹ $ for a materials research institute if the way to develop this material would be easy."

You speak as though 5 billion dollars is some sort of significant investment (by the world) for fusion shielding. I live in Albany, NY. Here we have the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), in their own words "a 4.5 billion dollar megaplex that has attracted over 250 global corporate partners". This College is for studying nanoscale materials (think carbon nanotubes, biological molecules (DNA), etc.). Now if we applied your logic above to CNSE which has an investment on par with the European investment for developing shielding for fusion, then the development of nanomaterials will be extremely difficult and require decades. Of course that is completely untrue as nanomaterials are already being created. Just as shielding for Fusion reactors already exist, they just need to be improved and will be.

5 billion is not really a big investment. One Nimitz class aircraft carrier costs 4.5 billion dollars alone to build. The stealth bomber program for the U.S. costs over 45 billion dollars per year. 1 billion dollars isn't what it used to be.

You Wrote: "I hope that there will be fast results but once more: we cannot be sure if and when we will have success."

That statement can be applied to a multitude of emerging technologies. For instance, we can't be sure that we will ever have a commercially viable 8 core processor, but I expect we will soon. We can't be sure there will ever be any better batteries than those that exist now for hybrid cars, but I expect that they will improve. Both of these expectations are reasonable because the science isn't starting from scratch and there is plenty of money addressing the problem.

In the same way we can expect a lot of process in fusion if we would only fund it adequately. The problem is we aren't, which is incredibly foolish because it holds as a solution the power requirements of the next 5 generations (arbitrary but fair estimate) at least. The world should be spending at least 100 billion dollars on Fusion Research.

To try to shorten this response and to adequately address your Cobalt content question (something I need to research), I'll end here and post another response dedicated it.

At the very least this has been an interesting conversation with you. I regret that such a conversation isn't occurring on a national level here in the states or in the world. I fear that as the economic crisis tightens its grip around the neck of the worlds economy that the instinctive reaction will be to cut spending on Fusion. This is unfortunate since the development of Fusion would produce an economic boon (due to the tremendous eventual reduction in energy costs) and the investment required would provide many jobs for people of all classes.

As for my research, I appreciate your kind words, I generally try to rely on slow and steady progress. Unfortunately sometimes the slow outweighs the steady. Still, given enough persistance, the group I'm in will contribute our part to the advancement of the general understanding in this field.

Roger

Hi, RHABE!

Just thought I'd transcribe one side of the tail end of a telephone conversation for you:

....

"Are you kidding? Of course there's a good place! I have a perfect location for the first fusion reactor. There is a small island, called Novaya Zemlya in the arctic, that would be ideal for such an experiment.

....

What? The Russians already used up that island? Are you sure we can't use it?

....

Well, um, if there isn't any room left on it for a fusion reactor .....Well, is there perhaps an island nearby, say a couple of hundred miles under the circumstances, umm...minimum, distance from it? We really need somewhere we can experiment safely with this stuff as we tinker it into existence. And make sure that it's got good level land at least 20 meters above the current sea level. No saying how long we're going to be there.

....

Yeah. Well, get back to me as soon as you can on this, please. I'm not prepared to wait another fifty or sixty years before getting going on the reactor.

....

What do you mean, "where are we going to put the garbage"? We'll just stick it into a pool with the rest of the stuff until we can find somewhere....Hey! While you're finding me that island, take a look around and see if you can find another one nearby, will you? I just had an idea!

....

Okay. 'Bye. And give my love to the wife and kids."

Mark

This fusion bomb the Soviets set off was over three times larger than ANY US fusion bomb ever set off. Our largest was the Castle Bravo test at Bikini in1 March 1954 and that was a screw up. The yield was 15 MT, planned to be less than half that, and had a fireball 4-1/2 miles in diameter. To date, no US bomb has exceeded that size. Worse, the fallout blew 115 miles downwind sifting Rongelap Atoll with radioactive grit making some sick within a couple of weeks and causing medical problems with some decades later. They were getting up to 3300R there. Some trigger contamination I'd say.