Russians Approve funding for own Thermonuclear reactor

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Picked this up on the Pravda while browsing around: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economi ... onuclear-0

Russia decides to build own thermonuclear reactor for 20 billion dollars
17.08.2007 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economi ... onuclear-0

The Russian government held a meeting on August 16 at which it approved the strategy to develop the thermonuclear fusion energy before the year 2050. First Vice Prime Minister of the Russian government, Sergei Ivanov, said that the strategy must be as precise and pragmatic as possible. Russia’s nuclear agency, Rosatom, was asked to develop the adequate program, the cost of which makes up 515 billion rubles. “The thermonuclear fusion is worth it”, Ivanov said estimating the scale of the future investment.

A relatively small thermonuclear station will cost Russia at least 20 billion dollars, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote.

Academician Yevgeny Velikhov says that the world’s needs in energy will triple by 2030 in the event the global economy continues it current development. Thermonuclear energy may save the world from severe crisis at this point. It is an ecologically pure method of power generation with unlimited resources. However, the world’s first thermonuclear station is likely to be built in about 25 years, the scientist said.

“Developing the thermonuclear fusion power is a huge step towards the new energy era of Russia,” a statement from the thermonuclear strategy runs. By 2050 Russia will launch the industrial generation of thermonuclear power in a capacity of one gigawatt (GW) of energy which will be enough to power 750,000 homes. An increase to 100 GW (equals 40 percent of Russia’s current power output) is expected to be achieved by the end of the current century.

The thermonuclear strategy will be developed in three stages. In the beginning, Russia will have to restore and reequip its technological base from 2009 till 2015. Afterwards (before 2030) scientists will choose materials for the construction of the station and decide whether Russia should participate in an international project to build a demonstrational thermonuclear power plant or build its own stations.

Finally, the construction of the industrial thermonuclear power plant will be finished before 2050. The project totals 515 billion rubles. If Russia eventually decides to build its own reactors, the spending will increase to 770 billion rubles. For the time being, the cost of a thermonuclear power plant is higher than the possible income that could be received from its energy.

The research allowing to generate thermonuclear power originally appeared in the USSR in the middle of the past century. The results of the research laid the foundation of numerous international works afterwards. The USA, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Russia and the EU have recently made a decision to build the first-ever thermonuclear reactor in France. The project, the cost of which makes up ten billion euros, is to be finished in ten years.

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru

Russia definitely looks to attempt to leverage on its nuclear technology to get a head start on everyone.

[Elaro]

Oh sweet. That looks interesting. But isn't ITER doing a similar thing? Why doesn't Russia join in on that? Power politics?

[CaptainChewbacca]

In my opinion, as long as the programs are open and share information, the more different groups we have working on it the better.

I would love it if Russia figured out nuclear fusion, since that's what happened in 'The Saint'.

[Feil]

Sweet. The more researchers pushing for it, the better, from where I'm standing.

[Starglider]

Oh sweet. That looks interesting. But isn't ITER doing a similar thing? Why doesn't Russia join in on that? Power politics?

There's a follow up project to ITER in the early planning stages called DEMO, the first reactor that will generate electrical power to be fed into a national grid. ITER will just demonstrate net thermal power generation, it won't have any turbogenerators. It sounds like the Russian project will be a DEMO-equivalent, maybe the actual official DEMO station. Which is entirely sensible of course, wait for ITER to spend lots of money solving the basic technical challenges, then profit from their work. A working fusion power station design (and the industrial capacity to build and install more) has to be an excellent export product for the first nation to develop it.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Oh sweet. That looks interesting. But isn't ITER doing a similar thing? Why doesn't Russia join in on that? Power politics?

Russia is involved. Some parts are even fabricated in Russia if I am not wrong.

The benefit of this is that there's more competition and more avenues for experimentation and exchange of information.

[B5B7]

Russian Federation is one of the members of ITER.
Russia is one of the earliest involved parties in fusion power research. For instance, where do you think the word tokamak comes from?
It is good that they are continuing to take it very seriously and putting (Putining) substantial money into it. Of course, success will return tenfold+ on expenditure.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Russian Federation is one of the members of ITER.
Russia is one of the earliest involved parties in fusion power research. For instance, where do you think the word tokamak comes from?
It is good that they are continuing to take it very seriously and putting (Putining) substantial money into it. Of course, success will return tenfold+ on expenditure.

Well, at least they are making some good use of the oil money they are getting.

[Zixinus]

What I wonder is, what approach they will use?

There's a follow up project to ITER in the early planning stages called DEMO, the first reactor that will generate electrical power to be fed into a national grid.

For 1000 seconds. Then it will need 6 days to get it ready again. Then it will be able to run... 600 seconds.

Oh wait, the current record to contain plasma is...24,7 seconds I recall?

I, admitting ignorance, wouldn't call that practical. I would call it "show and tell". A fission reactor that can give you the same heat output for the 1/30 of the price and can do it 24/7, is what I would dare call practical.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I believe the point of all the fusion projects is to understand the physics of plasma better, and then attempt to build a sustainable plasma. The advantages of fusion is that they don't need some rare metal to run on but the fuel can be obtained must more easily.

As for whether or not they do succeed in the end is up for grabs. It will take at least a decade for them to succeed.

[Patrick Degan]

I believe the point of all the fusion projects is to understand the physics of plasma better, and then attempt to build a sustainable plasma. The advantages of fusion is that they don't need some rare metal to run on but the fuel can be obtained must more easily.

As for whether or not they do succeed in the end is up for grabs. It will take at least a decade for them to succeed.

Yes, but that rare metal provides a fuel source that, with careful management, can actually last for hundreds of millenia. Fusion is theoretically easier to fuel but has proven an utter bitch to control on Earth.

Mind you, if somebody can make a fusion reactor a practical device, he gets my handshake gladly.

[Ender]

Mind you, if somebody can make a fusion reactor a practical device, he gets my handshake gladly.

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

I've heard the Navy is looking to fund WB-7 now, putting the project back on track. Makes sense, cost/power wise it beats the crap out of fission and scales as the seventh power of size, making it perfect for large scale operations.

Edit: and oh, hey need to pay attention to sigs, guy above me is advertising the same damn thing in his.

[Zixinus]

I believe the point of all the fusion projects is to understand the physics of plasma better, and then attempt to build a sustainable plasma.

Those two are not necessarily the same thing.

And "sustainable" plasma is misleading. The point is to get more energy out then in, that could be done without sustaining the plasma, or containing it just enough to get power out of it. There is more then one scheme to do fusion other then magnetic confinement.

The advantages of fusion is that they don't need some rare metal to run on but the fuel can be obtained must more easily.

The "free fuel" promise is ruined by the fact that no one can burn it.
You also need to invest significant amount of energy into it before you can get anything back. Fission in the other hand is self-induced.

I've heard the Navy is looking to fund WB-7 now, putting the project back on track.

Untrue. There is more money going into EMC2 by donations to their website then the Navy is giving them. The Navy does not have the program to do it, and the DoD is behind the tokamaks.


Another great thing about Polywell and IEC in general is that most fusion researchers in the field don't even know that it exists and attribute the element transmutation, putting D in and getting He out and the general radioactivity to measurement errors. Like cold fusion.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Yes, but that rare metal provides a fuel source that, with careful management, can actually last for hundreds of millenia. Fusion is theoretically easier to fuel but has proven an utter bitch to control on Earth.

Mind you, if somebody can make a fusion reactor a practical device, he gets my handshake gladly.

Admittedly, this is true. With Fast Breeder Reactors, it is possible to run on Fission at least near forever. Of course, the main issue for some is the handling of the radioactive materials which should be easily tackled.

And "sustainable" plasma is misleading. The point is to get more energy out then in, that could be done without sustaining the plasma, or containing it just enough to get power out of it. There is more then one scheme to do fusion other then magnetic confinement.

It's a combination of problems regardless. Not much point having non-sustainable plasma and having significant net energy gain since the energy output will be on the whole insufficient.

And you might want to write a bit better as it is difficult enough trying to understand what you are writing.[/quote]

[Zixinus]

It's a combination of problems regardless.

Who said it wasn't? Thing is, that certain schemes have different problems then others. There are some problems that are shared among most, but that does not mean that one's scheme's problem is another's.

Not much point having non-sustainable plasma and having significant net energy gain since the energy output will be on the whole insufficient.

If we get more energy out then in, we have a win, no matter what confinement scheme you have. If we can also manage to run that for more then half a minute we also win.

And insufficient is relative to what gain we are talking about and how we gain it. If we are doing, say, ICF, the only thing that matters is to get more energy out then in trough heat conversion, or direct conversion if you manage to do advanced fuels. The only real concern is not damaging the sensitive components, like the lasers.

MagConf isn't the only way to do fusion. It is the most popular, but not the only way. Inertial confinement with x-rays generated by super-critical fission has a surprisingly high success rate, for example.

And you might want to write a bit better as it is difficult enough trying to understand what you are writing.

I believe that I say things coherently enough. Do you have a more specific suggestion?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If we get more energy out then in, we have a win, no matter what confinement scheme you have. If we can also manage to run that for more then half a minute we also win.

And insufficient is relative to what gain we are talking about and how we gain it. If we are doing, say, ICF, the only thing that matters is to get more energy out then in trough heat conversion, or direct conversion if you manage to do advanced fuels. The only real concern is not damaging the sensitive components, like the lasers.

MagConf isn't the only way to do fusion. It is the most popular, but not the only way. Inertial confinement with x-rays generated by super-critical fission has a surprisingly high success rate, for example.

I have no preferences for the method of achieving Fusion so long as one gets net energy out and the plasma can be sustained indefinitely except at times of maintenance. The reason for the latter requirement simply stems from the fact that fusion if used for engines or any other applications such as fusion rockets require constant supplies of power and not merely sudden bursts of it and not least it must require as little maintenance as possible.

And you might want to write a bit better as it is difficult enough trying to understand what you are writing.

I believe that I say things coherently enough. Do you have a more specific suggestion?[/quote]

You might like to for starters, remember that it is "more THAN" and not "more THEN".

Also, I do not comprehend the statement "The "free fuel" promise is ruined by the fact that no one can burn it." I am under the impression that fusion experiments have been achieved and the question now is to find an arrangement that produces enough power and also sustainable power.

[drachefly]

So you're really more concerned with 'not 1000 seconds now and another 600 in a week', not so much with continuous existence of one plasma.

Suppose that a fusion plant operated on a power cycle in which cold gas was quickly heated and fused, and the plasma was allowed to dissipate... 10 times per second, and it could keep that up with 90% up time for 40 years.

I doubt you'd be complaining. Ask what you really mean to ask about.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So you're really more concerned with 'not 1000 seconds now and another 600 in a week', not so much with continuous existence of one plasma.

Suppose that a fusion plant operated on a power cycle in which cold gas was quickly heated and fused, and the plasma was allowed to dissipate... 10 times per second, and it could keep that up with 90% up time for 40 years.

I doubt you'd be complaining. Ask what you really mean to ask about.

I have not thought about a scheme that has such a continuous cycle, but it had better produce more power each cycle than a comparable Fission reactor else it won't be as useful as a power source either. Personally I would prefer a plasma in some steady state with a regulated supply of hydrogen and some means to remove the waste products, though I am not too sure if that is possible.

[Sea Skimmer]

Admittedly, this is true. With Fast Breeder Reactors, it is possible to run on Fission at least near forever. Of course, the main issue for some is the handling of the radioactive materials which should be easily tackled.

Mainly the issue is the the production of lots of plutonium, which must be removed when the spent fuel of a breeder reactor is reprocessed. You are correct that this can be easily dealt with.

The world already has 300 something tons of the stuff floating around, and securely storing even 3000 tons would not be THAT hard. Simple geometry says that you can increase the size of the secure storage areas much faster then you need to lengthen the guarded perimeter around it.

What’s more, you can simply blend the plutonium back into nuclear fuel and get rid of it that way. Some reactors in the US already run off a blended Plutonium-Uranium fuel called MOX. In this manner quite a few tons of plutonium, are being destroyed, the stuff was bought from the Russian goverment, and simply handed over by the US military.

[Zixinus]

I have no preferences for the method of achieving Fusion so long as one gets net energy out and the plasma can be sustained indefinitely except at times of maintenance. The reason for the latter requirement simply stems from the fact that fusion if used for engines or any other applications such as fusion rockets require constant supplies of power and not merely sudden bursts of it and not least it must require as little maintenance as possible.

With a tokamak yes. There is the idea of using small H-bombs bombs as a heat source, using a thermal cycle to keep the medium hot. This can be done somewhat done with ICF, although I'm not sure.

Pulsed or contious operation, the point is breakeven.

You might like to for starters, remember that it is "more THAN" and not "more THEN".

A spelling error makes me incohorent?

Also, I do not comprehend the statement "The "free fuel" promise is ruined by the fact that no one can burn it."

Fusion has allot of promises, one of which is the availaiblity of fuels. If it is not already mined, then it can be artifically produced (tritium, deuterium, He3) and that it almost free.

This is ruined by the fact that nobody can make a machine that can use these fuels as fuels. The closest we got is a 24,7 seconds run with D-D, that COULD have archived breakeven IF it ran D-T.

I am under the impression that fusion experiments have been achieved and the question now is to find an arrangement that produces enough power and also sustainable power.

And we have been pondering that question for over 50 whole, fucking years. People are doing fusion in their garages and basements, as well as laboratories and academies. Neither of them are doing breakeven (to be fair though, the guys in the lab and academies are closer then the guys messing around in the garages and basements).

Personally I would prefer a plasma in some steady state with a regulated supply of hydrogen and some means to remove the waste products, though I am not too sure if that is possible.

Like a tokamak? Although, funnly enough, a Polywell machine works similar way. Fuel is injected by ion guns, fusion products are removed by vacuum pumps.

Mainly the issue is the the production of lots of plutonium, which must be removed when the spent fuel of a breeder reactor is reprocessed.

Why plutonium? Why not thorium?

[Starglider]

There's a follow up project to ITER in the early planning stages called DEMO, the first reactor that will generate electrical power to be fed into a national grid.

For 1000 seconds. Then it will need 6 days to get it ready again. Then it will be able to run... 600 seconds.

That's what ITER will do (actually the current target is 500 seconds). But after ITER the physics for scaling that up should be relatively straightforward. The objective for DEMO is:

Whereas ITER's goal is to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for at least 500 seconds, the goal of DEMO will be to produce at least four times that much fusion power on a continual basis. Moreover, while ITER's goal is to produce 10 times as much power as is required for ignition, DEMO's goal is to produce 25 times as much power. DEMO's 2 gigawatts of thermal output will be on the scale of a modern electric power plant.

A fission reactor that can give you the same heat output for the 1/30 of the price and can do it 24/7, is what I would dare call practical.

The final commercial designs will be much, much cheaper than the development, construction and running costs for the research reactors.

[Starglider]

For 1000 seconds. Then it will need 6 days to get it ready again. Then it will be able to run... 600 seconds.

Oh incidentally I wouldn't be so quick to criticise other experiments for short durations, when Polywell <strike>cheerleaders</strike> enthusiasts constantly quote the '10^9 fusions/second' number without noting that this number was achieved over a quarter of a millisecond in an experiment that lasted a few milliseconds - and what's more this is an extrapolation from the three neutrons that were actually detected. An experiment that was repeated a handful of times with no independent replication.

Devices such as JET and JT-60 have been consistently generating many megawatts of directly measureable (thermal) fusion power for several minutes at a time, for experiments repeated up to several times a day, for the last two decades (with steady progress throughout that time). The truly vast amounts of data generated by tens of thousands of runs at facilities around the world, plus a huge amount of theoretical work by hundreds of physicists, is what allows the relatively confident extrapolation from JET to ITER to DEMO (though there are still many unknowns). The claims made by the polywell people on such a tiny evidential base and limited amount of peer review look ludicrous and crankish by comparison. It's unfortunate, because the idea is good and it does deserve a lot more funding and attention than it has been getting, but the sales pitch is ridiculously overconfident.

[Zixinus]

Give the same level of funding as JET gets, and we'll see who's more right.

About 80% of money for fusion goes to tokamaks in the USA. JET, ITER and DEMO are all tokamaks, what have been researched for the last 50 years, receiving great interest since the day the first prototype's data was published. About 20-30 BILLION dollars have been poured into tokamaks worldwide, about 8-12 billion from the USA alone. Fusion researchers base their ENTIRE CARRIER on the tokamaks.

Polywell? A small group of researchers under publishing embargo over a decade and with relatively little money, never enough for what was really needed. The last experiment was done under ideal scale because they couldn't make it any bigger or better. Very few researchers and engineers even know what Inertial Electrostatic/Electrodynamic Confinement is.

So, when you take that into account, the picture shows that work equals results. There has been very little work in Polywells when compared to tokamaks. But there has been promising results. That doesn't mean that it 's "DA WAY", just that its worth investigating.

Zixinus wrote:
For 1000 seconds. Then it will need 6 days to get it ready again. Then it will be able to run... 600 seconds.

Oh incidentally I wouldn't be so quick to criticise other experiments for short durations, (...)

For experimental purposes they are fine, and that's not my point was. But for practical power?

enthusiasts constantly quote the '10^9 fusions/second' number without noting that this number was achieved over a quarter of a millisecond in an experiment that lasted a few milliseconds - and what's more this is an extrapolation from the three neutrons that were actually detected.

Three neutrons at the well depth of TEN KILOVOLTS. Fansworts and co needed TEN TIMES THAT DEEPER well depth to archive the same results.

It was pulsed for miliseconds, though the experiments were repeated, which shows that this isn't an error of measurement devices or pathological science (following Wikipedia's definition, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_science). I also recall that other devices lasted longer. Fusors last for minutes. It ran for milliseconds because that's all the machine could take, because there was not enough money nor equipment to do it longer or more properly.

But to say that this doesn't prove the concept true? I'd say you're right. I say that this doesn't disprove it.
Build a bigger machine, improve what was bad last time, cool it, shield it better, put in more sensors and make it big enough to do what according to the math would be continuous operation, and we can compare Polywell more rightfully to the Tokamak.
That's not happening. That's the problem.

It's unfortunate, because the idea is good and it does deserve a lot more funding and attention than it has been getting, but the sales pitch is ridiculously overconfident.

Because the "cheerleaders" as you call them are all that's left of a group of people that still believe and/or know this technology will work. They are naive,overly optimistic, or ignorant of true detail.

The rest are either trying to independently prove Polywell some way, like Msmion (username) who's trying to build the damn thing himself (ex-navy nuke, check my sig for his blog), some are waiting till there is a peer-reviewed paper detailing recent results (btw there are a few theoretical papers on the operation of the Polywell, before the publishing embargo).

Or those that just acknowledged that there is no way in hell that the thing is getting nowhere near enough funding. That like many other interesting ideas, its going down the drain of forgotten, crankish ideas that showed enough promise to warrant further research, but never got it, until centuries later, by the time it will be pretty much too late.

[Starglider]

Give the same level of funding as JET gets, and we'll see who's more right.

Certainly for a 'fair' comparison of the merits of the two fusion approaches, equivalent funding would be necessary. But this is a red herring. I have already said that I personally would like to see Polywell get at least an order of magnitude more funding and attention. The issue is Polywell enthusiasts a) making ridiculously overoptimistic claims (i.e. 'we are completely sure this will work' 'we can build a working power station in less than 10 years') and b) slagging off tokamak/stellerator (and to a lesser extent, laser-intertial) fusion projects as 'unworkable' or 'dead ends'.

About 80% of money for fusion goes to tokamaks in the USA.

I do not have a breakdown of fusion spending to hand, however this does sound very high, given how much money the US has sunk into the NIF (and its predecessors) and it's tepid and intermittent involvement with ITER.

Polywell? A small group of researchers under publishing embargo over a decade and with relatively little money, never enough for what was really needed. The last experiment was done under ideal scale because they couldn't make it any bigger or better.

Complaining about 'we didn't have the resources to do the experiment properly' does not change the fact that the experiments were few, poor and not replicated. The basis for the wild extrapolations to 'oh we will have a working power station in ten years if we had the money, for certain, no chance of failure' is ridiculously shakey. The situation is far worse than the original tokamak fusion power researchers being cautiously optimistic about fusion power within 20 years. Either the Polywell lot have completely failed to learn the lesson that plasma physics is hard and that scaling from small demonstrators to large reactors does not go the way you expect, or they are being deliberately dishonest in an attempt to grab investment. I am very familiar with both of these behaviours - they are pervasive in the field of general AI.

But there has been promising results. That doesn't mean that it 's "DA WAY", just that its worth investigating.

But many polywell enthusiasts and specifically Bussard himself have repeatedly claimed that it is 'the way' as you put it - in fact Bussard has effectively claimed that it is the only way by saying (baselessly) that other fusion projects will not work.

For experimental purposes they are fine, and that's not my point was. But for practical power?

There has been a steady increase in durations and a decrease in cycle times. I don't see what your point is. ITER will further improve duration and (hopefully) get the cycle time down to something close to what a commercial station needs. DEMO will run continuously (though tokamaks are inherently pulsed, so there will need to be a thermal buffer - this is one reason why I like the stellerator design in principle). The Polywell people are claiming that they don't need to go through the long careful scaling process that other forms of fusion power have - they somehow believe they can go straight from very early prototypes to a power station, despite the evidence that Polywell is at least as unstable and finicky as other techniques.

Three neutrons at the well depth of TEN KILOVOLTS. Fansworts and co needed TEN TIMES THAT DEEPER well depth to archive the same results.

But they measured a continuous neutron flux. The experiment could be maintained until the grid melted. That's a lot closer to a power generator than a quarter of a millisecond. Tomamaks ran into a huge number of problems in maintaining confinement and plasma quality which only appeared as the experiment size and duration increased. With Polywell you have Bussard spouting annecdotes such as 'oh yeah, well it wasn't working, so we tried squirting microwaves in there, we had to go through a few microwave ovens until we found a magnetron with a frequency that seemed to solve the problem'. And then he declares the problem completely solved and never to reccur, despite the solution being a trial-and-error fluke. You seriously expect the rest of the scaling process to be completely simple, trouble free and to require no new theory?

Build a bigger machine, improve what was bad last time, cool it, shield it better, put in more sensors and make it big enough to do what according to the math would be continuous operation, and we can compare Polywell more rightfully to the Tokamak. That's not happening. That's the problem.

Well yes fine, just don't resort to scam-worthy claims to try and make it happen.

That like many other interesting ideas, its going down the drain of forgotten, crankish ideas that showed enough promise to warrant further research, but never got it, until centuries later, by the time it will be pretty much too late.

Again, we're seeing plenty of that in AGI, it's just harder to separate the cranks from the genuine independent researchers than it is in 'alternative energy', because the later is based on the very solid foundation of early-21st-century physics while the former is based on the still very shakey foundation of early-21st-century cognitive science.