Lockheed claims they can build a small fusion reactor in 10 years.

[Jimmy Higgins]

One thing for certain, IIDB/FRDB/TF has always been the first place to go to see whether a science "breakthrough" is actually that.

 

[repoman]

I wonder if there is an analogy to another process that humans can't get to breakeven and a tentative proof that it is the case.

It seems that it is a materials property reason why nothing is strong and heat resistant enough to contain fusion on earth.

 

[skepticalbip]

I wonder if there is an analogy to another process that humans can't get to breakeven and a tentative proof that it is the case.

It seems that it is a materials property reason why nothing is strong and heat resistant enough to contain fusion on earth.

Materials can certainly be a problem but that isn't the major current problem. The idea is to contain the plasma in a magnetic field in the center of the container so it doesn't touch the walls. Currently the energy required to create a "magnetic bottle" to contain and concentrate the plasma is greater than the energy released in the fusion process.

 

[bilby]

I wonder if there is an analogy to another process that humans can't get to breakeven and a tentative proof that it is the case.

It seems that it is a materials property reason why nothing is strong and heat resistant enough to contain fusion on earth.

The Earth itself is.

Drill a hole, lower a fusion bomb down it, detonate it, then pump cold water in and use the resulting steam to run a turbine. Fusion power made easy. Half the tech was developed in the 1950s by the military, and the rest is already in use for hydrothermal power plants in various places. The world even has a massive supply of fusion bombs already made, and their owners are in the process of reducing the stockpiles, so it is a real no-brainer.

Sadly, international treaties have been signed whereby people promise not to let their bombs go 'bang', to prove that they are not looking closely at the 'bang' to find out how to make better bombs.

So that is out.

 

[repoman]

Wow, Bilby

That is some '50s Golden Age of SciFi stuff!

 

[bilby]

Wow, Bilby

That is some '50s Golden Age of SciFi stuff!

There are no particularly insurmountable technical constraints on making it work. The US Government got pretty good at making fusion bombs go 'bang' in holes in the ground (as well as in the air over the Nevada desert) in the 1950s - the SciFi was just art imitating life.

 

[lpetrich]

I'm TOTALLY skeptical about Lockheed's announcement. Controlled nuclear fusion has proven MUCH more difficult than it had at first seemed. Lots of technical barriers, lots of difficulties in confining. The heated raw materials tend to wiggle out of their confinement before they can fuse.


As to nuclear bombs and geothermal energy extraction, that's an interesting idea. I'll try to assess its economic viability by estimating how much one has to spend on each nuclear bomb with typical electricity prices.

1 megaton = 4.184*10¹⁵ joules = 1.162*10⁹ kWh. From Electricity data browser - Average retail price of electricity, I get typically 10 cents per kWh. That's about 100 million dollars per 1-megaton bomb, assuming 100% efficiency, or 1 million dollars for 1% efficiency.

There's a problem with nuclear-fusion bombs. They require nuclear-fission bombs as igniters. There are two main types, gun bombs and implosion bombs. Gun bombs work by shooting a cylinder of fissile material into a hollow cylinder of fissile material. Implosion bombs have a spherical shell of fissile material which is pushed together by explosives. Implosion bombs are the most common type, though a gun bomb was used on Hiroshima.

It seems to me that one ought to use a gun-bomb igniter instead of an implosion-bomb one, because gun bombs are easier to design and build than implosion bombs. With an implosion bomb, several explosive charges have to be ignited at the same time, and the sphere has to be carefully shaped, while with a gun bomb, only one explosive charges needs to be ignited.

I suspect that most nuclear-fusion bomb designs involve implosion-bomb igniters. One may have to redesign such bombs for gun-bomb igniters.

 

[bilby]

I'm TOTALLY skeptical about Lockheed's announcement. Controlled nuclear fusion has proven MUCH more difficult than it had at first seemed. Lots of technical barriers, lots of difficulties in confining. The heated raw materials tend to wiggle out of their confinement before they can fuse.


As to nuclear bombs and geothermal energy extraction, that's an interesting idea. I'll try to assess its economic viability by estimating how much one has to spend on each nuclear bomb with typical electricity prices.

1 megaton = 4.184*10¹⁵ joules = 1.162*10⁹ kWh. From Electricity data browser - Average retail price of electricity, I get typically 10 cents per kWh. That's about 100 million dollars per 1-megaton bomb, assuming 100% efficiency, or 1 million dollars for 1% efficiency.

There's a problem with nuclear-fusion bombs. They require nuclear-fission bombs as igniters. There are two main types, gun bombs and implosion bombs. Gun bombs work by shooting a cylinder of fissile material into a hollow cylinder of fissile material. Implosion bombs have a spherical shell of fissile material which is pushed together by explosives. Implosion bombs are the most common type, though a gun bomb was used on Hiroshima.

It seems to me that one ought to use a gun-bomb igniter instead of an implosion-bomb one, because gun bombs are easier to design and build than implosion bombs. With an implosion bomb, several explosive charges have to be ignited at the same time, and the sphere has to be carefully shaped, while with a gun bomb, only one explosive charges needs to be ignited.

I suspect that most nuclear-fusion bomb designs involve implosion-bomb igniters. One may have to redesign such bombs for gun-bomb igniters.

There is no need to redesign any existing bombs - you can use them pretty much 'as is'; of course, you might save some money with future stocks by designing a simpler, cheaper ignition mechanism.