[Rhodes22-list] New Nuclear Energy Ideas

[Ronald Lipton]

I am a physicist, Ed is way off on this one.  The SSC near Dallas was
a particle accelerator which was under construction when it was 
cancelled
in the early eighties.  I was offered a job out there at one point - but
declined.  It was initially approved in the mid-eighties by Regan.
The cancellation was due to a combination of things - cost overruns
took most of the blame, but it was mostly political.  Bush (Sr) had 
just lost,
Wright had resigned, and the congress had it in for Texas.  There was
very little constituancy for an 8 billion dollar pure science project.  
It
was easy for the congress to kill.  Two to
three billion dollars were spent before the project was killed (and all
I got is this lowsey tee shirt...). The cancellation of the project 
decimated
the field and in a few years leadership will be taken by the Europeans,
who are building a similar machine near Geneva.  It had nothing to do
with fusion.

As far as fusion goes, it was predicted to be twenty years away in the
fifties, and most projections are that it is 20-30 years away now.  I 
expect
that it will continue for some time.  There are very difficult problems 
keeping
a 50 million degree plasma contained without destruction of the vessel.
The best candidates are confinement of the plasma in a magnetic field,
or laser induced fusion of deuterium-tritium pellets.  Experiments have
recently achieved "scientific break-even" where more power is produced
in the reaction than is directly input from the heating sources.  
"Engineering
break-even" is many orders of magnitude away.  There are then the
engineering problems associated with huge neutron doses on materials
and efficient heat transfer between the plasma and a generator.  Let's
make it 40 years ...


Ron
On Jan 18, 2005, at 7:39 PM, Hank wrote:

> I'm not a physicist, but I am pretty sure that fusion is still along
> way off.  If I remember correctly, the issue is that Fusion occurs
> inside a 'plasma' of extremely high temperatures (millions of degrees)
> and we have not yet figured out how to do that safely and with less
> energy than is produced by the fusion reaction.  Currently it takes
> more energy to maintain the plasma than what is produced by the
> reaction.
>
> Fusion does have a by product.  fusion is the combine of two atoms or
> molecules into a third molecule.  The sun is a massive fusion reaction
> which basically combines hydrogen atoms into helium molecules.  The
> upside to this is that the byproduct is usually a harmless product.
>
> The centrifuge you speak of in Texas was actually a giant
> Supercollider which consisted of a particle accelerator which hyper
> accelerated atoms to collide them with stationary atoms or molecules
> for research.  I don't remember exactly why it was cancelled other
> than for budgetary reasons.
>
> Hank
>
>
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 20:26:03 -0500, ed kroposki 
> <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>> Paul, Rummy,
>>        Before someone more knowledgeable than me points out that this
>> concept has been around for at least 30 or 40 years.  Another version 
>> has
>> been around even longer, it is called a 'perpetual motion machine'.  
>> These
>> were for sale before the Brooklyn Bridge.
>>        I recall that there was a study of fusion to take place in 
>> Texas.
>> It was a Lyndon Johnson pet project.  It required a centrifuge 
>> several miles
>> in diameter.  I believe the federal government acquired the land and 
>> was
>> digging its tunnels when the powers that be decided not to spend the 
>> several
>> hundred billion to finish the project.
>>        Guys, check your history books on this one.
>>
>> Ed K
>> Greenville, SC, USA
>> Addendum:  "The 1980's demonstrated that inaccuracy was not permitted 
>> in the
>> corporate world, but lying was totally acceptable." John M. Capozzi, 
>> Why
>> Climb the Corporate Ladder When You Can Take the Elevator.
>>
>>
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