[Rhodes22-list] New Nuclear Energy Ideas

[Steve]

Ronald
Do you mean to tell me that our good friend Clinton
and the Democrats haulted the very thing that could
have solved all this Nuclear waste problem!!!! 
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOohhhh it's a sad day!!!!!!!!  I'm
shock; shock I say:-)
Steve


--- Ronald Lipton <rlipton at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 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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