“When the moon was first visited in 1969, the astronauts brought back a treasure trove of unique minerals. Contained within specimens was an isotope called Helium-3, which turns out to be the perfect fuel for fusion reactors.” Homer Hickham from BrainyQuotes
More energy out than put in for fusion: see this link. The article didn’t say how much excess energy (microwatt?) was achieved or what the prospects for practical use were, but this is a breakthrough: more energy out than energy in from fusion; a mini/micro/nano sun.
NOTE:
Featured image is of Lawrence Lab fusion reactor, from Wikimedia Commons.
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I have followed fusion developments for years (and it was my last topic in May when I taught high school chemistry), but I’ve been waiting a long time to see it become practical. Success would sure put a thumb in the eyes of the screaming’ greenies.
Heavy metal fission is so much more easy – and readily available right here and now – than useless wortheless fusion. It always takes more energy to overcome the coulomb repulsion between positively charged nuclei than the resulting fusion gives (unless you got a massive gravity well like the sun). But thermal neutron absorption by Pu-239 or U-235 is easy. And while helium-3 fusion sounds great because it is aneutronic (doesn’t give off neutrons that activate surrounding materials), you need to produce helium-3 from the decay of tritium (because there ain’t no helium-3 on Earth’s surface) which in turn is produced from lithium-6 in heavy metal fission reactors (several TVA fission reactors do that for US DoD – make helium-3 for the big bombs that keep Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at bay). And yes, there is lots of helium-3 on the moon. Good luck with that.
BTW, did I mention that heavy metal fission reactors are safe enough for 18 year olds to operate within an enclosed can made of HY-80 stainless steel and submerged to 1000 feet beneath the waves? I have stood above spent nuclear fuel platforms at commercial fission power plants, I have used radioactive sources to calibrate radiation detectors, I have held unirradiated U-235 fuel pellets in my hands, I have operated a heavy metal fission reactor while sitting a mere 50 feet away from the core (yes, the reactor compartment bulkhead was between me and the core 😉 ), and I have done all this for the past 40 years. Fission – safe, clean, secure, non-polluting, and available right now.
LCQ, there’s a lot in what you say. However, not everyone has your perception / knowledge of the safety of nuclear fission reactors.
The referenced article doesn’t have many details. They reference another article that is behind a paywall. The details will be important in order to see how significant the results are. A while back Sabine Hossenfelder did a video on fusion power on YouTube:
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In this video she says that the Q value, which is the the value of energy input versus energy output, actually has two different values, Q_total and Q_plasma. She says that many of the recent reports are stating the Q_plasma value and not the Q_total value. She says that the Q_total value is lower than the Q_plasma value.
Well.. IF productive Fusion is right around the corner..
There are going to be a lot of very unhappy:
anti human greenies, dooms day prophets of climate change, marxists and plants (no more extra CO2).
I feel bad for the plants.
Just wait till the US NRC starts regulating fusion:
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/policy-development/fusion-energy.html
LCQ, what are your thoughts about disposal of waste from nuclear plants? I’m not asking to be contentious, but it is one of prime concerns people have about fission energy.
“what are your thoughts about disposal of waste from nuclear plants?”
Dr. Kurland, we do NOT have a waste problem. 95% percent of used nuclear fuel (often misnamed as spent fuel) contains long lived actinides that can be consumed in fast neutron burner reactors, obviating the need for a million year geological repository. It is utter foolishness to glassify used nuclear fuel. All that plutonium, americium and leftover uranium can be used to generate electricity. But because of Gerald Ford and Jimmy the idiot Carter’s foolish decisions based on unfounded fears of weapons proliferation from reprocessing used nuclear fuel, we foolhardily embarked on the now defunked Yucca Mountain project (after nuclear utilities by Executive Order had to give millions of dollars per year to Congress for a repository that would never be built what a scam!). BTW, you can’t use light water reactor fuel for a bomb. Too many fission product poisons, not enough enrichment, and too many non-fissile Pu-238 and other isotopes to be able to use Pu-239.
Another BTW, did you know that if we built a Candu heavy water reactor next to a US BWR or PWR, with minimal reprocessing we could discharge the fuel from the US BWR or PWR and use directly in the Candu heavy water reactor? Do you know WHY we don’t do that? Because Candus owing to the fast fission factor have a slightly positive void coefficient of reactivity that is prohibited by regulation in US nuclear power. Never mind that that slightly positive void coefficient is completely swamped by the negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. We could be re-using our spent fuel RIGHT NOW in Candus if it weren’t for some dumb a$$ stupid regulations. But I digress.
Another right now: after five years decaying away in a spent fuel pool, nuclear power plants move spent fuel to dry cask storage. I was involved in such a project. Those casks are impervious to a jet aircraft crash. And yes, I hugged one like this (and got in trouble, but I am still alive):
We do NOT have a used fuel problem. We have a political problem. BTW, read this:
https://www.nei.org/advocacy/make-regulations-smarter/used-nuclear-fuel
Then read this:
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel
Then read this:
http://www.plux.co.uk/mass-and-volume-of-spent-nuclear-fuel/
Then consider that one coal fired power plant releases more radioactivity in the form of uranium and thorium in coal ash that any nculear power plant releases.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
Same goes with fracking for methane (we call that “natural” gas as though “natural” makes it benign) which releases an immense amount of Rn-222 and other normally occuring radioactives.
And finally, consider that “if you aggregate all of the spent fuel produced in the U.S. since the 1950s, it would actually fit on one football field stacked about ten yards high.” Can’t do that with coal, oil, gas, solar or wind.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/12/06/the_biggest_myth_about_nuclear_waste_804987.html
In fact, with coal, oil and gas we dump hundreds of millions of tons of refuse into the atmosphere from fossil fuel every single year. And the pollution stream from useless worthless solar and wind dwarf anything from nuclear. In nuclear we seuester all our waste from the environment. NO other form of energy does that. None. Zero. Zip point squat.
It’s ALL about energy density:
https://www.nek.si/en/longevity-for-sustainability/production-performance/high-energy-density-of-uranium-is-one-of-key-advantages-of-nuclear-energy
Dr. Kurland, my comment is awaiting moderation because of all the links I used. 🙁
We really need nuclear powered cars…
@DJH – Ford did that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
Nuclear power is ill-suited to some applications where things can go dangerously wrong quickly, like cars and aircraft. But nuclear power is ideally suited for electric power plants and ships. As I said, safe enough for the Navy to use 18 year olds as reactor operators on nuclear submarines.
I am going to provide some links to web sites that explain fission energy at a basic level:
Canadian Nuclear FAQ by Dr. Jeremy Whitlock
https://www.nuclearfaq.ca/
Virtual Nuclear Tourist
http://www.nucleartourist.com/
Those two web sites have many sub-links that will answer most questions that a reasonable person would ask about nuclear power. Anti-nuclear activists, being environmentalists, are not reasonable persons.
I will have more links later to the Illinois Energy Professor’s YouTube page, and to the web page of a certain retired Jewish professor in Pennsylvania whose name I cannot remember right now.
One more thing: nuclear has the lowest mortality rate per terawatt-hour of electric generation, even including TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-terawatt-hour-by.html
LCQ, a question (with all due respect): how does a professor being Jewish (or being in Pennsylvania) bear on his knowledge of nuclear fission energy production? Is a blessing over the rods an essential to their safe operation????
More than 30 years ago Freeman Dyson observed that; even if someone ever got to break even fusion power, it would be so tricky that every power plant would need a squad of PhD’s to keep it working. Nothing in these reports makes me think he was wrong. I wish these people every success, but I doubt it will result in industrially viable power for the human race
None, Bob. I just note that some of the greatest nuclear energy people like Admiral Hyman Rickover and Dr. Alvin Weinberg were Jewish and did more to advance nuclear power than most others. I met Rickover on my old submarine during sea trials. He tried to operate the scram switch on my Reactor Plant Control Panel as a test. I stopped him, of course. If I hadn’t, then I would have been disqualified. A cantankerous old man. But he did more for nuke power – he and Weinberg – than anyone else alive.
Read Alvin Weinberg’s The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer, available on Amazon.
Then read Rickover and the Nuclear Navy THE DISCIPLiNE OF TECHNOLOGY by Francis Duncan – Google it for a PDF from the US DOE web site.
BTW, Weinberg and Rickover never got along. Competition is a good thing.
LCQ, good response…thanks.
btw, I think your retired Jewish physicist, whose name I don’t recall either, was from Pittsburgh Univ. I recall an article in which he (if it’s the same one) criticized use of extrapolation to zero to estimate deaths from nuclear waste products.
aha! found him: Bernie Cohen, and the article was on no threshold for radiation effects. See here: https://www.physicsandastronomy.pitt.edu/bernie-cohen
Yes, that’s him! I used Dr. Cohen’s writings in my training courses that I taught to new nuclear power plant employees over the years. I shamelessly plagiarized (he was always listed in the references). He’s brilliant! Thanks, Dr. Kurland!
@LQC:
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Nah, we can totally get a nuclear powered car. MIght take another 75 years, but we will get there. As for the safety issue: no biggie. People are totally willing to drive battery operated cars that blow into flames every now and then . . .
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Thank you for the stock tips!
@DJH – you well characterized the cognitive dissonance of the environmentalist: ” People are totally willing to drive battery operated cars that blow into flames every now and then…”
To all, here are some additional web links:
Dr. Bernard Cohen’s web site – scroll down the page for all the links:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/
Illinois Energy Professor Dr. David N. Ruzic (Donald McClarey’s home state):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKH_iLhhkTyt8Dk4dmeCQ9w
Dr. Ruzic is on the mark 90% of the time. The other 10% he misses because he hasn’t ever worked in a nuclear power plant and we sometimes do things differently than what he describes. Nevertheless, you can trust him to be honest, forthright and well-researched. He’s a very articulate Vlogger.
And yes, we all know about the DOE fusion announcement today:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-national-laboratory-makes-history-achieving-fusion-ignition
Now comes the regulation. If it is profitable, then it will be regulated and taxed. Mark my words.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/policy-development/fusion-energy.html
Those fusion energy guys have NO idea what’s coming. None!
I think that this is another article about the subject of this article:
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/energy-fusion-milestone-experiment/2022/12/13/id/1100298/
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The article says:
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“The net energy gain achievement applied to the fusion reaction itself, not the total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project. For fusion to be viable, it will need to produce significantly more power and for longer.”
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It sounds like the gain was in Q_plasma, not Q_total.
This “breakthrough” is probably nothing more than jingling keys.
Gregb, I think, is correct. “It sounds like the gain was in Q_plasma, not Q_total.”
A power plant needs a heat source: a furnace burning coal, oil, gas, or a reactor core fissioning uranium or plutonium, or a fusion core fusing helium-3 or deuterium-tritium or whatever.
Then that heat must be used to heat a coolant which in turn boils water.
Then you need a steam plant with a turbine generator, moisture separator reheaters, condensers, condensate and feed pumps, feedwater heaters, condensate polisher, etc.
Now yes, you could use a gas like helium through a reactor core to drive a high temperature gas turbine, but you still got all the auxiliaries which that implies.
And then for the generator you got to have a voltage regulator exciter, transformers, switchgear and switchyard equipment all for grid distribution.
ALL THAT sucks energy AWAY from the power plant’s output to the grid.
And even WITH all that, coal plants are about 45% efficient, same with high temperature gas cooled reactors, but Candu heavy water reactors and US PWRs and BWRs are about 33% to 34% efficient. (sidenote: don’t confuse this with capacity factor – nukes are at 92% for that). Everything else is waste heat. You’re limited by the Rankine heat cycle for steam turbines and the Brayton cycle for gas turbines. TANSTAAFL – there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, nor any such thing as 100% efficiency (or 100% capacity factor).
So these fusion reactors? They got 50 years of catching up to do. And did I mention there will be regulations?
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/policy-development/fusion-energy.html
Yes, yes I did.
I am an old power house guy. Been doing this for 40+ years. These young whippersnappers have NO idea what the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) is going to do to them. It’ll be regulated and taxed till it barely makes a profit.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-achieves-fusion-ignition
No time to go over stuff– still running to catch up with myself today, much less the kids– but guy who follows this stuff more than I do is going nuts.
I read the DOE announcement. The article said:
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“LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). Many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable IFE to power homes and businesses, and DOE is currently restarting a broad-based, coordinated IFE program in the United States.”
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The 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target is the combined beam power of the lasers. The announcement didn’t say how much energy it took to generate this resulting beam power. No mention as to what the percent efficiency was that the lasers were operating at, or the general overall energy overhead requirement for running the facility. It sounds more and more like the value given is the Q_plasma value. It’s great that they are making progress, but we still have a ways to go before fusion power plants can become a reality.
Gregb is correct. We still got 30 to 50 years to go. Besides, the US NRC has to develop a set of fusion power regulations equivalent to 10 CFR 50 that it has for fission power and that takes time. 😉
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/full-text.html
BTW, I just saw this today: NRC Staff Whiffs On Nuclear Licensing Modernization
https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/nrc-staff-whiffs-on-nuclear-licensing-modernization
The US NRC has failed to modernize its regulations as directed by Congress. Is anyone surprised?
And does anyone here really think the US NRC will EVER develop regulations specific to fusion energy that can be followed?
I am sorry to belabot a point, but the following article says this:
https://bigthink.com/the-future/fusion-power-nif-hype-lose-energy/
The laser energy delivered to the target was 2.05 MJ, and the fusion output was likely about 3.15 MJ. According to multiple sources on NIF’s website, the input energy to the laser system is somewhere between 384 and 400 MJ. Consuming 400 MJ and producing 3.15 MJ is a net energy loss greater than 99%. For every single unit of fusion energy it produces, NIF burns at minimum 130 units of energy.
In terms of electrical power, 3.15 MJ would not quite power one 40-watt refrigerator light bulb for a day. Charging NIF steadily over the same day would draw 4,600 watts from the power grid. (NIF is actually charged much more quickly, but at the cost of a much higher draw in watts — more energy per unit time, over less time — but the total energy is the same.)
You guys gotta think of this as a power house. In addition to all the infrastructure and energy consumption for the lasers and the cooling equipment and and the capacitor bank charging equipment and so on, there’s gonna be infrastructure and energy consumption for the inevitable fusion reactor coolant heat transport system, the steam generators, turbine generator auxiliaries, moisture separator reheaters, condensate and feed pumps, feedwater heate4s, etc. ad nauseam. This fusion energy announcement is Biden Administration propaganda. And DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm who authorized the announcement knows no science, no engineering, and is just another Democrat politician. It’s all bu11 $hit.
belabor not belabot. Typo. Argh!
LCQ, Thanks for real info. I posted this more as chum for the shark skeptics, hoping that someone would do the heavy work to see how realistic the headlines were. and thanks Greg B, also.
I came across some more YouTube videos about this announcement:
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The Real Engineering Channel has some recent videos about fusion:
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The Helion system looks interesting. They are working on a process for direct conversion of the fusion energy to electricity. According to the video they are building a new reactor that is supposed to demonstrate the production of electricity. Time will tell.