Talk:Fusion power

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[edit] The other fusion power?

I was just re-reading the intro, and I was struct by what appears to be a missing definition. The article currently talks about the "technical term", which is basically "the amount of energy being produced by a fusion reaction". But when I think of the term "fusion power", I normally think of something very different, a non-technical term that means "the entire concept of using fusion reactions as a commercal source of power". I'm not sure the body of the article doesn't cover the two terms in enough depth already, but am I wrong in thinking there is a missing intro paragraph that clearly defines this other use of the term? Maury 04:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bussard Presentation at Google TechTalks

Hi, just watched this rather interesting talk (Google Video) by Bussard at Google. He presents a non-grid-based ECF system that his team has been developing for the last 12+ years under a DOD contract. I'm no expert, so I dont know how credible the claims are in the presentation. However, he makes what appear to be rather controvercial statements, (related perhaps to thread above concerning Tokamak) and his views don't seem to be addressed in this entry. (first 20 or so minutes are fusion background, then talks about his recent work) --JulieKilo 04:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how controversial the statements are -- I'm watching it now, and everything he's presenting seems to be on the up and up as far as physics is concerned, though he does quite a bit of humorous tokamak/mirror machine bashing. However, I'm not sure what place this should have in a general encyclopedia. It's quite cutting edge research at the moment. Danielfong 06:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I would really like to see some expert comments on the talk, since this can be a revolutionary discovery, thanks 202.82.238.30 08:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsolved tag

I suggest that this tag should be removed. It short circuits and minimizes the major effort that is underway ( ITER ) to answer this complex question. ClaudeSB 22:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not even sure what section it was on! The article is a hotbed of undiscussed changes.
If the tag was on anything to do with materials or radioactive waste, it probably should have stayed. See IFMIF, and note that there is no mention of where it will be built, if it is. There's been a lot of silence lately, possibly because people are reluctant to ask for money for IFMIF until they are quite certain that it won't be at the expense of ITER, which is an enormous financial commitment already. Even worse, if IFMIF were to be cancelled as too expensive, that might mean ITER would be cancelled too, as pointless without IFMIF. So there's every reason to tread gently.
But IFMIF is critical to building DEMO, of course. Every delay to IFMIF means DEMO is also further away. Andrewa 19:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tritium

I included the link for tritium to the article since it is relevant. --209.244.30.237 20:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fuel Cycles

Should someone put the 3He-3He or the D-3He fuel cycles into this? Matholomew 08:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Should the letters in the fuel cycle equations have links, or explanations to what they are? For Example, the p in the The D-D fuel cycle equation. Is it representing proton or protium? Duncan Hill 05:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Future plans and predictions of development

I can't find future plans for fusion power and predictions of it's usage development in entire article. Can somebody add plans (which are referenced) and add some notable predictions of how long will it take to reach some level in development of fusion power, possible years or similar. I cant't find any future years in the article. It would be good if article gives reader a little sense of speed of research on this fields. Thanks. --83.131.77.136 10:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The recent addition saying fusion is "not practical" seems to be an opinion based purely on an editorial in New Scientist and IMHO should be undone or relegated to a simple POV reference. Editorials often present a strongly biased viewpoint to stimulate discussion, so should not be presented as evidence.

The main issue raised, containment, might be solved soon - for example by measuring deviations and applying compensating magnetic fields. Relaxed stability algorithms as applied to unstable aircraft like the Grumman X-29 could be relevant here.

I can't find it this minute, but a few years back the electrical generation industry group published a report stating quite clearly that even if fusion were made to work in the short term they would be unlikely to deploy it commercially. The size of the reactors has to be quite large to make them economically viable, but large reactors have supply and demand effects on the electricity market that make them difficult to pay for. I'll see if I can dig it up. Maury 19:12, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to comment on this paragraph:

The recent addition saying fusion is "not practical" seems to be an opinion based purely on an editorial in New Scientist and IMHO should be undone or relegated to a simple POV reference. Editorials often present a strongly biased viewpoint to stimulate discussion, so should not be presented as evidence.

Please see WP:NPOV, which is about representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected on all articles, and of all article editors. New Scientist is certainly a reliable source, and so should be included as part of NPOV. There can be no question of excluding this reference. -- Johnfos 21:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

New Scientist? Oh yes there can! Its the "reliable sources" bit that's at issue. Maury 12:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
How so? The only parts of New Scientist I've considered as not being reliable are the advertisements. (anonymous user who isn't registered here but has an interest in fusion, 12:26pm, Tuesday 31st July 2007)
New Scientist often publishes articles that have no scientific merit and are printed primarily because they are controversial. It is a news magazine, remember. For instance there was the NASA programmer who was going around telling everyone that aerospace engineers were all wrong and that lift is actually really simple. This topic comes up over and over, I believe the editors of NS are aware of this and find it somewhat amusing. There's ample examples of the debates that result of using NS as a source here on the wiki. Maury 12:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updated diagram to SVG

I've created

to replace

. Please someone check it and replace the old one with the new one IF it is correct. Otherwise, notify me on my talk page. Thanks. wykis 17:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accident potential, needs sources

I rewrote a bit of the accident potential section. It really isn't the fuel inventory that is the problem in fission reactors, but rather the physics of the reaction, which can ( in some designs ) cause it to run out of control, or lead to a meltdown. In particular, fission gives rise to very neutron-rich fission products that continue to produce heat through beta-decay for a long time after the reactor has been shut down ( and this was part of the problem in the three mile island accident ). A Chernobyl style runaway reaction really is an impossibility in most modern designs as they are designed with strong negative temperature coefficients, thou I guess you get that behaviour "for free" in a fusion reactor. I tried to clarify this. In either case the section is horribly short on sources, thou many should be easy to find in other articles on nuclear safety. I don't feel very confident with the reference system, so I won't try to do it myself. 85.230.195.192 03:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on sustainability

I see no problem with this passage:

"Fusion power has been touted as a "renewable" energy source. This is incorrect - any scaled-up use of fusion power would consume more deuterium than the Earth would receive from cosmic sources. Heavy water is the only sizable natural source of deuterium on Earth. Over time, a stable fusion economy would slowly but steadily deplete the concentration of heavy water in the planet's water bodies from the natural ratio of one deuterium atom for approximately every 6400 protium atoms (i.e. one heavy water molecule per 3200 water molecules) as depleted stocks of water return to the planet's water bodies. Unless total energy consumption on the planet was increased by several orders of magnitude, then this would not pose a serious problem for millennia as the total amount of deuterium in the planet's oceans is estimated to contain at least fifty million times the equivalent energy content in the planet's remaining fossil fuel supplies. If the entire planet scaled up its per-capita energy consumption to the level of Qatar (which consumes almost three times the energy consumed per capita compared to the United States) using fusion power, then even with a world population exceeding ten billion the planet's deuterium reserves would still last for thousands of years at least. However, this does not take into account the tendency of the human population to grow exponentially. Nonetheless, over many centuries the energy costs related to extracting deuterium would steadily increase as the concentration of deuterium in natural sources steadily decreased (assuming no improvements were made to the extraction technology and methods). In the hypothetical event that humanity sustains itself for several millennia primarily on fusion power, then deuterium depletion could potentially create major challenges for our distant descendants."

Why shouldn't we include this? Yes, the fusion fuels on Earth won't last infinitely, but neither will the hydrogen in the stars.

Anyone care to discuss the worthiness of this section?

AWeishaupt (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The above as presented is just straight WP:OR, it has no sources, it is just an essay, and is fatally flawed in two respects, one it talks about "would still last for thousands of years", a blink of an eye compared to the billion years we will be here, and it states "the tendency of the human population to grow exponentially", yet fails to observe the finite area of the surface of the earth. We are already close to what we expect the final population of the planet (within 50% or so), however it doesn't include populations expanding into outer space, in earth orbit, within the solar system, and beyond the solar system. The only way you can continue to project exponential population growth is to expand beyond the solar system at some point, and once you have left the earth you continually open up new sources for energy. At this point I think the article should discuss the hypothetical possibility of obtaining any energy at all from nuclear fusion, not the hypothetical possibility of sustainability of nuclear fusion. A short indication of the potential supply of availability of fuel is all that is needed. The way technology changes so rapidly it is difficult to speculate beyond about 300 years. Or even 30 years. 199.125.109.134 (talk) 04:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article

Any objections to listing this article as a WP:Good article candidate? References a sparse, especially in the beginning, so that's something that will need to be addressed. - RoyBoy 800 00:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How will the world look like when the first fusion plant is ready

I think we will have so much photovoltaic, that it's not possible to sell electric power in the summer time. But the high investition for a fusion power plant is uneconomic, when the plant can sell only in winter electric power. Here my study. --Pege.founder (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)