Solar Panels: Another Exercise in Magical ThinkingStarfire_dragoness wrote (edited )
Reply to comment by wednesday in Solar Panels: Another Exercise in Magical Thinking by casparvitch
As I understood, and with what I know of physics, their point of net return was dealing with the reaction, which is basically what we've been waiting for for fusion to be a feasible power source. Sure, the initial ignition is expensive, but it's much cheaper to maintain, so yes, if you want to naysay, technically they didn't have a gross net, because that's not what we've been needing. We needed a net increase in a very specific aspect, because everything else is a matter of scale.
So, actually, it does make a lot of sense to now produce commercial fusion power.
And... seriously, 'fusion weapon research with public funding'? Fission is far more suited to weapons research than fusion. For reference, a fission plant meltdown means you've got a Chernobyl reaction or an atomic fireball that obliterates a whole region. A fusion meltdown means you've got to replace a few windows in the fusion plant. The viable uses for fusion in warfare have already been established and not in need of more research. The core materials and tools for the reaction aren't as portable as fission. Could there be fusion powered subs and aircraft carriers and other very large vessels? Sure. But you're not going to get briefcase bombs or ICBMs like you can with fission. The tessellated variant of the tomahawk is the theoretical bottom end for a directed fusion reaction. It doesn't miniaturize, which means the only way to go smaller is undirected fusion reactions, which are uncontrollable, and we've had those since bikini atoll; so there's really no progress to be made there.
Due to the size limitation, the only real other military use for fusion is in installations, such as mounted rail-guns, at which point they're only useful for defensive war, not offensive war, and any advances there will still translate quite nicely into power for the civilian sector.
actuallyaseal wrote
I think fusion weapons in this case refers to thermonuclear bombs, aka hydrogen bombs. Those are already in widespread use and are basically what everyone uses right now.
If I had to guess, the research into ignition, containment, and propagation of a fusion reaction for power generation could be reapplied to thermonuclear weapons. This could be used to miniaturize weapons, since the explosive yield is already high enough, to enable their deployment in novel ways.
Starfire_dragoness wrote
Not... really. The most efficient and miniaturized form of fusion is the current fusion bombs. A fusion plants ignition, containment, and propagation are all for something built for a sustained instead of instantaneous reaction, which really isn't useful for a weapon, just a power source.
And there's a theoretical lower limit on how small you can make a fusion plant. The reason isn't a limitation of our capabilities, it's a limitation of the physics. To maintain the plasma stream, you have to have it go in a circle, but you can't make that circle too tight or the energy to incur angular momentum neccesarry to maintain the circle is greater than the energy production.
Generator tech is just not good for weapon making.
Now, might the military be bankrolling part of it? Possibly. Is there a benefit they could get from it? Sure. But that benefit is the same as for the civilian sector: Dense power generation.
A fusion plant means 10x power than fission. Nuclear subs & aircraft carriers could be 10x the mass. It might be enough to launch a small flying aircraft carrier. These would also be benefits to shipping with large transport ships, and it being a public technology, would benefit in that way as well, severely reducing the environmental impact of transport.
But the big draw, militarily speaking, is the same as the civilian sector: An end to reliance on oil. Fission has problems with radiation that fusion doesn't, so it never fully took that role. There's no such barrier for fusion, no such problems, and it's theoretical limits for energy production are ten times higher. We may even be looking at a fusion-powered space program eventually to make for cheap space travel; and that'd let us move industry into space which would heavily reduce environmental burdens on Earth. Earth has an environment we want to protect that industry outright hurts. Doubling the carbon in the atmosphere on Mars though? That'd make it more livable. It could desperately use many degrees of global warming.
BrickFromTheWall wrote
Please cite a source stating that fusion is now commercially viable. All sources I can find say the opposite, that viable fusion power is still a long ways off. This one is pretty favorable to the startups, but the shortest timeline quoted for a "test plant" is 5 years.
As for the military funding claims, here's one about how the NIF is used for"US stockpile stewardship" allowing them to test weapon ignition without using full scale bombs.
Starfire_dragoness wrote
I said buy now, didn't say delivered now. It'll be awhile before it's delivered, but that's not an issue, most big power plants takes years to construct anyway, so still normal timelines. But anyway, to answer your question, 2025, in 2 years, if you want to get specific, is the first one coming available.
As for your point on weapons research, still not an issue, my points hold. Not requiring a full scale bomb to study nuclear reactions makes things safer, not less safe.
BrickFromTheWall wrote
Thank you, that helps. To summarize your article and related ones I read, in 2025 a small-scale demonstration plant should be completed, which they think will achieve net positive energy. While that is exciting and I hope they succeed, until they do I will not consider fusion power a "reality." It's also important to note that the plant will be small scale, and a 2021 MIT article has a quote from Maria Zuber saying that commercial viability faces "many challenges" even after the demonstration plant is done.
My point about weapons research was intended to support wednesday's comment about the NIF being "an excuse for basic fusion weapon research with public funding."
Starfire_dragoness wrote (edited )
While that is exciting and I hope they succeed, until they do I will not consider fusion power a "reality."
It should when you're aware that two previous postive net positives have been acheived, as well as what they meant. That means this is less a science issue at this point, and more an engineering reliability issue, which 2025 is totally a reasonable timeframe for when it's a localized object.
My point about weapons research was intended to support wednesday's comment about the NIF being "an excuse for basic fusion weapon research with public funding."
It's really not, though. It's fusion power research, that may have some marginal benefits to weapon research. But everything has some marginal benefits to weapon research. Heck, just researching a more durable pencil increases the ability to pull of Joker-esque "magic tricks".
A master-of-arms I knew once gave me this line. "Everything is a weapon. If you think something isn't a weapon, that doesn't mean it's not a potential weapon, that means you're not as creative as the person who could attack you with it."
Heck, the U.S. military has weaponized coffee.
Really, the only difference for any research is if it's military-exclusive or not. And in this case, it's not military-exclusive.
Besides, H-bombs are considered a military dead-end at this point. They're useful for detterent (aka, having but not using), but useless in actual war because they're hard to use in a precise manner. Because biggest boom... - we already have the ability to eliminate all life on Earth. Just a bomb to set off an atmospheric gamma burst, and boom, all life on Earth is dead. Not just humans, everything.
You see, that's a common misconception about war that most people have. The goal isn't to kill the most stuff possible, it's to make other people do what you want, or get what they have. Can't very well do that if you're dead, too, or you destroy the thing you want, or they can't do what you're telling them anymore.
BrickFromTheWall wrote
Well, I consider unsolved problems in engineering reliability and equipment costs to be large problems that can and often do take research companies years longer than they like to portray. So I will amicably disagree with you and remain skeptical.
The facility was originally funded for stockpile management but is now used for both stockpile management and fusion research (and skews towards fusion research). So a skeptical person may call it "weapon research that pretends to be fusion research" and an optimistic person might say it's "fusion research that pretends to be a weapons program to get its funding." I personally am ambivalent on the matter, I was just trying to provide some clarity.
Starfire_dragoness wrote
As a person who was raised by two military parents and heard way more on base than she should have, and later took political and social leadership & philosophy courses...
This doesn't look or feel anything like military research.
What does happen, frequently, is there's a tech that the military already has, and then establishing something like this provides a venue for declassifying some military data, claim its research was done by civilians, and release information to the public that is tactically best done so. Because although there is a strategic advantage to the military being more high-tech than everyone else, there's another strategic advantage to making sure your country's economy has the latest bleeding-edge stuff (as the taxes from that economy fund the military). This feels far more like that.
That means the military has probably been sitting on some key pieces of tech that are needed to make fusion power commercial viable, and is trying to release them for the tactical economic boost stave off a global conflict around the upcoming energy crisis. One thing I learned as a military brat was people frequently underestimate how much war prevention the US military actively engages in. I'd honestly argue they engage more in war prevention than actual war at this point.
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