[FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Fri Dec 16 13:38:34 EST 2022
On 12/16/22 10:56 AM, cody dooderson wrote:
> I had never heard of a transatlantic power grid. That is an
> interesting idea. The sun is probably shining somewhere on the earth
> at any given time. Would a lot of energy get wasted with the long
> distances?
Nikola Tesla is rolling in his magnetically shielded grave hearing all
this wasteful and under-inspired talk of long-range power transmission
<https://theconversation.com/nikola-tesla-5g-network-could-realise-his-dream-of-wireless-electricity-a-century-after-experiments-failed-158665#:~:text=He%20theorised%20that%20electricity%20could,electricity%20supply%20were%20never%20realised.>
via wires?
my SF addled brain conjures a snow-piercer
<https://www.tntdrama.com/snowpiercer> style earth-circumscribing
rail-line... the pylons can be driven so deep into the earth's crust
that they are tapped into the earth's inner heat, the rails can be the
DC conduit Marcus suggests. There can be as many windmills and tidal
turbines placed along the line as one feels they
need/can-afford/stand-to-see as well as a PV/thermo solar continuous
collector/shade-roof which can also enhance gradient by radiating into
the (2.73-273 deg K
<https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/153839/what-is-the-temperature-of-the-clear-night-sky-from-the-surface-of-earth>)
sky at night. The Snowpiercer rail-cars can move (make them pneumatic
or evacuated-ballistic (~18mi/sec?)) physical goods and materials
continuously... (thank you Elon Musk). Mount a few Spinlaunch
<https://www.spinlaunch.com/> units on train units and squirt things
into orbit at-will?
Wait, maybe it can become a strip-city modeled on SA's "Line"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Line,_Saudi_Arabia>... at 100 miles
long and 9million population, the circumferential "line" would be 240
times as long and have a carrying capacity of >2 Billion based on their
predicted precedent. Place three of these orthogonal to one another
like an armillary sphere
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere> and we are up to 6B?
A modest bump in scale (cube root of 1.5) could accommodate 9B! A few
of us (DaveW, GaryS, ... myself) rebellious non-urban renegades could
live in the remaining landscape NOT covered by these 3 circumscribing
strip cities and live our lives in the spirit of Sean Connery's
character Zed in Zardoz <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070948/>!
Heck, just a nice precursor to Larry Niven's Ringworld
<https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11183/could-we-build-a-ringworld-17166651/>
tell Musk he can keep his claims to Mars... at least until the rest of
us need the mass to integrate into a proper Dyson Sphere
<https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a11098/dyson-sphere/>...
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 10:46 AM Gillian Densmore
> <gil.densmore at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> frank: ah! thanks. It seems like you've had 99 lives man.
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 12:28 AM Marcus Daniels
> <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>
> I like the idea of a large transatlantic DC power cable.
> That would enable solar power to be distributed around the
> world. It would reduce the need to depend on batteries for
> wind and solar. Of course, you raise #3, so it would be a
> target for sabotage like with Nordstream. It would be nice to
> think there are things just to valuable to destroy, but
> probably there are no such things.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of
> Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, December 16, 2022 12:01 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement
> What you are missing includes
> 1) Disposal of long term hazardous nuclear waste.
> 2) Problems in maintaining / decommissioning ol older nuclear
> fission plants
> 3) Examples like we are seeing Ukraine's nuclear plants caught
> up in a war.
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 2:59 AM Gillian Densmore
> <gil.densmore at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ok so this is cool and all.
> Sigh I'll ask /that/ question. We want less carbons
> because the planet is on f'n fire
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFgBFYkBZ6E> . As far as
> I know humans (in the very least) accelerated climate
> change. Ie we made this mess clean it up. ok fair so far
> I'm following.
> So uh why not just start with fission (breeders) ? Why not
> also put as much money into matter/anti matter as well as
> fusion? We can make minute amounts of antimatter in
> massive collider. I'd think something who's by product are
> xrays gamma and some other stuff with a lot of energy
> created would be a massive honney pot the department of
> energy would pursue as well.
> I know the answer to fission (sadly) is NIMBY. (yes but
> it's a lot cleaner and safer than oil and coal I say)
> I don't know why we haven't looked at other things as well
> What I'm saying is fusion has been humans icarus wings
> with it being just arround the corner for decades. while
> matter/anti matter is (sort of) here. Fission is here.
> Want zero carbons? cool! so why not build out a ton of
> reactors we already can do. Or am I missing something?
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 8:31 AM Marcus Daniels
> <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>
> How ICF might evolve into a power plant:
>
> https://firstlightfusion.com/technology/power-plant
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Dec 14, 2022, at 7:16 AM, glen
>> <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Excellent! Thanks. I think I'll have to push this
>> topic for another day. I've got a few more links from
>> other fora I'll plop here just in case I only land
>> back here if/when I pop it off the stack later:
>>
>> https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/magnetized-targets-boost-nif-implosion-performance
>> https://spie.org/news/nuclear-fusion-nifs-hall-of-mirrors-may-solve-worlds-energy-crisis?SSO=1
>> https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started
>> https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/what-enabled-the-big-boost-in-fusion-energy-announced-this-week/
>>
>> On 12/13/22 16:23, Steve Smith wrote:
>>> I think DT refers simply to the remaining fraction
>>> of Deuterium/Tritium remaining after the reaction
>>> event (-4%) without specific accounting for
>>> remaining D vs T.
>>> My understanding is that D-T fusion occurs at a
>>> lower temperature than D-D but that once fusion
>>> commences (starting with D-T), both D-T and D-D
>>> reactions occurring in similar amounts. In
>>> laser-driven ICF (as with NIF) I believe the ratio
>>> of D/T is nominally 50/50 though it would seem to
>>> make sense to have a higher T to D ratio but most
>>> references I see imply equal portions. An equal
>>> number of D-D and D-T reactions would seem to
>>> consume D more quickly, though as that commences,
>>> the D/T ratio would go down, making D-T reactions
>>> (yet) more likely... tricky business, no wonder it
>>> has taken decades to get to this point?
>>> The Wikipedia Entry on ICF is pretty good:
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion
>>> I found several popular science Articles which seem
>>> to reinforce my sense that this "breakthrough" is
>>> not as significant as implied:
>>> https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-breakthrough-nif-uh-not-really
>>> Other interesting/relevant links regarding D-T and
>>> D-D fusion...
>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263507001_Species_separation_and_modification_of_neutron_diagnostics_in_inertial-confinement_fusion/figures?lo=1
>>> https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsnuclear-fusion-reactions
>>> <https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsnuclear-fusion-reactions>
>>> https://science.jrank.org/pages/4732/Nuclear-Fusion-D-D-D-T-reactions.html
>>> <https://science.jrank.org/pages/4732/Nuclear-Fusion-D-D-D-T-reactions.html>
>>> On 12/13/22 4:36 PM, glen wrote:
>>>> That's why I asked. I guess I'll assume DT means
>>>> both deuterium and tritium, not just deuterium. If
>>>> you were going to track fuel use, you'd track the
>>>> rarer part more closely, right?
>>>>
>>>> On 12/13/22 09:22, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>>>> DT = deuterium?
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>>>
>>>>> 505 670-9918
>>>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 10:21 AM glen
>>>>> <gepropella at gmail.com
>>>>> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Awesome. Thanks. I'm still trying to catch up with
>>>>> the QC Wormhole kerfuffle. Who knew Quanta was so
>>>>> click baity?
>>>>>
>>>>> What is "DT"?
>>>>>
>>>>> On 12/13/22 09:02, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>> > In case no one wanted to get up at 7:00am to
>>>>> watch DOE administrators talk:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 1. Controlling the laser in space and time was
>>>>> important for maintaining symmetry. Timing
>>>>> precision of 25e-12 secs and laser spatial
>>>>> precision of 5e-12 meter were needed. This was
>>>>> thought to be the main explanation for the
>>>>> achievement.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 2. 8% more power on the laser this time
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 3. x-ray tomography is used to find flaws in the
>>>>> capsules. Developing software to do the counting.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 4. They have ongoing efforts to study the
>>>>> fabrication systems and their components (done in
>>>>> Germany) to find idiosyncrasies of each.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 5. Laser technology improvements since NIF was
>>>>> built which are 20% more efficient.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 6. Target cost is from labor, and it takes 7
>>>>> months each
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 7. 4% of DT is burned in a shot
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 8. Machine learning ties together radiation
>>>>> hydrodynamics and experimental data. (It sounded
>>>>> preliminary.)
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 9. The (successful) capsule had more defects
>>>>> than previous experiments. However, previous
>>>>> experiments did show benefits from capsule quality.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 10. 15% of experiments are indirect drive of
>>>>> this kind, 15% of experiments are other approaches
>>>>> to ignition. The rest are weapons and materials
>>>>> characterization.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 11. Anomalous laser directional control were
>>>>> problems in the summer runs. Fixed that.
>>
>>
>> --
>> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>>
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