jsbiff wrote:
We have this vast stockpile of spent nuclear fuel, which currently is a very long lived mess. The only way to deal with our spent fuel problem, is to reprocess and burn it, to make it a 200-300 year problem. The only way we're going to go to the expense to reprocess and burn the spent fuel, is if it is economical to do so. The only way it is economical to do so is if we use something like the IFR/PRISM reactor concept to be able to produce electricity and sell it at competitive prices while simultaneously getting rid of the long-lived waste - in effect, making it profitable to dispose of our spent fuel.
I agree this is problem. I would say though that there would still be ways to create incentive to burn used nuclear fuel after clean energy becomes more economical. I'm thinking about tax credits in particular, but there could be other ways of getting rid of it should that not work, such as regulation requiring each Polywell online that can do so must do a hybrid burn of some set portion of operation time.
In such a plan, the only problems to making it work are political motivation, which is what lobbyist exist for.
There a question posed on Linkedin about 2 yrs ago concerning Polywell, by a young lady studying @ the Saudi Petroleum Institute. Its clear the royal family knows what's coming, thru numerous statements over the last few yrs.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
Gandalfs Scenario 3: is odd. The population will not soars. More energy and material wealth means smaller families. The population will probably peek at 9 billions with no famines, epidemic or war. If you want lots of people keep them pore, with no electricity and education.
The Saudis specifically and the Arab princes in general are getting ridiculously wealthy by pumping oil for $2/bbl and selling it for $100+. I'm sure they are very sensitive to any threats to that gusher of easy money.
Inevitably someone is eventually going to figure out a way to make oil's equivalent for $10-20/bbl, and then their fun will mostly end. At least a few of them probably realize this.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...
jsbiff wrote:One thing I've mentioned before, and I'm going to mention it again - I think it's 'too soon' for fusion power. That might seem like crazy talk, but here's the reasoning:
We have this vast stockpile of spent nuclear fuel, which currently is a very long lived mess. The only way to deal with our spent fuel problem, is to reprocess and burn it, to make it a 200-300 year problem.
Actually, if the Polywell works as expected then interplanetary travel will be a smaller (or, at worst, similar) engineering problem. That capability means we can package up the hazardous waste and dump it someplace it can be properly recycled so it can't hurt anything ... the nearest stellar body.
TallDave wrote:Inevitably someone is eventually going to figure out a way to make oil's equivalent for $10-20/bbl, and then their fun will mostly end. At least a few of them probably realize this.
I would be very surprised if the same folks pumping oil are not already the ones putting large amounts of research into making the equivalent of oil. If it works they get to keep their profits, or at least enough of them to make it worth it.
TallDave wrote:The Saudis specifically and the Arab princes in general are getting ridiculously wealthy by pumping oil for $2/bbl and selling it for $100+. I'm sure they are very sensitive to any threats to that gusher of easy money.
Inevitably someone is eventually going to figure out a way to make oil's equivalent for $10-20/bbl, and then their fun will mostly end. At least a few of them probably realize this.
Members of the Saudi royal family were heavy investors in the MIGMA fusion effort several decades ago.
Another consideration is that a number of oil producers are investing in Natural Gas as the "Back Up Plan" for lost oil revenues. If Polywell flys, this also will be an issue for them, as they will have lost both primary income sources. I am not so sure that the alternate "International Banking and Tourism Center(s)" plan is going to hold water over time for the Gulf States.
Most all are already feeling a crunch as the minimum spending price of oil to sustain current government levels for them runs from $75 to $95 per barrell according to last year's study. The more unstable states tend to track higher in the price range to keep spending where they are. Also note that a number of them had already cut spending before the survey was done. They are digging holes.
Replacing fossil fuels is a complex and involved process. Demand may decrease with a working Polywell, but not disappear. I think Bussard estimated that with a Polywell replacing natural gas as the energy source for processing, fermenting, and distilling alcohol from various feed stocks, the cost would be ~ 75 cents per gallon or ~ $35 per barrel.
As far as producing hydrogen directly, the Polywell might greatly decrease the cost of the hydrogen, but that still leaves the lack of infrastructure for its distribution, its safty issues, it's very difficult storage issues (in cars), the high energy cost of liquifying it, etc, etc.
Biodesels is another fuel option that would spread the aviable resources for mobile fuel production, but all combined, it will be very difficult to replace most of the fuel that comes from petrolium. Fixed power generation (power plants) is a differnt story.
I would view it as something akin to the transition from whale oil to petroleum. It's something of an open question whether biofuels or synthetics will emerge as the primary alternative to getting oil out of the ground, but if we can get cheap fusion working the latter gets a significant boost, and also has the advantage of a more reliable supply (i.e. not dependent on varying crop yields).
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...
It might be useful to consider that the cost of production for petroleum does not drive the cost of refined fuels. This will allow the suppliers to adjust prices as a disincentive to capital investment in alternative fuels for a long time into the future. In this day and age there are no viable alternatives to petroleum in sufficient volume to drive the cost down. If Polywell is successful and if then alcohol can be produced at $35 per barrel, what price should petroleum be set to maximize the producer's profits? One obvious gambit would be for the petroleum producers to maintain high market prices until the first major alcohol production facility goes on-line then cut the price in that market area to $35 a barrel so that the alcohol production facility could not repay its debt. Once the facility fails and closes, the price could go back up.
Not saying this scenario would play but it is only one of many ways the existing producers could defeat competition to maintain their monopoly. Neither am I saying that we should not try to break the hold of that monopoly. I am saying that the petroleum producers will take action to maintain said monopoly and we should understand that.
The whole thing is similar to the current status of the EMC project. They are testing in the lab, Joel says the math says it will not work. Obviously what they have seen in the lab indicates it has a chance of working, what that chance may be is certainly up for conjecture unless you are getting Rick's update emails.
My money says that the increases in funding and effort speaks to an increase in the chances it will work.
April is getting close fast.
Once again, if it flys, I imagine that all sorts of folks are going to move fast to try and bring it to a full scale demonstrator, not just the navy.
The navy is going to have its own issues with program control, and the aquisitions process, that will probably lead to someone else outside of the navy moving faster than the navy/gov admin chains. I remain somewhat pessimistic of the system at large in this regard, and point to LCS, LPD17, JSF(Afloat) and multitudes of other programs. Given the potential of the project, I do not see it successfully going the route of a rapid aquisition, recall that big contracting has already been in the polywell mix in the past, and they will not have forgotten.
Back to the original point, if 8.1 gets a go, that means D-D is viable. That in turn will mean an external to navy player is likely to give a D-D demo a go before EMC. That in turn means that the oil/gas economies are going to take notice, and really get worried about how fast the revolution is going to come. We are talking bigger money than oil if it works. And when big money is involved, the race can heat up quickly and with less than rational thoughts. I realize that change takes time, but I also realize that technological revolution has proven out the willingness to ditch last year's cool thing quickly for this year's. Anyone still use a dot matrix printer? Who still makes vacuum tube TV's? Etc.
The cost/speed of return of D-D commercial plants are going to drive the speed of implementation, higher costs=slower process. PB&J is going to be another animal, cause that also changes the costs/concerns related to fuels and plant activation issues from fast n's. I think the economics are going to drive the implementation curve, and it has potential to be a high delta compared to sticking with oil/gas or going fission.
you know, with the "small" difference that I am not an arab sheik with billions of dollars in my bank account, I also live "afar" (south of Brazil, near Uruguay) and talk about Polywell with my friends
there is no such thing as "afar" in the 21st century internet world.
I wonder if Eike Batista would spend some money on the Polywell. He seems interested in any kind of energy sector thing, not only oil. Even though a large part of his money comes from oil and mining, it seems he wants to produce electric cars in Brazil... and he has 30 billion bucks...
aero, you seem to forget that a working polywell goes way beyond cheap alcohol production. There`s also the space sector for the advanced nations & there is desalination of salt-water for arid lands the oil shieks will be powerless to stop this.
Just from a power point of view you can start the argument with $200mil per new plant for Polywell (we'll say pb&j just for fun), plus onging operational costs (all the overhead, pers/maint/fuel/etc), and get a target revenue range to feed the plant.
So 1GW of power could be argued at x10 using a distributed power model of 100MW plants. These units would plug into the existing grid, and over time remove the need for long haul transmission lines and associated costs.
So what is the going cost to build and operate a conventional 1GW plant and 1 GW of fission?
Probably using 1GW as the target comparison point (as discussed in other go rounds on this) is a good starting point.
Using the 100MW version of Polywell, you could say then equates to $2billion to stand up 1GW. Of course we could shift the paradigm and argue for 250MW polywells as the distributed grid standard...and that would bring down the plant costs for 1GW as an economy of scale.
The delta between conventional/fission plants verses polywell is the starting point of the transition rate argument.
We would also have to factor in the possibilty of conversion of legacy plants to polywell as another cheaper alternative to introduction.
Add on top of this the alternate uses for desal, alcohol, etc, and you have a large driving force for change. Do not underestimate that all international strategic assessments rank access to fresh water as the next real global stress issue. Many think that there will be water wars, on to some degree some have already started.
zbarlici wrote:aero, you seem to forget that a working polywell goes way beyond cheap alcohol production. There`s also the space sector for the advanced nations & there is desalination of salt-water for arid lands the oil shieks will be powerless to stop this.
No, I didn't forget that. But the proposition had to do with competition in the oil business, not spaceships or fresh water. My conclusion is that petroleum will be pumped from the earth until there is not a drop left and the oil sheiks will remain very wealthy for a very long time.
There are many applications for Polywell, if it works, including ships, spacecraft, aircraft power, water desalinization, grid power, off-grid power, the list goes on and on. I don't think Polywell will suffer too much even if making alcohol doesn't pan out for one reason or another.
