Fusion Deception

[Jccarlton]

Joe, I hate to break your bubble, TOKes are never going to be a viable technology. How do I know? Because the head of The Princeton Plasma Physics told me that in response to my direct question whe he was doing a presentation on the latest work on the TFTR about 14 years ago now at Jefferson lab where I was working as a designer at the time. Ihave to say I was disappointed by his answers to my questions and nothing I have seen has changed those answers. TOKes are at this point just an expensive scientific jobs program.

You are a very impressionable man.
Someone said bad words about his past wife with whom he lived 14 years ago. Another man was disappointed with that woman after those words.

Have you other arguments? All the more, if you really are/was a designer in organization allowing you the communication with the head of such (TFTR) program.
So, you should have some skill allowing you to think independently and not repeat here the opinion of others.
I brought you my own opinion (bubble ) well stated on facts and very simple reasonings. But instead I am receiving only “apostle said that there (TFTR) was only the job for salary”. May be and may be that man has another reason to say so.

Joe, you made a pointless appeal to nameless authority ie the people at DOE, which if had bothered to check, was my employer at the time as Jefferson Lab is a major nuclear physics facility and part of DOE. Now as part of the ongoing activities people from other DOE facilities would come down and give presentations on the work that they were doing. These presentations were pure geekdom with heavyweights and no slack for ingorance. They were also a lot of fun. In any case after the presentation I asked "How long will it take to build a net power reactor?" The answer, "50 years." I then asked "If you had all the funding you wanted how long?" The answer,"50 years because there are so many things we don't know and there isn't really any way to speed up fundamental science." Las time I saw anybody quote a timeline it was still 50 years. Now you tell me how that makes TOKAMAK technology anything other than a jobs program for physicists. That was obvious then and it's still the same now. Now I have been there and you have, not. I asked direct questions and based my conclusions based both on my professional experience and education. Time has borne those conclusions out. I don't think that makes me impressionable and I have a long track record with this stuff in which I'm usually right.

[Joseph Chikva]

Joe, you made a pointless appeal to nameless authority ie the people at DOE, which if had bothered to check, was my employer at the time as Jefferson Lab is a major nuclear physics facility and part of DOE.

My English is bad but:
• can you say “pointless appeal” when we should recognize the fact that DOE heavily finances TOKAMAK program for decades? Not to list how many different machines were constructed and still being under construction (ITER) during this time period?
• “nameless authority”? I am familiar with Dr. Mark Koepke – the former head of Fusion Science Office of DOE who has returned to academic activity, Dr. Albert Opdenaker , etc.

In any case after the presentation I asked "How long will it take to build a net power reactor?" The answer, "50 years." I then asked "If you had all the funding you wanted how long?" The answer,"50 years because there are so many things we don't know and there isn't really any way to speed up fundamental science." Las time I saw anybody quote a timeline it was still 50 years.

Yes, today TOKAMAK people know how to confine dense enough plasma long enough time nt product exceeds desired goal 1.5E20 s/m3.
But they do not know how to heat plasma till ignition temperature.
Now I am asking you if:
• anybody (e.g. me viewtopic.php?t=4075 ) would invent the method of increasing temperature
• at the same time not breaking the confinement
• and at the same time refusing technically very unjustified way of heating by beam of neutrals, meaning direct connection of the gas filled chamber (neutralizer) with the vacuum camera (reactor)
would TOKAMAK become viable right now?

]

[choff]

emc2's site says under construction and coming soon again.

[Joseph Chikva]

emc2's site says under construction and coming soon again.

I am so happy.

[KitemanSA]

emc2's site says under construction and coming soon again.

EMC2Fusion.org is still up and running.
EMC2.com has the same countdown to Feb 28, 2013 it has had for a year.
EMC2Fusion.com has been under construction for as long as I can remember.

Seems EMC2FDC got $1000 from NMCF in 2009 and $20,000 in 2011!

[MSimon]

The Tokamak is unviable.

Have you ever heared about Lawson criterion? And if yes, please inform me which machine overcome that?

Also be noted that TOKAMAK's idea is simple enough - not more complex than Polywell, which would not be cheaper in case of comparable scale machine.
First table-top TOKAMAKs also were rather cheap.

And which machine does not need to?

===============

The show stopper. Neutron economy. Or lack of.

[Joseph Chikva]

And which machine does not need to?

For producing net power every fusion machine should overcome some limit defined with number density, confinement time and some parameter describing plasma reactivity.
Lawson on 60s or 70s of last century thought up criterion expressed as product of number density and confinement time.
He meant that overcoming that value machine would reach the self-sustained mode - alpha heating will be equal or higher than energy losses.
For DT reaction calculated by him value was 1.5E20 s/m3.
Now typical number density for TOKAMAKs 2E20 m^-3 and confinement time has minutes order and therefore achieved double product higher than Lawson criterion on 1-2 orders. But nevertheless due to low achieved temperature reactivity of plasma is still low, therefore alpha heating value is still low and self-sustained mode (ignition) was never achieved.
At the same time TOKAMAKs have heating power limitations, exceeding which they will leave stability area. For example ITER has projected Plasma Stored Energy 520 MJ and total Heating power 70 MW.
So, neglecting any losses ITER needs 7.4 s for increasing plasma temperature till value required for ignition. In reality (taking into account losses) very likely that ITER will not achieve ignition too.

And this is a real TOKAMAK problem and not cost.
Because for example MIT institute has experience in design and building of compact high field TOKAMAKs using conventional conductors.
This dramatically (on orders of magnitude) reduces cost and siplifies design - no huge criostate needed.
And energy balance would not be much worse.
But today they do not know how to heat plasma quiqly and are waiting for new ideas.
Parallely the are checking technical solutions of first wall, tritium breeding modules, etc.

Nevertheless:

In 1986 it produced the first 'supershots' which produced many more fusion neutrons.[1]

In 1994 it produced a then world-record 10.7 megawatts of fusion power from a plasma composed of equal parts of deuterium and tritium (exceeded at JET in the UK, which generated 16MW for 22MW input in 1997, which is the current record).

Which machine has achieved these results?
Eight generation of Polywell? Laughable, as even scaling was never shown by Polywell. "Due degasing of small sizes machine" -Dr. Nebel said. Very questionable. As any size TOKAMAK always showed the certain scaling - not the ideal law you like: ~B^4 but there always was some regularity.

[Torulf2]

Charles Seife had a easy job. All the arguments already are out there. The tokamak people regularly dismiss all kinds of alternative fusion.
And from the alternative fusion people there are lots of good arguments against the tokamak.
From nearly all people there are lots of arguments against cool fusion. Seife only have to put together the pre writhen opinions.

[Joseph Chikva]

Charles Seife had a easy job. All the arguments already are out there. The tokamak people regularly dismiss all kinds of alternative fusion.
And from the alternative fusion people there are lots of good arguments against the tokamak.
From nearly all people there are lots of arguments against cool fusion. Seife only have to put together the pre writhen opinions.

Not TOKAMAK people but TOKAMAK results together with abcense of similar results and positive forecast of other approaches except may be Heavy Ions Fusion. But the last may be even more costly.

And "good arguments" against TOKAMAK may come from lack of knowledge. What background Mr. Seife has? Who is he?

[jcoady]

http://coldfusionnow.org/charles-seife- ... ld-fusion/

[jcoady]

http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index ... reputation

[Joseph Chikva]

That's all? Not much. And I can't see "good arguments". Only gossips: USA refused, USA agreed, there was a budget overexpenditure, etc. Most likely he really is more journalist than scientist.

[kcdodd]

Fusion energy will just appear one day, seemingly out of nowhere. But you won't predict when. When I first saw this guys book, I read the description, and decided it would be a waste of money and time to read. Ironic.

[ladajo]

I have to agree with Carter on this.
Viability will come, and it won't be from ITER. It will come to the public at large come from something they did not know about.

ITER is a really cool waste of resources.
It may even work, and show "net". But that does not mean it is not a realyl cool waste of resourses.

[Joseph Chikva]

I have to agree with Carter on this.
Viability will come, and it won't be from ITER. It will come to the public at large come from something they did not know about.

ITER is a really cool waste of resources.
It may even work, and show "net". But that does not mean it is not a realyl cool waste of resourses.

What they did not know?
Every man involved in ITER program or planned and still planning that by definition is extremely knowledgeable and skilled in his field.

For example, you - high rank military man of US NAVY. Can anybody do your job better than you? But layman coming from the street can say: that NAVY program is a cool waste of resources. What you would answer? I think that only smile.
We (you and me) can discuss about expediency of e.g. railgun for NAVY or about guidance systems. And we did. As I am engineer and you are real user.

But nobody can do your job better than you - to command your team (crew) and similar, to keep permanent readiness of ships and weapon systems and so on.

Similarly, decision making people know better than you and me what decisions they make. And how to make. Because that is their job.
You would propose to Fusion Office of DOE Polywell, Helion, Focus Fusion, they would say you "thanks".
But recall that Heavy Ions Fusion proposal is not new but comes from 70s of last century, initial phase for Polywell was financed with questionable results, focus fusion is not new too. And people are aware with all those.

Can you advise them which program would be less waste of resources?
And about which recourses you bother? If to recall how much money is spent in show business, sport, art, military? Not trillions every year? And many people can say you that all mentioned also are waste of recourses.