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20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:27 pm
by CharlesKramer
5 years ago petroleum soared to unprecedented prices with unprecedented speed, seeming to validate the dire energy predictions of Matthew Simmons and others. The result was an unprecedented worldwide economic craseh which may have had more to do with energy than with banking.

At the same time, there was a surge in hope for practical, low-capital investment, decentralized, cheap and safe fusion energy. The big three (in fame, if nothing else) were probably Tri-Alpha (which, a few years later, was rumored to be on the verge of a big announcement), Focus Fusion (predicting proof of concept in a year or two) and of course Polywell (with Bussard claiming in a Google Talk that he *had* proved his approach, and all that was needed was to build a demo device).

Add 5 years:

-- Nebel gone from EMC2, Bussard dead

-- The claims made for Focus Fusion were at a minimum overly optimistic (never mind the practical problems to create a reliable many-times-a-minute pulse device for repeated and practical fusion)

-- TriAlpha's actual progress is as secretive (and possibly as non-existent) as ever -- except the rumors stopped.

I am aware of some modestly good news too. Possibly "progress" with Focus Fusion, and research that suggests p-11b fusion may produce 2x as many beta particles than previously hoped (increasing the chance of its value for electricity production). And the three efforts I mentioned and many others (and probably many that are not publicly known) are ongoing.

I'm not a scientist or (for that matter) a dedicated historian of fusion, and I will not quibble with anyone who feels the urge to re-write my summary. And, sure, in 5 years General Fusion (or someone) may make the announcement that will change history.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I would love to read some reasoned optimism), but don't all summaries lead to the same place? For now, the story of fusion remains what it has been since Spitzer's Stellarator of the 1950s: objects in the mirror are not as close as they appear. Unexpected problems continue to justify the joke "20 years away, and always will be."

Am I alone in feeling the hopes of 5 years ago were unjustified? The problem may be the understanding of the physics of fusion is fundamentally incomplete, or just wrong. The fact some fusion technologies are comparativelly cheap (single digit millions) makes all the more shocking there aren't more and better funded efforts.

Why not try Focus Fusion with 100 electrodes or 1000 or just 5? And each time with different alloys. That's the Tom Edison worker-bee approach (compared with Nikola Tesla who could do the math and figure out devices in his head) but fusion energy appears to have neither kind of genius at work.

CBK

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:18 pm
by ladajo
It may be better to measure knowledge progress over time vice success over time.

It may be fair to say that knowledge has advanced. Significantly in some cases. Does that mean it is going to worK? Nope, two different things.

I remain hopeful, and I point out that we are still on an exponential technology curve, and therefore I posit that as long as things are being worked on for real (ie. Not Rossi), then we are exponentially closer to a solution.

That said, it remains within the realm of possible that we may find ourselves plateauing in particle physics sometime down the road, and we will perpetuate a hlaf stepping process of never quite getting there. But, I think we are far from that now. We know there is still a bunch we don't know. I take that as a good sign.

Personally, I think Focus Fusion is going to hit a wall regarding materials.
I continue to think that EMC2 remains a viable bet.
Of Tri-Alpha, well it remains to be seen. But rumors seem to indicate they are still on an upcurve.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 10:46 pm
by crowberry
The short answer as to why we don't have fusion breakeven shown today is the totally inadequate level of fusion research funding for more than the last 30 years, as shown in this graph.
Image

This article published more than 10 years ago by Stephen O. Dean is a summary of 50 years of fusion research which describes the lack of adequate fusion funding.
Fusion has been certified as ready for engineering development for more than 20 years, but a weak-willed government has been unwilling to manage and fund the program to accomplish its avowed practical purpose.
http://fire.pppl.gov/us_fusion50yr_dean.pdf

The most detailed description of the problem with inadequate fusion research funding is given in Stephen O. Deans book
Search for the Ultimate Energy Source - A History of the U.S. Fusion Energy Program
http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2 ... 614-6037-4

Controlled fusion is a very hard problem to solve, which requires significant and stable funding to explore a broad range of ideas and concepts with expensive experiments. Unfortunately this has never happened so far and even the major research topics like tokamak and laser fusion have been underfunded. Many talented researches have worked on the problem and significant progress has been made in spite of the too low level of funding and the area of plasma physics has been developed. Most of the alternative fusion ideas have been killed just by lack of funding. Also the progress of the privately funded fusion research companies is limited by the level of funding that they have. General Fusion and Tri Alpha Energy have received more funding compared to the others, but if they make significant progress and want to step up their efforts, then they will also need to collect a new reound of funding in order to be able to go forward with commercialization of fusion energy.

The fact that EMC2 is funded by the US Navy is probably a great benefit for them, becase it has guaranteed a stable level of funding compared to the big fluctuations in the DOE fusion funding levels. Getting a Polywell to work is harder than suggested by Bussard according to the results by Convergent Scientific Inc., but it still seems to be possible. The control of the electron losses is very significant for the size of the reactor, angular momentum will probably decrease significantly spherical focussing, the creation of a stable virtual cathode by electron injection into the geometry is not easy. Even if EMC2 is not reporting anything on their progress there is a steady increase of Polywell knowledge from the Sydney group and Convergent Scientific.
http://convsci.com/sites/default/files/ ... ummary.pdf
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5159
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5158

The LPP device is so small and simple that they could progress rather fast if they had the needed funding availble which they don't.

Tri Alpha Energy does not have a home page, but that does not make them secretative. They have been very active in describing their work over the last four years in the Annual Meetings of the APS Division of Plasma Physics with a total of 67 contributions presented.

The JET tokamak has reached Q=0.65 and ITER is designed to reach Q=10. The interesting question is of course if some of the alternative concepts can reach Q=1 first and if they can produce a economically viable fusion reactor concept even before the first plasma is injected into ITER. This remains to be seen, but I think that the small fusion companies have a fair chance of reaching that goal.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 10:51 pm
by Skipjack
Dont forget MSNW and their fusion engine and General Fusion. Both have been making steady progress. MSNW has done so on a comparably small budget.
Then there is the newcomer, Lockheed with their high beta device and the french team with their compact laser based system. So things are still interesting as ever, even if things have taken a lot longer than anticipated.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 2:55 am
by CharlesKramer
"The JET tokamak has reached Q=0.65 and ITER is designed to reach Q=10."

I think expectations have been conditioned by semi-conductors, where chip consolidation and shrinking die size make improvement predictable and seemingly inevitable; just add more money.

Lyman Spitzer planned a fusion demo machine in the 1950s; but it didn't work out. Fusion has never worked out -- so far. It always looks close (a bigger machine, an injection of a little more energy, a tweaked configuration, use of different materials) but for every advance there has been a new obstacle.

The NiF fusion approach is following that pattern -- every new generation of device (NOVA, Shiva, the current NiF) -- is supposed to be the real deal, but it's like Bullwinkle promising "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." Presto, magico, alakazam!

But no rabbit.

NiF cost $5 billion OVER its original budget (which was in the billions) + $300m a year to operate. Perhaps fusion would have been better off if that money had been spent making a 1,000 dense plasma focus devices bloom, but no one knows what will work, and so far nothing has. The implication is fusion theory is just flawed or incomplete or both.

But not everything that is promising can be accomplished with more time and money. Fuel cells have had tons of research money and remain impractical for most uses (including for electric cars); and there are many other examples of "close, but no cigar" (for example, IBM's failure with bubble memory).

The stakes are so high, and the potential payoff so giant, I am surprised fusion has not gotten more research money. I certainly would favor giving it funding priority over just about everything -- not because success is inevitable, but because of the cost of failure.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 4:36 am
by ladajo
The fact that EMC2 is funded by the US Navy is probably a great benefit for them, becase it has guaranteed a stable level of funding compared to the big fluctuations in the DOE fusion funding levels.
Well, I don't know if I would say that. EMC2 has certainly had some drama over the years with navy money. That is what brought Bussard out in a public push for example.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:03 pm
by CharlesKramer
Are other companies investigating Polywell as a potential fusion generator?

If not, why not?

Isn't Polywell an old technology already proven useless? That's the skeptic view.

I'm not trying to start a heated debate; I love the idea the search for power for electric warships having as a side-effect a Polywell revolution in energy production. The military seems to "get" peak oil, and apparently (with an eye to long range logical needs) has considered coal-to-liquids and organic (grass to aviation fuel) sources. Perhaps the Navy's investment in Polywell is part of that.

But Bussard claimed Polywell's problems have been solved, and the research to prove him right are supposedly cheap.

Only he hasn't been proven right, and Polywell may prove to be ust another link in a chain (Farnsworth, Hirsch, Meeks, Bussard) that goes nowhere.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:21 pm
by kurt9
I hear what you guys are saying here. But I think this time its different.

The case of space launch is instructive here. There have been one or two private efforts to develop space launch since the late 70's, almost always flaky, and commercial space launch never went anywhere for like 30 years. Starting about 6-7 years ago, about 5 or so start-ups appeared. I told myself at the time that this is enough of them that one or two of them are likely to make it. My prediction turned out true within 4 years of this when SpaceX started putting up satellites for fee. I think the situation with fusion power is like that of commercial space launch about 2005. There are enough start-up players, with real people not flakes, that one or two of them are likely to be successful by the end of this decade.

Same for LENR. Yes I Know many of you think this is hogwash. However, again like hot fusion, there are enough start-ups, run by real people (forget about Rossi for now), that the phenomenon is real and that one or two of them ought to make it as well by the end of the decade.

Its been my experience that when there are enough start-ups in a particular field of endeavor, meaning at least 5 of them, that one of them does manage to make it within 5-7 years. I've seen this pattern in everything from bio-technology to materials science (scanning probe microscopy) to realize that this is a repeatable pattern.

BTW, I know Tri Alpha Energy is "bending metal" because I applied for a control system engineer job with them about 2 years ago, and was rejected because they had already hired someone. This job was for someone to design and program PLC-based control systems for their equipment.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 10:49 pm
by Skipjack
CharlesKramer wrote: The NiF fusion approach is following that pattern -- every new generation of device (NOVA, Shiva, the current NiF) -- is supposed to be the real deal, but it's like Bullwinkle promising "watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat." Presto, magico, alakazam!
NIF was never meant for fusion for energy. The concept is by design completely useless for that. Just think about the effort that goes into making a new Hohlraum for every
shot. Anyway everyone kinda knew that it was really a defense project that got financing through other channels and was sold as a true fusion effort to the gullible public. As you can see from recent announcements that is where it has now gone back to.

[quote=""kurt9"]BTW, I know Tri Alpha Energy is "bending metal" because I applied for a control system engineer job with them about 2 years ago, and was rejected because they had already hired someone. This job was for someone to design and program PLC-based control systems for their equipment.
[/quote]
Yes, they are working on a larger follow on device to their C2 system ( not sure, I think it is called C3 ?)

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 11:15 pm
by mvanwink5
If a reasonable person were to look at General Fusion's development and funding approach, pessimism would not make sense. Complete optimism though also would not be believable as the investors have not thrown a billion bucks at the project (yet). Instead funding has been judicious and staged as progress is made, but each stage is fully funded. So, General Fusion is making prudent speed. As far as I can see, the same can't be said for Polywell's funding, and I base that opinion on the skimping on electron gun size. Also I don't put much confidence in Convergent Scientific's model predictions on Polywell scaling, because if a model was able to reliably provide that level of prediction with any confidence there would be no need for a physical device.

So, fusion pessimism makes no sense nor does champaign cork popping optimism. For the dark horse fusion efforts, except for Polywell, the efforts are prudently fully funded and that bodes well for their possible success. I think we will have a significantly better read on prospects in a year for General Fusion (full scale plasma injection being the hold up).

Just my take on it.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 12:58 am
by Skipjack
mvanwink5 wrote:For the dark horse fusion efforts, except for Polywell, the efforts are prudently fully funded and that bodes well for their possible success.
MSNW/Helion is still looking for full funding for their "fusion engine". It is conceptually simillar to Tri Alphas approach, but much less ambitious. The simillarity to Tri Alpha might the reason why they have trouble getting funding, but I am not sure. They have had a steady, but low stream of funding through various spin off projects and grants. So I still give them a good chance.

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 1:48 am
by CharlesKramer
[quote="Skipjack"NIF was never meant for fusion for energy. The concept is by design completely useless for that[/quote]
Thanks. That's what I suspected - just 'cause it's SUCH a giant machine, all for imploding such a tiny target. And to produce steady energy it would need to be a pulse device, loading and imploding new targets probably multiple times a minute (I have no idea how often).

Still... to my non-physicist brain the failure (so far) of NiF may signify a bigger problem. NiF was *expected* to work --- based on theory that was honed on decades of similar laser experiments (NiF's many predecessors, "Shiva" etc.)

NiF's problems may be NiF-specific (how to aim lasers for a symmetrical impolsion, or whatever the problem is), or it could mean something is wrong with fusion theory. Am I being unfair or unduly pessimistic?

I grew up in the 1960s -- I'm still waiting for the flying cars promised by the Jetson's and Popular Science Magazine. :)

CBK

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 3:47 am
by Skipjack
CharlesKramer wrote:
Skipjack wrote:NIF was never meant for fusion for energy. The concept is by design completely useless for that
Thanks. That's what I suspected - just 'cause it's SUCH a giant machine, all for imploding such a tiny target. And to produce steady energy it would need to be a pulse device, loading and imploding new targets probably multiple times a minute (I have no idea how often).

Still... to my non-physicist brain the failure (so far) of NiF may signify a bigger problem. NiF was *expected* to work --- based on theory that was honed on decades of similar laser experiments (NiF's many predecessors, "Shiva" etc.)

NiF's problems may be NiF-specific (how to aim lasers for a symmetrical impolsion, or whatever the problem is), or it could mean something is wrong with fusion theory. Am I being unfair or unduly pessimistic?

I grew up in the 1960s -- I'm still waiting for the flying cars promised by the Jetson's and Popular Science Magazine. :)
CBK
I think that the approach was doomed from the start. There are other approaches that are simpler, yet similar that have more promise. I would not completely rule laser based fusion out. But this approach was definitely the wrong one from the start (for energy, it is still a good one for nuclear weapons research, which is what this thing was built for to begin with).

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 11:59 pm
by CharlesKramer
Skipjack wrote:I would not completely rule laser based fusion out. But this approach was definitely the wrong one from the start (for energy, it is still a good one for nuclear weapons research, which is what this thing was built for to begin with).
The article excerpted below suggests NiF was created initially for fusion, and that weapons simulation was a rationalization appended later.

However fundamentally different other fusion approaches (Polywell, ITER, etc.) are from NiF, the fact NiF was confident of success based on theory and calculation -- and failed -- is not good news for them either.

The flip is likely also true -- if NiF becomes the first to achieve ignition, it will mean it is achievable and maybe fusion scientists really do have a clue.

CBK
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/ene ... oondoggles

National Ignition Facility: Mother of All Boondoggles?
excerpt

Five billion dollars over its original budget and years behind schedule, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) deserves to be recognized as perhaps the biggest and fattest white elephant of all time. The giant laser facility at Lawrence Livermore Lab in California first was conceived as a major project to demonstrate one of two alternative paths to harnessing the "energy of the stars" for power production, which is called inertial confinement fusion (the other, somewhat more credible path being magnetic confinement fusion).

Years ago, when the energy rationale for laser fusion began to look a little implausible and the projected cost of NIF already had ballooned from $2 billion to $4 billion, its promoters began to sell it to Congress and the Department of Energy as a means of simulation-testing nuclear weapons. The idea that the reliability of nuclear warheads could be evaluated by making laser beams collide in a microscopic point may never have seemed very plausible to the average layperson. As it happens, it didn't seem very plausible to most experts either: Richard Garwin, for decades the most highly regarded independent specialist on nuclear weaponry in the United States, told IEEE Spectrum six years ago that it would be "a mistake to assume that NIF experiments are going to be directly relevant to weapons testing.The temperatures in the NIF chamber are much lower than they are in actual nuclear weapons, and the amounts of material being tested are much smaller." But that didn't stop the U.S. Department of Energy from recommending the project and Congress from funding it.

With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion, the laboratory has been pulling out all the stops to claim success is just around the corner. At the beginning of July, it announced that 15 years of work had paid off in "an historic record-breaking laser shot," in which 192 beams delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to its target." The lab's leaders predict that "ignition"-—the point where the 192 lasers actually deliver more energy than they consume—could occur as early as next year.

But "next year" already is years behind schedule, and so far, as William Broad reported in the New York Times last week, NIF simply "has not worked."

Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:24 am
by Skipjack
CharlesKramer wrote:
Skipjack wrote:I would not completely rule laser based fusion out. But this approach was definitely the wrong one from the start (for energy, it is still a good one for nuclear weapons research, which is what this thing was built for to begin with).
The article excerpted below suggests NiF was created initially for fusion, and that weapons simulation was a rationalization appended later.
Then that article is wrong and simply quoting the public relations message fed to the general public. Pretty much everyone in the field knows that NIF was never serious about being an energy research project. If they were, they would have chosen a different approach. The main purpose of this approach is to use it for nuclear weapons research.