Fusion

[MarkHB]

In a recent post, Scalzi (is that the correct mode of address? Lots of people seem to use it...) opined that the single most important technological gift to Humanity would be working fusion.

I'm working on animations for a multinational consortium named HiPER, which is a mainly-European effort to put together a working powerplant-type fusor, which is insanely cool for a jobbing freelancer like myself, but it's lead to some seriously whisky-fuelled speculation amongst us arty types doing the visualisation. Is this really the stuff to avert The Third World War? Is a government-run solution the answer? Would something like the late, great Robert Bussard's recently declassified fusion work be more suitable? Goodness knows it's a lot less mechanically complex, and he thought it was a proven system. Will the Powers that Be, all propped up in their petrol-powered dead-dinosaur-centric Machine of Global Dominationness permit an upstart successor to fossil fuels come into it's own while there's still icky black crap to sell?

Do you chaps and chapesses have opinions on this subject?

[Spherical Time]

I'm not quite sure what the subject is. I'm certainly opposed to a one world government, on this planet, anyway.

However, I would have to agree with Scalzi that fusion might be one of the greatest achievements of mankind, if we ever manage it.

Some of our greatest concerns (such as climate change and war) are dependent on the need for energy. Clean, easy energy would be phenomenally important to us.

[BillD]

I've held the opinion for almost 15 years (since high school when I first learned about the difference between fusion and fission) that we need to put our national resources behind fusion to the same degree as we did the Manhattan project or Apollo. Fusion is feasible with current technology; we just need to figure out how to make it actually work. Whether that's a bigger collider, more pressure, bigger lasers, or whatever, I'm sure that we can make it work if we put enough resources into it.

Once we have this nut cracked, it'll repay the investment almost instantly. Need water? Fusion desalination. Need car fuel? Use fusion to split water and create hydrogen. Oil will have more supply than demand when our only use for crude is as a base for some lubricants and plastics, which although as John Scalzi stated would make the middle east dynamic change drastically and in ways we cannot predict, would be good for almost everyone in the long run.

[MarkHB]

I guess one of the things I'd like to hear about are ways to explain fusion power to "normal" people. I'd guess pretty much anyone here's a generally smart and well-informed person about such matters - you are all, after all, presumably science fiction readers.

But most folk just "know" that Nooks R Bad - part of my job on this is teaching people that not only is fusion nonpolluting and doesn't result in greenhouse gas, but that it doesn't generate the radioactive wastes they're all so terrified of.

Over on one of the Bad Science blogs I read, I actually heard (can you believe it?) about someone who had lead flaps made for all their plug sockets when they learned their electricity was generated by nuclear power.

Does anyone have much experience with explaining to non-science types why it's not necessarily awful just 'cause it's got the word "nuclear" in it?

Apologies if I'm being a bit thumb-fingered with my posts here, this kind of forum's quite new to me.

[ora]

A friend of mine is now working at ITER, I'd be interested to hear how that and HiPER relate. Clearly one is a tokamak and the other an attempt at laser fusion but I hope they will/do talk to each other.

Also, are you doing communications for them? That would amuse me as I had a very similar job at CERN. There is only a small community doing comms for science, I'd not be surprised if we'd met! I worked with fusion scientists in Spain a fair bit, i think it was Madrid University though I'd have to go back and check.

[MarkHB]

HiPER is at least "spherical fusion" - as Dr. Bob (as I shall forever refer to Dr. Robert Bussard) said, how many toroidal stars have you seen lately? ;)

No disrespect to ITER - I hope they succeed. Hell, we all need *someone* to succeed - and to be honest, I've got reservations about the very complex manner in which HiPER approaches the subject, as well as it's D/T fuel mix resulting in thick sleets of neutron radiation per excitation.

To answer your question, I'm the freelance animator who got the job of visualising the whole tamale. This is partially because of my physics background, and partially because I'm tolerably good at shoving the odd polygon 'round. Symposia happen to other people - I'm so far below the line, I need a snorkel to have coffee poured into it by the daywalkers.

It's just such a fascinating and human-life-continuation-critical topic that I fancied talking about it with folk. What's your communications role with ITER? I'm intrigued.

[zizban]

Fusion is easy. You can make a fusion reactor with $500 of off the shelf parts.

It's fusion that generates more power than it consumes is the trick.

[MarkHB]

Truth. This is why I got so excited (as in "bouncing in my seat like a loon" excited) when Dr. Bob's talk with Google hit the interwebs. Two weeks later, I got the HiPER gig - go figure.

That said, using such a wonderful and incredible thing to boil a kettle and spin a turbine makes me facepalm just a teenty bit - something of a let-down to go from the guts of a star to a blimmin' steam engine. Ho hum.

[ora]

Hey mark

I don't work at ITER, though a friend just got a job there as an engineer. I used to work at CERN in Geneva, in communications for a big project there working on Grid computing, which may or may not be the next big thing. Oddly I have a bio background so my phys knowledge was all absorbed by osmosis. I did get to go down the LHC pit a bunch of times though and have some kickass photos to prove it!

Great that they have hired a graphics guru though, I worked with your equivalents at CERN and can put you in touch if need be. I was involved in this though its now a bit old http://www.gridcafe.org . CERN have also done some neat things like the virtual/video tour of the ATLAS experiment (http://virtualvisit.web.cern.ch/VirtualVisit/ATLAS/).

zizban, yes clearly, as we've had fusion bombs for some time and various other fusion devices, such as JET in the UK. As you say its the temperature and power output that is the problem. ITER and by the sound of it, HiPER, are aimed at this. That said, fusion has been 50 years away for almost 50 years now!

[ora]

Hiper on the bbc news site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7407963.stm

[MarkHB]

I find it quite interesting how the news reportage is slowly drifting away from "Aiiieeeee! Nuclear Radiationactive Horror Bombdeath Chernobyl!" to calm, factual reportage.

Hugely overdue, but interesting. Nosing around Vulcan with sketchbook and camera was a lot of fun. It's not every day you get to meet a 10 petawatt laser. I had to lock myself in my workroom for a few hours afterwards to let the diabolical cackling and drywashing-of-hands subside.

[ora]

Not really! You should see how many "The LHC will destroy the world!!!?&^%!!!!" sites and posts there have been, all with little to no basis in reality. Glad you are getting good coverage though!

[MarkHB]

Not really! You should see how many "The LHC will destroy the world!!!?&^%!!!!" sites and posts there have been, all with little to no basis in reality. Glad you are getting good coverage though!

I'm rather enamoured of the physicist who said there was a slender but nonzero chance that the LHC would create dragons which would eat us all, or words to that effect. Kinda reminds me of the Flying Spaghetti Monster school of pointing-and-laughing at silly things.

[pal_sch]

My advisor has worked with MASTand JEThere in the UK, and the department has links with both machines and ITER. They run us undergrads through a decent amount of the physics, so if anyone has questions as to the workings of the beasts, I should be able to answer them. Mostly deal with the Tokamaks (the word is in my spellcheck dictionary), but the principles are similar in spherical magnetic containment (MCF) reactors like MAST, and I've gone into Inertial Confinement(ICF), which is what HiPER looks like, in the past as well.

Looking at the communication stuff from the inside, most physicists seem to prepare what amounts to a stump speech. Find a few key facts and figures, complete with weird units (prices in Iraq war minutes, forces in Jumbo Jets, electrical power in Paris/days, etc) then mix them in with a technical description crafted to the audience. A lot of the people involved have a lot of passion for the projects and technology, but getting the ideas across is tough. See Greenpeaces position for an example. They seem to think that fusion would cause more nuclear proliferation, when the products aren't even fissionable, let alone fissile...

And half the audience tunes out...

But yeah, serious communication problems.

As for the tech side, while fusion is still 'fifty' (25-40 really) years away, the clock has been started now. There is a roadmap towards getting things burning that simply didn't exist ten years ago for lack of direction. Assuming there is someone to fit the bill (zeroed funding in the USA ATM) then it will happen.

[KJToo]

Can you even begin to imagine how disappointed I was to learn that this thread is not about a multi-bladed disposable razor?

I suspect you cannot.

[MarkHB]

Can you even begin to imagine how disappointed I was to learn that this thread is not about a multi-bladed disposable razor?

I suspect you cannot.

Really, no. Such emotional devastation is beyond the limited scope of my teeny tiny underdeveloped hypothalamus. But I feel in some way enriched by being part of your experience.

For that I thank you.

[MasterThief]

1. A large and plentiful source of power.
2. Faster than light travel.
3. Terraforming.

Name three things that will guarantee the future of the human race. Good to hear someone's working on #1 at least.

[MarkHB]

Yay, part of the job made the Beeb :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7655016.stm

Though I notice that Bussard's lot just got a research contract from the US Navy, which is also a great source of joy - I honestly thing the IEC type reactors will get there a lot faster than the laser-initiated stuff.

[kelson]

Anyone here ever peruse through http://www.fusor.net/ ?

I love those guys. Some of their basement/garage setups are amazin'.