UW fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal

[bripat9643]

Fusion is, like nuclear, potentially a wonderful clean, green form of energy production.

The key word here is safety, and I think we are some years away from harnessing safe fusion energy.

Saying that nuclear power is clean is a little naïve in my opinion. Nuclear stations release radioactive isotopes into the air and water as part of production. The spent fuel is the most toxic substance on Earth. The subject of nuclear waste is one of the first things I thought Obama wrong on. He folded to Harry Reid's pressure and closed Yucca Mountain wasting billions of US dollars. He said there were alternatives but none of those materialized as with a lot of what Obama says. So now the most toxic of substances is piling up on nuclear sites some within close proximity of urban areas. It is stupid and it is dangerous. Just a accident waiting to happen, and it will.

I just hope if they develop fusion that any risk is definitely taken into consideration before hand.

The risk from a fusion reactor is far less than the risk from a coal fired or gas fired power plant. Both of the later sources are flammable and even explosive.

 

[Freewill]

I was around before they had commercial nuclear power. I remember the selling points. Absolutely fail safe. Electricity so cheap it would not be metered. And plentiful power. Only the last turned out to be true. Nuclear is very expensive power. And it is a point source, easily shut down either at the point of generation, or somewhere in the transmission. The alternatives are less costly, and closer to the places where the electricity is used. Nuclear has a place in the mix, but it is not viable as the sole source of our power.

I worked at the first commercial nuclear station so I know what you say is true. The thing that killed nuclear was Three Mile Island. It stopped new construction and cost the utilities, consumers, a boat load of money. After TM the cost of nuclear went through the roof.

As for cost you are correct:

Table 8.4. Average Power Plant Operating Expenses for Major U.S. Investor-Owned Electric Utilities, 2002 through 2012 (Mills per Kilowatthour)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Operation	Maintenance
Year	Nuclear	Fossil Steam	Hydro-electric	Gas Turbine and Small Scale	Nuclear	Fossil Steam	Hydro-electric	Gas Turbine and Small Scale
2002	9.00	2.59	3.71	3.26	5.04	2.67	2.62	2.38
2003	9.12	2.74	3.47	3.50	5.23	2.72	2.32	2.26
2004	8.97	3.13	3.83	4.27	5.38	2.96	2.76	2.14
2005	8.26	3.21	3.95	3.69	5.27	2.98	2.73	1.89
2006	9.03	3.57	3.76	3.51	5.69	3.19	2.70	2.16
2007	9.54	3.63	5.44	3.26	5.79	3.37	3.87	2.42
2008	9.89	3.72	5.78	3.77	6.20	3.59	3.89	2.72
2009	10.00	4.23	4.88	3.05	6.34	3.96	3.50	2.58
2010	10.50	4.04	5.33	2.79	6.80	3.99	3.81	2.73
2011	10.89	4.02	5.13	2.81	6.80	3.99	3.74	2.93
2012	11.60	3.73	6.71	2.46	6.80	3.99	4.63	2.76

[THEAD] [/THEAD]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

SAS Output

Not sure about your "point source" comment. Close to where I live there is a nuclear station and a coal station right next to each other. They would both be "point sources." Never the less both could be shut down at the source regardless of location.

As for reliability, doing a google I came up with these numbers from a UK site:

wind farms have an assumed availability at peak of 10%
Solar power is an intermittent energy source.
hydroelectric power stations have an assumed availability at peak of 60%.
nuclear power stations have an assumed availability at peak of 75%.
gas-fired power stations have an assumed availability at peak of 90%
coal-fired power stations have an assumed availability at peak of 90%.
oil-fired power stations have an assumed availability at peak of 80%.

So it seems that one of the cheapest most reliable sources is what we are shutting down. Nuclear is good and reliable with an output that is very predictable. One of the major metrics in measuring nuclear performance is on line time. Which really is the only way nuclear is viable. Short outages and nice long on line times.

You expect us to accept an Obama managed source of information? The government is about as credible as Pravda was during the Soviet era.

Accept nothing, but prove it wrong.

 

[bripat9643]

Fusion is, like nuclear, potentially a wonderful clean, green form of energy production.

The key word here is safety, and I think we are some years away from harnessing safe fusion energy.

You obviously don't know jack shit about fusion. Safety isn't an issue whatsoever with fusion. The fuel is various forms of Hydrogen, all of which are completely safe. There are no fissionable byproducts. The issue is getting it to work.

I don't know a great deal about fusion, but I understand enough to know - as with any form of energy production - safety IS a factor.

"In the magnetic approach, strong fields are developed in coils that are held in place mechanically by the reactor structure. Failure of this structure could release this tension and allow the magnet to "explode" outward. The severity of this event would be similar to any other industrial accident or an MRI machine quench/explosion, and could be effectively stopped with a containment building similar to those used in existing (fission) nuclear generators. The laser-driven inertial approach is generally lower-stress. Although failure of the reaction chamber is possible, simply stopping fuel delivery would prevent any sort of catastrophic failure.

"Most reactor designs rely on the use of liquid lithium as both a coolant and a method for converting stray neutrons from the reaction into tritium, which is fed back into the reactor as fuel. Lithium is highly flammable, and in the case of a fire it is possible that the lithium stored on-site could be burned up and escape. In this case the tritium contents of the lithium would be released into the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. However, calculations suggest that at about 1 kg the total amount of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power plant would be so small that they would have diluted to legally acceptable limits by the time they blew as far as the plant's perimeter fence.[135]

"The likelihood of small industrial accidents including the local release of radioactivity and injury to staff cannot be estimated yet. These would include accidental releases of lithium, tritium, or mis-handling of decommissioned radioactive components of the reactor itself.

Fusion power - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Fusion doesn't need a containment building because there's nothing to contain. There is also no possibility of a runaway reaction. If anything breaks, the reactor stops working immediately.

Any amount of Tritium stored on the site of a fusion reactor would be small, since not much is needed to fuel the reactor. The toxicity of Tritium is also low.

Tritium - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, which allows it to readily bind to hydroxyl radicals, forming tritiated water (HTO), and to carbon atoms. Since tritium is a low energy beta emitter, it is not dangerous externally (its beta particles are unable to penetrate the skin),[19] but it is a radiation hazard when inhaled, ingested via food or water, or absorbed through the skin.[20][21][22][23] HTO has a short biological half-life in the human body of 7 to 14 days, which both reduces the total effects of single-incident ingestion and precludes long-term bioaccumulation of HTO from the environment.[22][24] Biological half life of tritiated water in human body, which is a measure of body water turn over, varies with season. Studies on biological half life of occupational radiation workers for free water tritium in the coastal region of Karnataka, India show that the biological half life in winter season is twice that of the summer season.[25]

 

[Freewill]

Fusion is, like nuclear, potentially a wonderful clean, green form of energy production.

The key word here is safety, and I think we are some years away from harnessing safe fusion energy.

Saying that nuclear power is clean is a little naïve in my opinion. Nuclear stations release radioactive isotopes into the air and water as part of production. The spent fuel is the most toxic substance on Earth. The subject of nuclear waste is one of the first things I thought Obama wrong on. He folded to Harry Reid's pressure and closed Yucca Mountain wasting billions of US dollars. He said there were alternatives but none of those materialized as with a lot of what Obama says. So now the most toxic of substances is piling up on nuclear sites some within close proximity of urban areas. It is stupid and it is dangerous. Just a accident waiting to happen, and it will.

I just hope if they develop fusion that any risk is definitely taken into consideration before hand.

The risk from a fusion reactor is far less than the risk from a coal fired or gas fired power plant. Both of the later sources are flammable and even explosive.

How can you know that? Commercial fusion is still in the future and as mentioned the promises of commercial nuclear were just about the same.

 

[bripat9643]

Fusion is, like nuclear, potentially a wonderful clean, green form of energy production.

The key word here is safety, and I think we are some years away from harnessing safe fusion energy.

Saying that nuclear power is clean is a little naïve in my opinion. Nuclear stations release radioactive isotopes into the air and water as part of production. The spent fuel is the most toxic substance on Earth. The subject of nuclear waste is one of the first things I thought Obama wrong on. He folded to Harry Reid's pressure and closed Yucca Mountain wasting billions of US dollars. He said there were alternatives but none of those materialized as with a lot of what Obama says. So now the most toxic of substances is piling up on nuclear sites some within close proximity of urban areas. It is stupid and it is dangerous. Just a accident waiting to happen, and it will.

I just hope if they develop fusion that any risk is definitely taken into consideration before hand.

The risk from a fusion reactor is far less than the risk from a coal fired or gas fired power plant. Both of the later sources are flammable and even explosive.

How can you know that? Commercial fusion is still in the future and as mentioned the promises of commercial nuclear were just about the same.

We know because fusion doesn't require tons of highly radioactive substances to function. It also doesn't produce tons of radioactive by-products with long half-lives, such as plutonium. If anything goes wrong, the reactor will immediately shut down. It's impossible for it to explode or go critical.

According to the article, fusion could be commercially viable in a few years.

 

[konradv]

How much do you want to bet that the eco-wackos will also object to cheap, clean fusion power?

UW fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal

Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven't penciled out. Fusion power designs aren't cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

"Right now, this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current concept," said Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics.

. . . . . . . . .

The UW researchers factored the cost of building a fusion reactor power plant using their design and compared that with building a coal power plant. They used a metric called "overnight capital costs," which includes all costs, particularly startup infrastructure fees. A fusion power plant producing 1 gigawatt (1 billion watts) of power would cost $2.7 billion, while a coal plant of the same output would cost $2.8 billion, according to their analysis.

"If we do invest in this type of fusion, we could be rewarded because the commercial reactor unit already looks economical," Sutherland said. "It's very exciting." ​

You're kind of late to the party. Fusion power has been touted for decades as clean, nearly limitless and a source of hydrogen for other uses. Leave it to you to act like it's something you just discovered and use it to bash people you don't like.

ITER - the way to new energy

What's new is the fact that this design appears to be commercially viable. Up to now all designs have consumed more power than they produced. Liberals haven't been confronted with the possibility of commercially viable fusion power until now. That's the only reason they haven't been complaining about it. The minute any corporation starts to build one, the usual culprits will appear to protest.

In short, you're an idiot who didn't get the point of the story.

Because there is no point, except that you are assuming things that are unlikely to be true. Fusion would be cleaner than coal or fission, what's not for a liberal to like? I don't really see anything that most would protest about. This appears to be mostly a figment of your imagination. You've fallen for the notion that people don't just disagree with you, but that they actively want to hurt you.

 

[bripat9643]

How much do you want to bet that the eco-wackos will also object to cheap, clean fusion power?

UW fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal

Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven't penciled out. Fusion power designs aren't cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

"Right now, this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current concept," said Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics.

. . . . . . . . .

The UW researchers factored the cost of building a fusion reactor power plant using their design and compared that with building a coal power plant. They used a metric called "overnight capital costs," which includes all costs, particularly startup infrastructure fees. A fusion power plant producing 1 gigawatt (1 billion watts) of power would cost $2.7 billion, while a coal plant of the same output would cost $2.8 billion, according to their analysis.

"If we do invest in this type of fusion, we could be rewarded because the commercial reactor unit already looks economical," Sutherland said. "It's very exciting." ​

You're kind of late to the party. Fusion power has been touted for decades as clean, nearly limitless and a source of hydrogen for other uses. Leave it to you to act like it's something you just discovered and use it to bash people you don't like.

ITER - the way to new energy

What's new is the fact that this design appears to be commercially viable. Up to now all designs have consumed more power than they produced. Liberals haven't been confronted with the possibility of commercially viable fusion power until now. That's the only reason they haven't been complaining about it. The minute any corporation starts to build one, the usual culprits will appear to protest.

In short, you're an idiot who didn't get the point of the story.

Because there is no point, except that you are assuming things that are unlikely to be true. Fusion would be cleaner than coal or fission, what's not for a liberal to like? I don't really see anything that most would protest about. This appears to be mostly a figment of your imagination. You've fallen for the notion that people don't just disagree with you, but that they actively want to hurt you.

I assume nothing.

What liberals are really against is the availability of cheap energy that allows the human race to increase its standard of living. Hysteria about global warming is really just a canard to mask their true agenda - destroying the industrial economy.

 

[mamooth]

Bri, you're acting like a delusional conspiracy kook. Just thought you should know.

Fusion has been "just around the corner" for the past 50 years. And will probably be "just around the corner" for the next 50 years. Putting all your eggs in a fantasy basket would be dumb.

Now, to address some sensible people.

So now the most toxic of substances is piling up on nuclear sites some within close proximity of urban areas. It is stupid and it is dangerous. Just a accident waiting to happen, and it will.

It's actually not a problem at all, which is why the NRC just approved indefinite on-site dry cask storage. There's no need for a national repository like Yucca mountain.

Dry cask. That means the spent fuel sits in the pool for 2-3 years until most of the decay heat decays away. Then it's sealed in a stainless steel container and stacked up in a guarded building. And that's fine. It doesn't have enough heat left in it to melt or cause a fire. It can't go critical. It's not a radiation hazard, unless you try to sleep on the pile every night.

Worst case, an airplane crashes into it or someone plants a bomb ... not much happens. Inside the stainless steel tube, the fuel is inside another layer of cladding. And inside that, the fuel is sealed in ceramic pellets. An explosion would just toss them about. It can't be like Fukushima, where the pellets self-ignited from decay heat and released their contents.

Zero risk? No. But we live near many other stored things that are far more dangerous.

 

[bripat9643]

Bri, you're acting like a delusional conspiracy kook. Just thought you should know.

Fusion has been "just around the corner" for the past 50 years. And will probably be "just around the corner" for the next 50 years. Putting all your eggs in a fantasy basket would be dumb.

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now. You're obviously just an ignorant blowhard.

Now, to address some sensible people.

So now the most toxic of substances is piling up on nuclear sites some within close proximity of urban areas. It is stupid and it is dangerous. Just a accident waiting to happen, and it will.

It's actually not a problem at all, which is why the NRC just approved indefinite on-site dry cask storage. There's no need for a national repository like Yucca mountain.

Dry cask. That means the spent fuel sits in the pool for 2-3 years until most of the decay heat decays away. Then it's sealed in a stainless steel container and stacked up in a guarded building. And that's fine. It doesn't have enough heat left in it to melt or cause a fire. It can't go critical. It's not a radiation hazard, unless you try to sleep on the pile every night.

Worst case, an airplane crashes into it or someone plants a bomb ... not much happens. Inside the stainless steel tube, the fuel is inside another layer of cladding. And inside that, the fuel is sealed in ceramic pellets. An explosion would just toss them about. It can't be like Fukushima, where the pellets self-ignited from decay heat and released their contents.

Zero risk? No. But we live near many other stored things that are far more dangerous.

This thread is about commercial feasible fusion power, not traditional nuclear power. I'll notify the sysops that you're trying to hijack the thread.

 

[konradv]

What liberals are really against is the availability of cheap energy that allows the human race to increase its standard of living. Hysteria about global warming is really just a canard to mask their true agenda - destroying the industrial economy.

You're a moronic LIAR. I, for one, have been posting about fusion for years. Where have you been?

 

[bripat9643]

What liberals are really against is the availability of cheap energy that allows the human race to increase its standard of living. Hysteria about global warming is really just a canard to mask their true agenda - destroying the industrial economy.

You're a moronic LIAR. I, for one, have been posting about fusion for years. Where have you been?

If you claimed fusion power was "just around the corner," then you're an idiot, because no one working on the technology ever made such a claim before.

Fusion isn't commercially feasible yet. There are plenty of eco-Nazis even more radical than you. Let's just wait and see what happens when they start building a commercial fusion reactor. I will bet an entire paycheck that some eco-turds will be on the site protesting.

 

[Moonglow]

The only fusion reactors we know of now is the Sun and stars in the galaxies..
Fission is ok and still cheaper than gas and coal...

 

[mamooth]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

 

[Moonglow]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

They are selling shares for this protege energy form also..

 

[konradv]

If you claimed fusion power was "just around the corner," then you're an idiot, because no one working on the technology ever made such a claim before.

Fusion isn't commercially feasible yet. There are plenty of eco-Nazis even more radical than you. Let's just wait and see what happens when they start building a commercial fusion reactor. I will bet an entire paycheck that some eco-turds will be on the site protesting.

What's this all about? Just another way to create a spurious charge so you can call someone an idiot? It's amazing how you can ignore articles for years and now you want to act like you were the first to adopt the idea. Your question just shows me that you're too lazy to do any real research. I never said it was just around the corner and wouldn't be a bit surprised that when I did post on the subject that you called me an idiot for one reason or another.

 

[bripat9643]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

Why don't you produce a quote of some reputable physicist saying fusion power is just around the corner?

 

[bripat9643]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

Why don't you produce a quote of some reputable physicist saying fusion power is just around the corner?

Mammooth is the one who claims reputable physicists have been saying "it's just around the corner" for 50 years. You chimed in to defend her.

 

[konradv]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

Why don't you produce a quote of some reputable physicist saying fusion power is just around the corner?

You seem to think so earlier you said,

What's new is the fact that this design appears to be commercially viable. Up to now all designs have consumed more power than they produced. Liberals haven't been confronted with the possibility of commercially viable fusion power until now.

It appears you're just a guilty as anyone else of thinking it's just around the corner. I know it isn't. That's why I've always been saying we should spend money on research instead of adventures in Iraq and a missle defense shield. I doubt anything viable will occur in my lifetime. The earliest predictions I've seen is about 40-50 years.

 

[bripat9643]

No one ever claimed fusion power was "just around the corner" until now.

Sure thing, Bri. You go on believing that.

I suggest you now send some money to whoever promises you this miracle fusion! Get in on the ground floor! You can't lose with that investment!

(Bri is a fine illustration of why there are so many scam ads on the crazy conservative websites. It's like fish in a barrel for the scammers.)

Why don't you produce a quote of some reputable physicist saying fusion power is just around the corner?

You seem to think so earlier you said,

What's new is the fact that this design appears to be commercially viable. Up to now all designs have consumed more power than they produced. Liberals haven't been confronted with the possibility of commercially viable fusion power until now.

It appears you're just a guilty as anyone else of thinking it's just around the corner. I know it isn't. That's why I've always been saying we should spend money on research instead of adventures in Iraq and a missle defense shield. I doubt anything viable will occur in my lifetime. The earliest predictions I've seen is about 40-50 years.

I never thought so until I read the article, nimrod. They've been giving the 40-50 year prediction for 50 years now.

 

[Saigon]

They aren't promoting coal over nuclear over political spite...we promote coal because the left in this country has successfully stopped the creation of nuclear power plants...conservatives don't care where energy comes from...we have no emotional ties to energy sources...we want safe, clean energy that is cheap...and it doesn't matter where it comes from...if you can make solar and wind as efficient and reliable and as cheap and as land efficient as coal, oil and natural gas...fine...I don't care...but tell me I have to accept solar and wind even though it is currently less efficient, less reliable, more costly and less land efficient...simply because green energy makes lefties happy...sorry, not going to go along with that...

You can't possibly believe that.

Everyday on this board we hysterical, 100% emotional, subjective attacks against any form of renewable energy, be it tidal, solar, solar thermal or wind. We also see people triumphing coal, despite the fact that everyone knows that coal is often more expensive, dirtier and less efficient than a good half-dozen other options. Those views are in no way based on science or economics, but as based on blind partisan politics.

I'm not saying the left wing cannot be blind and partisan as well, but let's be honest about it.