It
would certainly be a blessing if we could all get rid of the horrifying
waste of nuclear power. Yes, I'm a physicist, and yes, I live in Sweden
where nuclear power still is great, and yes we plan to bury it all. But
am I completely convinced that it's good idea? Sorry to say no. If
nothing else because you never know which cooks will be around
"tomorrow" to dig the whole lot up again to use it for crazy stuff.
However, I happen to know a few people connected to fusion research. The quantum compacted ultra dense deutrium approach (as previously noted in Spectrum) just might work. No converging charges as in a bomb, no lasers to compress a frozen ball of fuel - this state of deutrium already has a density of 150.000 (one hundred and fifty thousand) *tones* per liter (1000 cc) putting in almost on par with the collapsed matter in dwarf stars. ...and it's been produced for real in labs, making it the densest material in the solar system.
Quantum mechanics makes up a strange world that way - halfway between science and Harry Potter....
So maybe, just maybe we will have our paradigm-shifting technology a lot faster than we all have been used to believing.
Than again - and this is a very serious question - will the world be able to handle a quickly emerging paradigm-shifting energy source like "clean and easy" fusion? Will there be copper to go around for all the (new and expanded) power grids? How unstable will the economy become if the oil sector becomes undermined to quickly? ...and how unstable would the geopolitical situation become?
No idea - but even if some of those aspects are taunting I still can't help hoping that mankind has to solve exactly those problems. The other alternative- dealing with an ever increasing greenhouse effect - seems even much less attractive.
So naive or just dreamy - I still keep my hopes up for clean fusion. If we somehow can get rid of the old waste at he same time - count me in. ;)
However, I happen to know a few people connected to fusion research. The quantum compacted ultra dense deutrium approach (as previously noted in Spectrum) just might work. No converging charges as in a bomb, no lasers to compress a frozen ball of fuel - this state of deutrium already has a density of 150.000 (one hundred and fifty thousand) *tones* per liter (1000 cc) putting in almost on par with the collapsed matter in dwarf stars. ...and it's been produced for real in labs, making it the densest material in the solar system.
Quantum mechanics makes up a strange world that way - halfway between science and Harry Potter....
So maybe, just maybe we will have our paradigm-shifting technology a lot faster than we all have been used to believing.
Than again - and this is a very serious question - will the world be able to handle a quickly emerging paradigm-shifting energy source like "clean and easy" fusion? Will there be copper to go around for all the (new and expanded) power grids? How unstable will the economy become if the oil sector becomes undermined to quickly? ...and how unstable would the geopolitical situation become?
No idea - but even if some of those aspects are taunting I still can't help hoping that mankind has to solve exactly those problems. The other alternative- dealing with an ever increasing greenhouse effect - seems even much less attractive.
So naive or just dreamy - I still keep my hopes up for clean fusion. If we somehow can get rid of the old waste at he same time - count me in. ;)
Stephan,
please do not apologize for being a dreamy physicist. We need those
now more than ever. I would like to point out a very dated concept that
still works today to degrade fissionable materials: The Candu Heavy
Water Reactor--was Canada's nuclear future once upon a time. It is my
understanding China has licensed and built modern versions thereof for
exactly that purpose. Candu reactors can run on such low purity
fissionable materials it could almost run on yellow cake!. Take ultra
low enriched nuclear material and add you nuclear waste and chop tens of
thousands of years in standing pools.
The problems that remain unsolved around hot fusion cannot be ameliorated by some vague hope to kill two birds with one stone. It needs to stand on its own two feet. It has been decades since the plasma temperatures evaporating Molybdenum and Tungsten shields & were understood. To make it worse, the intense blizzard of relatively uncontrollable neutrons transmutes what ever structure houses the magnetic field, the magnetic field components, and so on, compromising structural integrity and the necessity it demands times for tearing down and rebuilding the structures damaged thusly.
Until these are solved, how would adding **more** fissionable material be helpful? We are talking of adding Millions of Electron Volts to the soup after all aren't we? It is sad it appears we have to say good bye to tokamak fusion. But we have been shovelling taxpayer money at this futilely. This looks like a reason to shovel more money at it. There is a time for waking up from fanciful dreaming pinching ourselves and change direction. But then we need to dream new dreams, putting the nightmare behind us.
This too was such a romantic notion: Candu was launched with aplomb. A great hope for this country and a contribution to the global nuclear knowlege. Now, apart from licensing, it looks like atomic energy Canada is packing up to go home. We Canadians who love science hate to see it go. What is at stake there are a few hundred million worth of investment to perfect its system of nuclear degradation, not the over 10? Billion the Tokamak has taken from our pockets on a far worse flight of fantasy than yours, Dr. C.
The problems that remain unsolved around hot fusion cannot be ameliorated by some vague hope to kill two birds with one stone. It needs to stand on its own two feet. It has been decades since the plasma temperatures evaporating Molybdenum and Tungsten shields & were understood. To make it worse, the intense blizzard of relatively uncontrollable neutrons transmutes what ever structure houses the magnetic field, the magnetic field components, and so on, compromising structural integrity and the necessity it demands times for tearing down and rebuilding the structures damaged thusly.
Until these are solved, how would adding **more** fissionable material be helpful? We are talking of adding Millions of Electron Volts to the soup after all aren't we? It is sad it appears we have to say good bye to tokamak fusion. But we have been shovelling taxpayer money at this futilely. This looks like a reason to shovel more money at it. There is a time for waking up from fanciful dreaming pinching ourselves and change direction. But then we need to dream new dreams, putting the nightmare behind us.
This too was such a romantic notion: Candu was launched with aplomb. A great hope for this country and a contribution to the global nuclear knowlege. Now, apart from licensing, it looks like atomic energy Canada is packing up to go home. We Canadians who love science hate to see it go. What is at stake there are a few hundred million worth of investment to perfect its system of nuclear degradation, not the over 10? Billion the Tokamak has taken from our pockets on a far worse flight of fantasy than yours, Dr. C.
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