Merged How Close is power from Nuclear Fusion

[Ziggurat]

I don't Iter will be the solution. Laser fusion is far ahead and past break even.

Not even close to break even

Depends how you measure it. Energy produced by fusion has exceeded energy input to trigger the fusion, and if that's your metric, then yes, we're past break even. But this is a somewhat arbitrary and useless milestone. In order to generate power, you need to compare total energy spent (not just energy pumped into the reaction) to useful energy captured (not just energy released by the reaction. That has to get past break even for power generation to even be possible, and we aren't close to that point. And even when we get to that point it won't be enough, because you don't only need to generate net power, you need to generate enough net power to be economically worthwhile.

I don't know if laser fusion or magnetic confinement will get there first (or at all), but we're a long, long ways away from that end goal.

 

[arthwollipot]

I don't know if laser fusion or magnetic confinement will get there first (or at all), but we're a long, long ways away from that end goal.

We're a tiny bit closer now than we were.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Depends how you measure it.

Indeed.

So they put in 2.05Mj and got out 3.15Mj. Sounds great, but to be self-sustaining it has to generate at least enough electricity to keep itself going. Converting the heat to electricity will be ~40% efficient at best. 3.15 * 0.4 = 1.26Mj. Oops!

Then there's the cost.

One thing they didn't tell us is how much tritium was consumed to get that 1.1Mj. Tritium currently costs $30,000 per gram. If the power plant needs 1kg per year (2.7g per day) that's around $30 million annually. Even if they manage to reduce the input power by 50% the net output will only be ~600kW. It might be cheaper to just buy in electricity from elsewhere and route it straight to the output.

But let's say by some miracle they manage get the input power down to a small faction of the output. They're still spending $30M per year for fuel, on top of construction and maintenance costs. How much would the equivalent wind, solar and battery storage cost? A tiny fraction of that.

Even if fusion power can be made practical technically it still won't be cost-effective. The amount of tritium being produced today is only enough to power a few plants, after which you will need more nuclear fast breeder reactors to produce the fuel. Perhaps the cost will eventually come down to match renewable energy, but by then there will be so much of it we won't need fusion.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Tritium is indeed a fuel that is unlikely to ever be produced at the scale a fusion based power production would need.

But there are other fuels one could use for fusion, if you can reach high enough temperatures. Also, fusion reactors can be used as breeders for fuel, reducing overall efficiency to gain extra fuel.

The biggest concern IMO is what kind of emnissons a Fusion reactor produces: everything that creates a lot of fast neutrons is bad, as it weakens the reactor, reducing lifetime and/or increases maintenance costs.

A commercial fusion reactor design will balance fuel availability, efficiency, running costs and stability.

Meaning that even if we got one working today, it will be another 25 years+ before it could be a part of the energy mix.

 

[Puppycow]

argue with them

Fusion breakeven was first achieved when they invented thermonuclear weapons. The problem is getting useful energy out of the process rather than merely destructive energy. In that respect all they really did was to create a small thermonuclear explosion.

The other thing is that the 2.05 MJ of laser emission energy required a lot more energy to produce:

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/fusion-breakeven-is-a-science-breakthrough

Despite NIF’s accomplishment, the scientific gain discussed here only takes into account the energy delivered to the target by the laser instead of the electrical energy needed to power the laser array itself, which is an inefficient process. Engineering gain, which defines the total electrical energy output from fusion divided by the total electrical energy input to heat the fusion fuel, is the relevant but non-scientific metric for practical commercial fusion.

NIF’s UV lasers use inefficient infrared amplification because they were low-cost options at the time of design and construction in the 1990s. In the announced NIF experiment, roughly 300 MJ of electrical energy was consumed to generate only 2.05 MJ of laser emission energy to trigger fusion. That 2.05 MJ of laser energy produced 3.15 MJ of fusion thermal energy output. The result is only a ~0.0105 (or 1.05 percent) engineering gain, not including the conversion of fusion thermal energy to electrical energy. The laser system itself only operates at a ~0.68 percent efficiency. State-of-the-art solid-state lasers could operate at 10 to 20 times that efficiency, but that is nowhere near efficient enough to reach breakeven engineering gain.

Conversion of thermal fusion energy to electrical energy for consumption would undergo further losses in the range of perhaps 20 to 40 percent. For a NIF-like design to be practical for energy applications, and ignoring economic considerations, fusion target gains would likely need to reach the range of 20 to 80 (or 2,000 to 8,000 percent) instead of the announced 1.54 (or 154 percent).

The true denominator should therefore be 300 MJ, the amount of energy needed to power the lasers, rather than 2.05 MJ which is the amount of energy output by the lasers. That's why it's not even close to break even. If we are being generous, and assume that more efficient "state of the art" lasers are used, that's still around 15 MJ of power consumed to yield 3.15 MJ of energy (and more losses would be involved in actually converting that back into electrical power).

 

[Puppycow]

Depends how you measure it. Energy produced by fusion has exceeded energy input to trigger the fusion, and if that's your metric, then yes, we're past break even. But this is a somewhat arbitrary and useless milestone. In order to generate power, you need to compare total energy spent (not just energy pumped into the reaction) to useful energy captured (not just energy released by the reaction. That has to get past break even for power generation to even be possible, and we aren't close to that point. And even when we get to that point it won't be enough, because you don't only need to generate net power, you need to generate enough net power to be economically worthwhile.

I don't know if laser fusion or magnetic confinement will get there first (or at all), but we're a long, long ways away from that end goal.

Exactly. They used the amount of energy output by the lasers as the denominator rather than the amount of energy consumed by the lasers.

 

[steenkh]

Fusion breakeven was first achieved when they invented thermonuclear weapons.

I thought thermonuclear weapons were using fission processes?

 

[crescent]

I thought thermonuclear weapons were using fission processes?

Hydrogen bombs use a fission reaction to trigger a fusion reaction.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Fusion breakeven was first achieved when they invented thermonuclear weapons. The problem is getting useful energy out of the process rather than merely destructive energy. In that respect all they really did was to create a small thermonuclear explosion.

The other thing is that the 2.05 MJ of laser emission energy required a lot more energy to produce:

Despite NIF’s accomplishment, the scientific gain discussed here only takes into account the energy delivered to the target by the laser instead of the electrical energy needed to power the laser array itself, which is an inefficient process.

Very disappointing. I suspected as much, but gave them the benefit of the doubt. So the article was a lie and it's nowhere near 'break even', let alone over it.

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-nif-fusion-breakeven-peer-multiple.html

the team at NIF used 2.05 megajoules of energy to power the lasers

No, they didn't - you idiots!

How many people are now thinking Fusion is in the bag due to this gaff?

 

[macdoc]

Read the release "scientific breakthrough" It was worded carefully

UPDATE 16 APRIL 2024: As IEEE Spectrum contributor Edd Gent wrote in February, the road to practical fusion energy remains very long, even after the National Ignition Facility’s late 2022 breakthrough. The NIF team has now confirmed the results of the experiment, meaning that the facility did, in fact, produce more energy as a result of a fusion reaction than was required to kickstart it.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/national-ignition-facility-impractical

as opposed to "no they didn't"

During NIF’s 5 December laser shot, the amount of energy produced by the fusion reaction (3.15 megajoules) exceeded the laser energy (2.05 MJ) aimed at the capsule. Put another way, for the briefest blink of a moment, the deuterium and tritium within the capsule underwent a self-sustained reaction. From a scientific point of view, this is a tremendous step.

“The fusion reaction is heating the fusion reaction, which is making more fusions happen,” says Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. “It’s like the fire has been lit. This is the first controlled fusion ignition that we’ve ever seen, and that’s spectacular.”

From a practical standpoint, this is just one tiny step on the long and unclear road to commercial fusion power.

Outright dismissal of the acknowledged breakthrough is as foolish as any claims of commercial success soon to come.

 

[Mikemcc]

I am more tempted by the work being done on smaller devices, such as the Small Spherical Tokamaks. Tokamak Energy in Didcot, Oxfordshire is showing very promising results so far.

https://tokamakenergy.com/about-us-fusion-energy-high-temperature-superconducting-magnets/

 

[Chris_Halkides]

raisin original ideas in science

We're zero years away from being able to produce unlimited energy from hamsters running in wheels.

Two porcupines might be enough...link.

 

[Puppycow]

Read the release "scientific breakthrough" It was worded carefully

https://spectrum.ieee.org/national-ignition-facility-impractical

as opposed to "no they didn't"

Outright dismissal of the acknowledged breakthrough is as foolish as any claims of commercial success soon to come.

You said "Laser fusion is far ahead and past break even."

In what sense is it "far ahead" though? "Far ahead" as in closer to commercial success?

As Ziggurat pointed out "In order to generate power, you need to compare total energy spent (not just energy pumped into the reaction) to useful energy captured (not just energy released by the reaction. That has to get past break even for power generation to even be possible, and we aren't close to that point."

This may be an interesting scientific result, but I don't see it as a viable path to commercial power production.

 

[macdoc]

Far ahead of ITER.
Past break even in a limited frame of demonstration of principle.
No where near commercial provision of power.

 

[arthwollipot]

Far ahead of ITER.
Past break even in a limited frame of demonstration of principle.
No where near commercial provision of power.

Again, slightly closer than they were.

 

[macdoc]

I think storage tech and renewables will win the race for power and still hope that fission reactors continue to be built.
Including fast reactors. Fears of them and nuclear power are overblown and ridiculous.
There are far more immediate threats.

The materials science learned in attempting fusion is useful knowledge.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I think storage tech and renewables will win the race for power and still hope that fission reactors continue to be built.

They are and will be, where economic.

Including fast reactors.
Fears of them and nuclear power are overblown and ridiculous.

It's not ludicrous to fear that unregulated development of a new type of nuclear reactor by companies more interested in profit than safety could lead to disaster. The nuclear industry knows this too.

There are far more immediate threats.

Indeed. Nuclear plants take years to build and new types will take even longer to get the bugs out of, so there's little immediate threat from them.

If only we could convince people how immediate the threat of global warming is. But no, they keep burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.

The materials science learned in attempting fusion is useful knowledge.

Sure. But it would be better if we got more out of it than just science. We need technology that produces sustainable low-carbon energy now, not in 10 or 20 years time (if ever).

 

[dudalb]

They are and will be, where economic.

It's not ludicrous to fear that unregulated development of a new type of nuclear reactor by companies more interested in profit than safety could lead to disaster. The nuclear industry knows this too.

Indeed. Nuclear plants take years to build and new types will take even longer to get the bugs out of, so there's little immediate threat from them.

If only we could convince people how immediate the threat of global warming is. But no, they keep burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.

Sure. But it would be better if we got more out of it than just science. We need technology that produces sustainable low-carbon energy now, not in 10 or 20 years time (if ever).

You know that kind of technology is not just produced on demand; even it full spped ahead mode of reserch it could take ten years to get there?

 

[dudalb]

problem I have with the Anti Nukes is even if a safe fusion reactor is discovered, they would sitll oppose it just because it is nuclear. The whole "anything Nuclear is evil" idea is just too much a part of their belief system.

 

[gabeygoat]

They are and will be, where economic.

It's not ludicrous to fear that unregulated development of a new type of nuclear reactor by companies more interested in profit than safety could lead to disaster. The nuclear industry knows this too.

Indeed. Nuclear plants take years to build and new types will take even longer to get the bugs out of, so there's little immediate threat from them.

If only we could convince people how immediate the threat of global warming is. But no, they keep burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.

Sure. But it would be better if we got more out of it than just science. We need technology that produces sustainable low-carbon energy now, not in 10 or 20 years time (if ever).

I have a feeling if it was TeslaXFusion your post would sound different.
/jerky statement, I apologize.

What I do wonder, should fusion power ever come about productively, how would it function in a capitalist society? Not that it wouldn't, I'm just wondering about market forces and stuff. I can see advances in energy being cleaner, but I doubt it will ever reduce my energy costs. Not trying to sound selfish, I'm fine paying the same rate for cleaner energy, just curious