Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

[Christopher]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

We're talking about tens of tonnes of one of the world's most common substances to power the entire human race. Even if we consumed 1000x more energy in response to the lower cost it would still take tens of thousands of years to go through the hydrogen a cubic kilometer of water. Removing a cubic kilometer of water from the Pacific isn't even measurable. Using hydrogen at even a rate that would mean we'd run out of it would cook the earth from sheer waste heat. If this works we NEVER run out of feul.

People used to say the same about Oil. Or coal. We found ways to burn more and more of it to produce energy. Mind you, not wasting it. Really usefull things like plastic or aluminium.

All we could archieve with that technology is that "small" applications are easier to power. The big cosumers - the industry - will find some use for that extra power. They allways did.

 

People used to think there is "infinite amount" of water and not clean up thier dirt water. What they forgot that water is finite and that it is just permanently recycled by our planet.

I heard in my history or geology classes of somehting:

Once in the previous half decade, they started using a specific chemical in washing powder. They know it would pass through filtration systems and would be hard to decompose by nature but hey - water is infinite, right?

The moment where rivers started having soap-bubbles was the moment they reaslised that thier calculation was wrong.

[dmjalund]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

If this works (and I remain skeptical)' date=' the bottleneck isn't the hydrogen, it's the palladium for the catalyst. (US$611.40/oz.[/quote']The thing about catalyst is that if you do it right, you only have to buy it once.

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

The thing about catalyst is that if you do it right' date=' you only have to buy it once.[/quote']

In theory. In RL even non-moving parts wear out. Number Two Son use to have a contact cleaning system that had a catalyst disk. Instructions recommended replacing it every six months.

[sinanju]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

People used to say the same about Oil. Or coal. We found ways to burn more and more of it to produce energy. Mind you, not wasting it. Really usefull things like plastic or aluminium.

All we could archieve with that technology is that "small" applications are easier to power. The big cosumers - the industry - will find some use for that extra power. They allways did.

 

People used to think there is "infinite amount" of water and not clean up thier dirt water. What they forgot that water is finite and that it is just permanently recycled by our planet.

I heard in my history or geology classes of somehting:

Once in the previous half decade, they started using a specific chemical in washing powder. They know it would pass through filtration systems and would be hard to decompose by nature but hey - water is infinite, right?

The moment where rivers started having soap-bubbles was the moment they reaslised that thier calculation was wrong.

 

It's a good thing, then, that we recently determined that there's more water on Europa (I think it's Europa) than on Earth. Even if we "burn through" too much water, we can always go get more. If cold fusion pans out, we'll have all the power we need for ion drives. Highly efficient, but low thrust. But hey--we can afford to take time making the Europa runs.

[dmjalund]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

If we used that much water for fusion, we would all die from the waste heat such energy consumption would cause

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

If we used that much water for fusion' date=' we would all die from the waste heat such energy consumption would cause[/quote']

 

But it's a dry heat!

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

It's sad that a viable hot fusion method (helium3 fusion) that does not even require a mechanical steam engine to make electricity is being virtually ignored in the media.

 

http://www.explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html

http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/14/2.html

[sinanju]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

He-3 fusion sounds great.

 

Alas, as far as I know, nobody's managed to do that in a sustained, energy-producing fashion any more than they've managed to break even on any other sort of fusion. A better fuel is pointless if none of the engines (fusion systems) we've invented so far can use any of them.

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

It's sad that a viable hot fusion method (helium3 fusion) that does not even require a mechanical steam engine to make electricity is being virtually ignored in the media.

Please define "viable" in this context.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Please define "viable" in this context.

 

Something that has theory that scientists understand behind it.

 

from the second link I posted earlier:

 

Another approach to nuclear fusion–an approach that could lead to aneutronic power (power without neutrons) and non-radioactive nuclear energy–uses the concept of colliding-beam fusion (CBF). One aneutronic method features the 2H + 3He reaction leading to the products 1H + 4He. However, this requires 3He as fuel and terrestrial sources of this are limited. The Moon is a potential source of 3He produced by cosmic-ray protons hitting the Moon directly and not being absorbed by an atmosphere as on Earth. Another potential approach for colliding beam fusion is the 11B + 1H reaction leading to the three 4He nuclei. The energy release is in the form of charged particles whose kinetic energy can be converted to electricity with a very high efficiency. Current research predicts that this energy source has an extremely high degree of cleanness and efficiency. In all current energy sources, approximately two-thirds of the energy is lost in the form of waste heat or thermal pollution. In the CBF approach, there is virtually no waste. This design favors small size for the greatest efficiency (100 MWe or less), and would lead to either power plants with several reactors or decentralization of energy production.

[sinanju]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Something that has theory that scientists understand behind it.

 

from the second link I posted earlier:

 

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." --Yogi Berra (I think)

 

I'm sure that, in theory, this form of fusion is head and shoulders above all its rivals. But has anyone made it work yet? And by "work" I mean, have they managed a sustained reaction that produced more power than it consumed? 'Cause if so, I haven't heard about it, and I think I would have.

 

As for viable--if someone invents a fusion process (Cold Fusion, for instance) that can demonstrably provide sustained reactions generating more power than they consume, it will be a viable source of energy EVEN IF nobody knows how the heck it works. There was a period when scientists knew we didn't know something important about the sun. We knew how much energy it was producing, and we knew its mass. We also knew that no form of conventional energy generation could possibly power the sun at that level for as long as we knew it had been burning. It wasn't until nuclear theory came along that we figured out how the sun worked.

 

If one of those "lesser" forms of fusion proves capable of generating useful energy, all the theory in the world won't matter. It will trump theory every time.

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Something that has theory that scientists understand behind it.

 

from the second link I posted earlier:

OK, I was thinking of "viable" as closer to "has achieved better-than break-even energy release under laboratory conditions."

 

By your definition, antimatter is a viable energy source.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Wow....

 

Thanks for helping me understand why the media doesn't want to cover the helium 3 angle. It's too theoretical. (YES, I am being sarcastic).

[Guest dr. strangelove]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

From what I read about helium 3 even if they got it working tonight there isn't enough h3 on earth to make it useful.

 

Now according to some SF sources this happened and spurred a MASSIVE move in space tech to get to the moon, who's regolith surface is literally soaked in H3 nuclei, so it could be exported to earth, the amounts of energy it produced making lunar mining more than profitable.

 

Of course if we start going to the moon en masse and staying there we'll find lunarium deposits which will supply all our energy demands.

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Wow, sinanju, dr. strangelove, and myself agreeing. Must be some weird star alignment, like a lunar eclipse and a transit of Venus happening in the same week.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

See? The Mayans were RIGHT!

 

 

 

 

 

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

From what I read about helium 3 even if they got it working tonight there isn't enough h3 on earth to make it useful.

 

Now according to some SF sources this happened and spurred a MASSIVE move in space tech to get to the moon, who's regolith surface is literally soaked in H3 nuclei, so it could be exported to earth, the amounts of energy it produced making lunar mining more than profitable.

 

Of course if we start going to the moon en masse and staying there we'll find lunarium deposits which will supply all our energy demands.

 

from: http://www.explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html

[h=2]A Flower in the Darkness?[/h] The subject of mining helium-3 on the Moon as a fuel for future clean, safe nuclear power plants is a fascinating one that raises many questions. Some of these questions are highly technical, and relate to the feasibility of the involved nuclear physics. Other questions concern the not inconsiderable practicalities associated with getting to the Moon, mining and super-heating large quantities of lunar rock (Space.com report a suggestion of roughly one million tons of lunar soil being needed to be mined and processed for every 70 tonnes of helium-3 yield), and then getting the precious cargo back to the Earth. However, the far more interesting questions arguably relate to why this is a topic that is receiving so little media and public attention.

 

As noted above, several of the largest governments on the planet have made announcements that they are either actively considering or planning to go to the Moon to mine helium-3. Whether or not the science will actually work, this is surely major, major, major news. Given that public debates concerning the construction of future nuclear fission power plants and even wind farms now rage with great vigour and a high media profile, why on Earth (and in future the Moon) helium-3 power plants as part of a potential future energy strategy are rarely if ever even mentioned is exceptionally hard to fathom.

Nobody is trying to hide the potential of future lunar helium-3 power generation. However, like a rose in a dark room, there is a potential danger that something of beauty will fail to gain the light it requires if more attention does not start to be languished on what could end up as a very big part of the solution to Peak Oil and other fossil fuel resource depletion, not to mention climate change.

Anyone for space?

 

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Wow....

 

Thanks for helping me understand why the media doesn't want to cover the helium 3 angle. It's too theoretical. (YES, I am being sarcastic).

Show me a demonstration-of-principle device* that produces energy at better than the breakeven level and I will be behind this 110%. Until that demonstration-of-principle device gets built, it's Bluesky.

 

*I would prefer one that doesn't blow up, but that is not a deal breaker. There is a school of thought that if you don't destroy the prototype, you learn nothing.

[Cancer]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

He-3 is a really nice fusion fuel, because it's proton-rich. The "activation" of the reactor housing is much less with such a fuel.

 

The real problem is that there are no plentiful natural sources for it; you have to make tritium and let it decay. This can be done but takes time, since decay can't be hurried along.

[dmjalund]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

so with all the effort required to make/aquire He-3, is it still an efficient power source?

[Guest dr. strangelove]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

so with all the effort required to make/aquire He-3' date=' is it still an efficient power source?[/quote']

 

If it provided power at fusion levels with no environmental impact asides from heat, it would be worth mining the moon for. It would be dirt cheap to get He3 back to earth as once you've extracted it you could just cram it into a can made of lunar metal, encase it in slag rock to serve as a heat shield, use a mass driver powered by solar energy to fling it at earth and retrieve the can with the he3 in it from the ocean.

[McCoy]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

If it provided power at fusion levels with no environmental impact asides from heat' date=' it would be worth mining the moon for. It would be dirt cheap to get He3 back to earth as once you've extracted it you could just cram it into a can made of lunar metal, encase it in slag rock to serve as a heat shield, use a mass driver powered by solar energy to fling it at earth and retrieve the can with the he3 in it from the ocean.[/quote']

Yep, "IF." Still waiting for the DoP device.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

from: http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html

 

[h=2]The Value[/h] About 25 tonnes of He3 would power the United States for 1 year at our current rate of energy consumption. To put it in perspective: that's about the weight of a fully loaded railroad box car, or a maximum Space Shuttle payload.

To assign an economic value, suppose we assume He3 would replace the fuels the United States currently buys to generate electricity. We still have all those power generating plants and distribution network, so we can't use how much we pay for electricity. As a replacement for that fuel, that 25-tonne load of He3 would worth on the order of $75 billion today, or $3 billion per tonne.

 

[Old Man]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

Thanks for helping me understand why the media doesn't want to cover the helium 3 angle. It's too theoretical. (YES, I am being sarcastic).

 

Are you kidding? We're lucky if media coverage of any scientific topic isn't hopelessly high level or factually incorrect. When they can be bothered to cover science at all.

 

edit: Oh, and I almost forgot--the media is very fond of providing 'balanced' coverage even of scientific subjects, even if they have to give some total crackpot equal time in the article along with the real science.

[Sundog]

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works?

 

I've said this before - we can't make Tritium fuse under controlled conditions adequately to make an economically viable reactor. We're close, but we're not there yet. He3 is a major few steps more complex. Let's get the basics well and truly sorted before we start to worry about the fancy stuff.