A step toward fusion power - MIT news

[JohnWxy]

Fusion power as a practical source of power is still a ways in the future, but this is some interesting news.


http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/fusion-advance-1202.html

The long-sought goal of a practical fusion-power reactor has inched closer to reality with new experiments from MIT’s experimental Alcator C-Mod reactor, the highest-performance university-based fusion device in the world.

The new experiments have revealed a set of operating parameters for the reactor — a so-called “mode” of operation — that may provide a solution to a longstanding operational problem: How to keep heat tightly confined within the hot charged gas (called plasma) inside the reactor, while allowing contaminating particles, which can interfere with the fusion reaction, to escape and be removed from the chamber.

Most of the world’s experimental fusion reactors, like the one at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, are of a type called tokamaks, in which powerful magnetic fields are used to trap the hot plasma inside a doughnut-shaped (or toroidal) chamber. Typically, depending on how the strength and shape of the magnetic field are set, both heat and particles can constantly leak out of the plasma (in a setup called L-mode, for low-confinement) or can be held more tightly in place (called H-mode, for high-confinement).

Now, after some 30 years of tests using the Alcator series of reactors (which have evolved over the years), the MIT researchers have found another mode of operation, which they call I-mode (for improved), in which the heat stays tightly confined, but the particles, including contaminants, can leak away. This should prevent these contaminants from “poisoning” the fusion reaction. “This is very exciting,” says Dennis Whyte, professor in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and coauthor of some recent papers that describe more than 100 experiments testing the new mode. Whyte presented the results in October at the International Atomic Energy Agency International Fusion Conference in South Korea. “It really looks distinct” from the previously known modes, he says.
(more)

[Orrex]

1. Fusion has been powering my Delorean for more than 25 years.

[DJ13]

2. 25 years back in time, or 25 years in the future?

[JohnWxy]

4. oops, my apologies to Christopher Lloyd

[sofa king]

5. That's because fusion is always 25 years in the future.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do drag that clown suit out of the closet and try it on every time this subject comes up.

But I'm still happy to know things are moving forward... still.

[txlibdem]

6. They've got to have everything in place and ready to go

Only thing they're waiting on is for the last drop of oil to be pumped out of the ground. Once we hit that point they'll trot out their "new" fusion reactor designs. At least that's what the cynic in me says.

[sofa king]

7. I used to want to believe that.

My old man is an engineer and space exploration guy and gearhead, and according to him in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the oil companies were buying up patents on improvements to carburetors left and right, the implication being that oil companies didn't want efficiency improvements to the Otto engine design. (The stories never went away and are still being re-told in a different context today.) Some people back then and even now speculate that one day, all those patents on ice will be brought forward to improve the efficiency of vehicles so that a 1965 Ranchero will get 50 miles to the gallon.

But it never happened and it's not going to. To this day, no matter what you do, a stock Ranchero with carb improvements alone will never get 50 miles per gallon.


We know that it won't happen because the patents of the 1950s and 1960s have long since expired (and, one assumes, if the ideas were any good they have since been incorporated into things like my 50cc scooter, which is perhaps 25% more efficient than a 1963 Vespa 50, but BSing about scooter fuel economy is a whole other ball of wax). There is still no aftermarket device made using those old patents that offers that sort of economy, though auto show enthusiasts would love a bolt-on cruising carb to efficiently travel to shows and bring the old lead-sleds back onto the roads.

During the patent buy-up phase, there were at least two things going on at the same time: first, the inventors seem to have almost universally exaggerated the level of improvement their designs would offer--and why not when there's a sucker oil company willing to pay any price to put it to bed forever without ever being studied?; second, the oil companies had no intention of ever using those patents. The oil companies were simply holding onto them until the device itself was bypassed by technology and fuel injection and valve timing went around the oil companies' road block. Their opportunity to profit hugely from the designs (1973-??) came and went without it happening, probably because their profits from burning off oil were bigger than that.

It turns out that magic carbs were an imaginary technology, their imaginary value boosted by a veil of secrecy and legal stonewalling, a story of savvy showman-scientists snookering their scientifically illiterate business rivals and partners--not unlike what Paul Moller has been doing all these decades with that slick car that only flies off the shelves when a picture of it is printed in the science-porno mags.

I fear fusion power may be the same thing. I suspect that working fusion power is going to require is an already extant source of enormous power to get the process up and running in the first place, which means that some intermediate form of technology must step in to replace oil before fusion can get off the ground (or there better be a real breakthrough like tomorrow). That doesn't mean we shouldn't be going after it, but it sure as hell means we'd better be working on a lot of other ideas at the same time.

[txlibdem]

8. My dad used to say the same kinds of things

We know that some of those "stories" are absolutely true: an oil company did, in fact, buy up the patent rights to the NiMH battery from GM; said oil company did, in fact, end the ability of anyone in the world from using NiMH batteries (they sued both Toyota and Panasonic (IIRC)); then they basically "sat on" the tech and are still doing so to this day. GM sold to Texaco which became part of Chevron. That is why I have never and will never --NEVER-- buy gasoline from a Chevron station (or a Texaco station).

The above has been well documented, here's but one link:
http://ev1.org/chevgm.htm

[wtmusic]

9. The Toyota Prius and most hybrids use NiMH batteries

Under the terms of a settlement Toyota pays a whopping 80% royalty to SBL (joint venture of Samsung/Bosch, which bought patent rights from Chevron/Cobasys) until 2014.

http://www.apteraforum.com/showthread.php?t=3076

I won't patronize Chevron either, but there's a pretty damn short list of oilcos worth patronizing at all. And for those who remain skeptical, a refresher on National City Lines is always in order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_City_Lines

[txlibdem]

10. Agreed but the Prius uses a teeny tiny battery

COBASYS - Chevron Oil Battery Systems - owns the NiMH patent and they forbid anyone building a large format battery using NiMH technology, limits their use to only hybrids, never an EV. I'm also pretty sure that NiMH cannot be used in a plug-in hybrid. That is why the upcoming Plug-in Prius will be using Lithium batteries.

PS, the patent for NiMH batteries expires in 2015...

The thing about NiMH is that is really needs to be fully depleted before the next full charge, unlike Lithium batteries. So this gives you the unique ability to hook up your NiMH powered electric car to your house when you get home and use the energy from your car to power your house. Then when the battery is adequately depleted, the system automatically switches back to grid power for your house and then later on during the night charges the electric car. That's a win, win if your power company gives you lower rates for power used at night: the electric car will take over the load from the grid during the last hours of peak energy use when electric rates are highest and the utilities are hard pressed sometimes to meed the demand.

If everyone in America drove an electric car powered by the EV-95 batteries that the Rav4-EV use we'd probably save billions for the power companies (they have to use very expensive peak power generators that are not efficient just to meet demand). We'd all save on our electricity bills (because we're using cheaper night time power for part of the peak demand times). And we'd save cash because an electric car takes only 70 cents to 90 cents to go the same distance a gasoline car needs $3 to $5 worth of gas for.

[wtmusic]

11. Toyota will use lithium because it's a superior format

with about twice the energy density of NiMH. Lithium has its own share of patent encumbrances (most notably with the University of Texas, which - needless to say - has plenty of ties to the oil industry).

Tie-ins to the grid offer all kinds of possibilities, but your NiMH recharge scenario necessitates an hour or two of transportation being unavailable - that's a significant marketing problem. IMO by 2015 NiMH batteries will be nonexistent for large-format applications anyway.

Remember Ni-Cads?

[sofa king]

12. Do any of you see a really good battery on the horizon?

I mean, since we're speaking of batteries, it might be fun to note that every five years or so someone announces a battery breakthrough that will double the range of electric vehicles and the time before toys die on Christmas morning, but it never seems to happen. And if the Energizer bunny really improved as much as they claim it does with the dawn of each new marketing phase, it would be an Energizer Mecha-Godzilla rabbit 90 stories tall. I can see the patent game is part of the equation.

But is anyone really close to mass-producing a lightweight but powerful battery?

[wtmusic]

14. Your cellphone uses a breakthrough battery

as do all laptops. Li-Ion doubled the energy storage of its next closest competitor and has already doubled the range of electric vehicles.

Enhancements might squeeze another 30% out them, but they're already very practical for transportation.

[txlibdem]

13. NiCad vs NiMH, non sequitur

NiCads suffer greatly from memory problems and never last more than 1 to 3 years. the E-95 NiMH batteries are still running in the Rav4-EVs even though the oil company that owns the patent won't allow any spare parts to be made. Most of them have already gone over 100,000 miles and some have passed the 150,000 mile mark. That's reliability that can't be argued with.

I'm not anti-Lithium batteries by any means. Sure, I'd like to see NiMH powered electric vehicles back on the market. But I also want Lithium Ion battery development to continue at full speed. Who knows what advances they will achieve by 2015, IBM and a couple of universities are working on Lithium Air batteries that will have 3 to 10 times the range of today's Lithium Ion batteries. And others are working on Zinc Air batteries that have similar improved capabilities. One more competitor to Lithium Ion in 2015 isn't going to hurt the various companies involved. 2012 will be the beginning of the ramp up in electric vehicles and by 2015 Nissan alone could be selling 500,000 electric vehicles a year.

[wtmusic]

15. Agree - and let's hope oilcos with $billions in assets

won't gobble up anything that shows promise.

:thumbsup:

[FogerRox]

3. Hirsh and Bussard father and grand father of the US Tokamak program

long ago gave up on toks, and started looking elsewhere, eventually looking at IEC from which Polywell was developed.