Fusion: The quest to recreate the Sun’s power on Earth
bbc.com
bbc.com
He has made significantly more progress towards the goal of net energy production from Fusion over 40 years and billions spent on Tokamak research. I think his ideas have lots of promise, but oddly enough society hasn't trained people in this type of science in decades.
Problem is Bussard passed away not long ago so progress on Polywell is slow since there are very few people out there with the technical know how to pick up where he left off. But, still he has left quite a lot of documents and details about what he has done. I hope research continues.
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2012/...
What kind of logic is that?
So, if you live in the UK and directly (through license fee) or indirectly (through taxes) fund the BBC then you don't get access to the content they give away to the rest of the world for free? Okaaaaaay
Free proxies like Hide My Ass work.
Alternatively, here is pastebin for convenience:
BBC World Wide makes it's money on BBC.com with advertising. For instance, Rolex watches in banner adverts.
If UK citizens were to see a BBC property with advertising on it there would be a shit storm of epic proportions, since we pay the license fee. So, if there isn't a separately maintained version without adverts then we don't get to see it.
and, ok, so it's a part of BBC Worldwide which is run as a commercial property to fund standard BBC programming, but does anyone have any insights as to why allowing access to such content in the UK would prevent or hinder this goal in any way?
Coral Cache to the rescue :-/
I'm paraphrasing but does anyone wonder what happens if the fusion leaks out of the container and lights the planet on fire?
It makes me laugh that everyone is so focused on all sorts of dooms day scenarios and the reality is most likely someone will drop a vial of something horrible accidentally in a lab somewhere and half the human population of earth will be wiped out in 30 days.
Or most we'll just keep worrying about all this stuff and most of us will be dead, gone and dust before anything really interesting happens.
Although I guess it would cause some big explosion.
from the article:
Once the reaction is initiated by a laser shot, the heat produced by the atomic fusion will help to keep the core hot. But unlike a fission reaction that takes place in nuclear power stations and atomic bombs, the fusion reaction is not self perpetuating. It requires a constant input of material or else it quickly fizzles out, making the reaction far safer. And unlike what you might have seen in a recent Batman movie, the chamber cannot be transformed into a nuclear bomb.
I don't much about fusion 101 but I read that the exact same question was asked when humans started using fission.
Any additionnal information on the short story you mention ? I'd be interested in reading it.
Fascinating book about the development of the bomb: http://www.amazon.com/Brighter-than-Thousand-Suns-Scientists...
However, the notion was disturbing enough that a formal report was requested. I believe this was later, in 1945 or 1946, during the development of the hydrogen bomb, but I'm not sure. The report [2], co-authored by Teller, is dated 1946. It was declassified in 1973.
On the night of the Trinity test, apparently with the notion of calming people down, Fermi (to the annoyance of Maj. General Leslie Groves) humorously started taking bets on whether the test would ignite the atmosphere or merely destroy the state of Mexico (page 664).
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/0...
[2] http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/story-identi...
Oh, and probably an impressive explosion.
But that's it.
There have been literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fusion devices exploded in the atmosphere, and we're still here.
Also 550MW/h / <efficiency factor of the water turbines> is by definition the most energy that will be present at the site and thus the total energy capable of being released at once. I'll make up a number and say the turbines are 10% efficient. So we have 5.5 GW/h of power available which is around the amount of energy released in a hurricane in 1 second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/nucsyn.html...
So I'm not terribly worried
Easy? Yes. Practical? No! The reaction rate is tiny. Likely nearly all of the deuterium shot at the target causes no reaction and, thus, has the energy used to accelerate the deuterium wasted.
New? No. This has been understood for decades.
Generate a chain reaction? Nope.
Destroy the planet? Not a chance!
As far as wiping out people goes, it's a lot harder than you might think. I have seen estimates where a 'full scale' nuclear exchange between US and Russia would have done far less damage than most people assumed. It's hard to comprehend just how large the US is, or the fact that people have already detonated thousands of bombs which did little to increase the level of background radiation. Granted most of them where sub 10MT, but carpet bombing is more cost effective than a Tsar Bomba bomb.
While fusion is indeed what powers the sun, we're trying to do something with fusion that's on a completely different scale.
The sun's energy production is 3.846x10^26 W, nearly all of which is produced in its core which has a volume of 2.207x10^25 m^3. This gives the sun's core a power density of 17.43 W/m^3.
The average human male has a basal metabolism rate of about 81.3W, with a volume of 0.0664 m^3. This gives an energy density of 1224W/m^3.
So by volume, a human produces over 70 times the energy of the sun's core.
(Source: Various queries to Wolfram Alpha.)
a) Net free energy flux per volume, and
b) Complexity
a) Is basically the measure being discussed here (free energy flux = useful energy that crosses the boundary)
The author then listed a bunch of stuff in increasing order of a), and it roughly corresponds with our notions of complexity (or at least "interesting" or "directed" complexity, some similar concept). The list (smallest to largest) went about like this:
Stars
Planets (measured by change in energy of the light reaching vs leaving it)
Life-bearing planet (only one example, obviously)
Plants
Fish
Mammals (I'm skipping a few here)
Humans
Human brains
Human societies
Cars
Airplanes
Power plant turbines
Airplane engines
Computer chips
(Pretty neat correlation)
Instead military complexes are quietly focussing on other nuclear research such as Polywell devices or forgoing the difficulties of fusion entirely and focussing on Generation IV fission reactor types such as Molten-Salt Reactors (MSR).
I'm willing to bet that the world's energy problems will be greatly ameliorated or even solved long before ITER ever produces more energy than it consumes. Even if it ever worked, the likelihood is that the extreme dependence on scale of any installation would make it impractical in a future we are heading to where everything is greatly distributed, including energy generation.
It should be completed in less than 10 years, so I'm curious as to what you think will solve/ameliorate the world's energy problems in such a short timeframe.
> Global energy demand is expected to double by 2050, while the share coming from fossil fuels – currently 85% – needs to drop dramatically if we are to reduce carbon emissions and limit global warming.
That is a highly controversial statement. But it is just dropped in there. Just dropped in.
Question: Where does that statement get its legs? That is, what forces, influences, or whatever are causing it to be just dropped in, just sprinkled on like salt on food?
To me dropping in that statement makes the BBC and the author look really silly; I can't believe that dropping in that statement helps their credibility or reputation. So, why are they just dropping in that statement?
Here's one reason: Just keep pushing that story. Everyday, every way, just push it. So, keep the story going. Get others in the media, e.g., the NYT, to do the same.
Then, for the payoff, about once a week, use some anecdotal data as an excuse to write a full story about 'global warming'. That story is really easy to write -- just pull up the framework story, fill in some blanks, and, presto, get a new story with new ad revenue. Maybe that's the answer.
It's a pretty uncontroversial statement to me. In fact half of it seems self-evident, the other merely the overwhelming consensus.
And so maybe that's why it was dropped in. Just dropped in. Just dropped in, like a drop-bear dropping into a salt-sprinkling-party. Just dropped in!
Okay, I'll bite. I'll type quickly, so there will be some rough edges. But the basics are really simple and will be clear enough.
Here I bring good news: Warm up the barbie, feel no guilt, and enjoy the picnic.
I can bite because there is, within what can be said with any seriousness, a very easy and, for what can be said, relatively good answer.
No, the answer is as science really bad, but so far likely and apparently there's nothing better. So, it's what we are stuck with. Sorry 'bout that.
First off, the NASA site is total, cooked-up, Saint Laureate Al Guru, please send more money, the sky is falling, crack-pot, rip-off, flim-flam, fraud, scam, dirty politics BS, and I will so explain.
But first the simple answer. There are just two parts.
The first part is from the PDF
Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council, 'Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years', ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006,
long and still available at
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
There we go to the graph on page 2. It's a crude graph, but it's likely and apparently about the best data available.
So, here's what we see: As of year 2006, the date of the study, as far as we can tell, the temperature of the Earth in year 2006 was exactly the same as in year 1000, and the increase in temperature over the last 100 years is exactly the same as the increase from year 900 to year 1000. As far as we can tell. The list of authors includes some of the most respected scientists on the planet, e.g., in time series, Brillinger at Berkeley.
And we don't believe that CO2 from humans or anything else was responsible for the temperature from year 900 to year 1000.
And, since year 1000, we fell into The Little Ice Age, for whatever reasons, solar activity, the orbit of the earth, volcanoes, whatever, and since then have been pulling out of The Little Ice Age. As we have pulled out of The Little Ice Age, the planet has warmed. Semi-, pseudo-, quasi-amazing.
We don't want to go back to The Little Ice Age.
So, as far as we can tell, the increase in CO2 from the industrial revolution has had exactly zip, zilch, zero effect on the temperature of the earth.
Here's a short Q&A:
Is CO2 a greenhouse gas? Sure, that's Physics 101. But CO2 is not a very effective greenhouse gas since it absorbs only in three quite narrow frequency bands in the infrared, one band for each of bending, twisting, and stretching of the molecule.
Then the 'greenhouse' effect is sunlight hitting the surface, warming the surface, the surface radiating in the infrared as a Planck black (or 'gray') body, CO2 absorbing the radiation and warming. But the amount of such radiation is limited by what comes from the sun and in the context essentially fixed so that once absorb that amount, more CO2 won't absorb more. Moreover, even if CO2 doesn't absorb some of that radiation now, water vapor, methane, etc. may. So, the warming effect of more CO2 is not so clear.
Has the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased due to human activity? Sure.
Is CO2 the main greenhouse gas? Likely not. No doubt the main greenhouse gas is water vapor, but due to clouds, atmospheric circulations, thunderstorms, little things like the oceans, etc., the effect of water vapor is complicated beyond belief. Methane may also compete.
But that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is crucial? Not necessarily. A simple diffusion model can as good science show a significant warming effect from CO2, but that model is laughably simple compared with the real planet.
Does CO2 warm the planet? Likely yes, and so does lighting a match. The issue is, is the warming significant? So far the answer is, in the present context, not on Venus, apparently not.
But climate science has shown ...? For CO2 from humans causing significant warming of the planet, there's no 'science' in 'climate science'. In particular, the 'radiative forcing' of the IPCC and Ramaswamy is just catchy terminology for some simplistic model building and essentially just nonsense for serious science for the main issue of CO2 from humans causing significant warming.
Maybe there would, could, and should be a real climate science able to address this issue of 'warming', but for now the issue is far too difficult for solid science. Sorry 'bout that.
But just because the real issue is too difficult for solid science does not mean that we should shoot ourselves in the gut from crack pot 'science'.
The second part is from
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020364600457721...
In simple terms, the recent predictions of warming just didn't happen, didn't come even close to happening, were way, way off, were a really bad joke.
Lesson: We can't take the predictions from the 'climate science' community of significant and harmful global warming seriously.
Where does that leave us? The planet is doing fine, and there's no good reason to worry for now. As I said, warm up the barbie.
Then there's the NASA Web site
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Good. Since this is their "evidence", we can f'get about solid evidence of CO2 from humans causing significant global warming. Warm up the barbie!
Let's start with their points:
(1) IPCC.
They quote the IPCC. Tilt. They just blew their credibility, showed that they are just pushing rip-off, flim-flam, fraud, scam, political nonsense, and went to the back of the class with the D- students.
(2) The graph.
They show a graph of CO2 in the atmosphere over several hundred thousand years. Likely that data was from the ice core samples from the Russian Vostok site in Antarctica, although since then there is another sample from a US site that drilled deeper and went back further in time.
So, yes, over hundreds of thousands of years, CO2 levels have fluctuated, both up and down. We should have expected something else? And just now CO2 levels are relatively high.
But we were talking about temperature, just temperature, in degrees F, C, or K, and not CO2 levels. And when we measure temperature, just temperature, did I mention, temperature, we're okay.
Dragging CO2 levels into this discussion without a solid connection with a significant increase in temperature blows their credibility.
(3) CO2
They wrote:
> The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2 Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many JPL-designed instruments, such as AIRS. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
True but trivial and says no more than if light a match then warm the planet.
Again, they blow their credibility.
(4) Ice Core Data.
They write:
> Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in solar output, in the Earth’s orbit, and in greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of years, not in millions or even thousands.3
This is basically a lie, a deliberate, contemptible lie. Their lie is their statement that the ice core data shows that
"climate responds to ... greenhouse gas levels".
The ice core data shows that CO2 levels increased about 800 years AFTER the increases in temperature. So, the guess is that (A) from some cause there was an increase in temperature, (B) the higher temperature resulted in more biological activity, and (C) by 800 years later the increased biological activity resulted in higher CO2 levels.
With this lie, we should quit reading, but I will go on.
(5) Sea Levels
They write:
> Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century.4
Again, we were talking about temperature, just temperature, in degrees F, C or K. Did I mention we were talking about temperature? And in particular we were talking about significantly higher temperatures from higher CO2 concentrations from human activity -- for which we have zilch for good science. So now they are talking about sea levels. Where'd they get the importance of sea levels?
Maybe they want to use sea levels as a thermometer. BS. We have excellent thermometers and have had for well over 100 years. For measuring temperature over the past 2000 years, we have the results of a serious effort that I referenced above. For recent temperature, with high irony, from NASA we have satellites with just excellent measurements of global temperature. So, stuff it with the sea levels.
Of course, with the sea levels they are really trying to build a rolling snowball of emotional reaction from anecdotal evidence. That's contemptible.
Just what is it about temperature that NASA has so much trouble understanding?
That's enough.
NASA just wet it's pants and showed that it's a tool of some dirty politics.
The whole thing is not about science, CO2, global warming, or the planet. Instead mostly the subject is about a rip-off, flim-flam, fraud, scam that will let some people rip off some of what they want from some other people.
No sale: Not going to shut down our use of coal and pump more payoff, kickback, political machine money into more Solyndras and do more damage to our economy than was ever done by Tojo, Hitler, and Stalin combined. No thanks.
I'm torqued because I see an effort to sabotage the US.
My original question was, why is the media, e.g., the BBC, so eager to go along with this highly destructive scam?
My best explanation: The old KGB.
Both are proven to a far higher level than many semiconductor models used to build chips you are probably using to make that post.
The news media however, does not report the consensus (on either of those), I am sorry they have mislead you.
[1] Source http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/boykoff04-gec...
> During this time, top climate change scientists from around the globe—comprising the United Nations-sponsored Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)— improved understanding of global warming, and produced three major reports and many related documents.
Tilt! They "improved" nothing! Total, reeking garbage. We're talking Ramaswamy's 'radiative forcing' which is clever terminology but simplistic nonsense.
The IPCC is mostly just a political organization. Its 'science' is just junk, deliberately so.
The "consensus" of the 'climate science' community is inevitable, given the funding and review processes, and meaningless.
Moreover, for the main issue of CO2 from human activity causing significant global warming, 'climate science' has no significant science -- the issue is too difficult.
See my posts Part I and Part II in this thread.
Sorry you've been taken in by the IPCC rip-off, flim-flam, fraud scam.