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Eh. It's a good engineering improvement, not some breakthrough technology, and that's probably how fusion will actually get implemented - a long succession of engineering challenges, not a fundamental breakthrough concept. Small steps closer to the goal are still steps towards the goal, and there's nothing implausible in what they're claiming, since they're just saying "we have better magnets" and those tend to be a limiting factor on fusion designs.
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Aug 11, 2015 04:04
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hobbesmaster posted:Hmmmm, I think someone at the press office didn't think this through. Fusion has been 30 years away for 90 years, now it can be 10 years away for 30 
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Aug 11, 2015 08:57
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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If you want a fusion-related thing to get excited about, the Wendelstein 7-X magnets are working nicely. The W7X is the largest stellarator yet. Compared to tokamaks, stellarators use much more complex geometries to achieve more stable magnetic fields. First plasma is scheduled for later this year. Over at ITER, construction's begun on the basement of the tokamak complex. First plasma was expected in 2020, but there'll be revised estimate in November (2022 or 2023 are most likely). As for practicality: the most optimistic plans for a commercial reactor have electricity generation in 2050, which I interpret as '2060 at the earliest'. So for the foreseeable future, it's renewables or bust. coffeetable fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 09:29
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Or, since the largest breeder reactor in the world (besides the Superphenix shitshow in France) is properly ramping up now, advanced fission developed by Mother Russia 
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Aug 11, 2015 13:58
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Kalman posted:Eh. It's a good engineering improvement, not some breakthrough technology, and that's probably how fusion will actually get implemented - a long succession of engineering challenges, not a fundamental breakthrough concept. Small steps closer to the goal are still steps towards the goal, and there's nothing implausible in what they're claiming, since they're just saying "we have better magnets" and those tend to be a limiting factor on fusion designs. They're really not, and that's a huge part of the problem. The materials issues are potentially killer. A fusion reactor will produce a much, much higher neutron flux than a fission one does, and coming up with a material that can withstand that, as well as all of the other stresses that the plasma-facing components, is a giant issue. For an operational commercial fusion reactor, you can expect *every single atom* in the reactor vessel will be struck and displaced by a fusion neutron 15 times per year of operation; the ITER reactor will only experience about an order of magnitude less than that. Even generating that sort of neutron flux in a lab so you can explore that regime is difficult; there's an entire other research facility planned as an ITER adjunct to build an accelerator to do this. Posit arbitrarily strong magnets and perfect control over the plasma. Okay, great. What do you *build the reactor* out of? What material do you use for the PFCs that's going to last 30 years? There's currently nothing that will do that, and materials problems are *hard*, way harder than engineering problems (Which are comparatively little things, like "how do you get spent fuel out of the operating reactor?", "how do you actually convert the neutron output into electricity?", "how do you breed more tritium"?) This is a press release. Build a small one, even a tabletop one, and show us.
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Aug 11, 2015 14:46
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Phanatic posted:They're really not, and that's a huge part of the problem. The materials issues are potentially killer. A fusion reactor will produce a much, much higher neutron flux than a fission one does, and coming up with a material that can withstand that, as well as all of the other stresses that the plasma-facing components, is a giant issue. For an operational commercial fusion reactor, you can expect *every single atom* in the reactor vessel will be struck and displaced by a fusion neutron 15 times per year of operation; the ITER reactor will only experience about an order of magnitude less than that. Even generating that sort of neutron flux in a lab so you can explore that regime is difficult; there's an entire other research facility planned as an ITER adjunct to build an accelerator to do this. From the article: quote:Another key advantage is that most of the solid blanket materials used to surround the fusion chamber in such reactors are replaced by a liquid material that can easily be circulated and replaced, eliminating the need for costly replacement procedures as the materials degrade over time. It's almost like the materials problems are known and they have an engineering solution for those as well.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:01
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phanatic are you a very enthusiastic amateur or an actual fusion/nuclear physics/whatever researcher (from my amateur perspective, your post history could easily read as either)
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Aug 11, 2015 15:27
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Looks like Japan is restarting their nuclear reactors.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:39
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Kalman posted:From the article: It's almost as if press releases dismiss and trivialize serious issues of technology with vague assertions: "Another key advantage is that most of the solid blanket materials used to surround the fusion chamber in such reactors are replaced by a liquid material that can easily be circulated and replaced, eliminating the need for costly replacement procedures as the materials degrade over time." First, obviously this doesn't do anything about the PFCs, because you can't build those out of a *liquid*. If the PFC is a thin layer of solid material backed by the liquid instead of a big chunk of solid reactor vessel, now the PFC has to be mechanically stronger than it would have to be if it were a big chunk of solid reactor vessel, and any weakening it undergoes due to neutron bombardment is now an even bigger issue. Second, what is this "liquid material that can easily be circulated and replaced"? How does it deal with intense neutron bombardment? Does it become radioactive (answer: yes)? With what half-life? What's the decay chain like? Because if you're planning on periodically "circulating and replacing it," having a bunch of liquid radioactive waste to dispose of on a regular basis sort of undermines that whole "clean fusion power" thing. Also from the press release: quote:Right now, as designed, the reactor should be capable of producing about three times as much electricity as is needed to keep it running, but the design could probably be improved to increase that proportion to about five or six times, Sorbom says. For an economically viable commercial fusion plant, you'd need a Q of about 20. Q=5 or 6 is still basically infinitely far away from commercial fusion. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 15:40
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Wouldn't cycling through a liquid that is constantly absorbing neutrons be somewhat challenging? Radwaste cleanup at fission plants is a pretty large challenge. I think a large part of the popularity of fusion as a concept is the absence of fission products, but I don't think people realize that it's relatively easy to contain them in the fuel versus liquid waste (especially tritium, which has been the source of a number of NRC violations). e. ^^^^^ what he said.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:42
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So what's everyone's opinion of oil crashing lately?
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Aug 11, 2015 17:24
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ColoradoCleric posted:So what's everyone's opinion of oil crashing lately? As inevitable as the sun rising in the east. We have oil bubbles and crashes once a decade on average since the 70s.
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Aug 11, 2015 17:36
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ColoradoCleric posted:So what's everyone's opinion of oil crashing lately? Cheap sources of a resource are depleted, which makes the price go up, which means it's now economical to exploit formerly marginal sources. So you have a bit of a lag while that production gets underway, then the increased supply (and increase in reserves) hits the market and prices go down. In this case, it's fracking. Back when oil just exploded out of the ground on its own, fracking wasn't necessary. But those productive fields played out, prices rose, encouraging the new capital development, that happened, now those fields are producing large amounts. And prices don't just reflect current supply, they reflect future expectations. Couple that with Saudi Arabia's decision to not cut output to keep prices high, but rather to keep pumping to maintain market share and keep prices depressed for long enough to drive a lot of the fracking operations under, and you get a crash.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:09
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That and really low interest rates does funny things to the investment environment, suddenly loads of cheap money (with nowhere else to go, oil looks like a sure bet etc) to drive all sorts of projects that would not pass go otherwise. Lots of investors that don't (didn't?) know the difference between proven/profitable, technically recoverable and unproved reserves too.
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Aug 27, 2015 21:02
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 The downside of feed-in tariffs: quote:The Halls had their roof panels installed by Solar City, the second-largest installer in the country. The problem was that they installed too many panels, 36 of them to be exact, which was more than the electric company’s guidelines would allow. Seems like that's the kind of thing you'd want to check before you pay for an installation. And also the kind of thing the installer should know.
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Sep 1, 2015 16:38
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Phanatic posted:
When you get panels installed by Solar City they ask you for information on your power usage. Maybe this install was just super oversized (that's an insane number of panels for a single family home) because they were wrong about their power usage.
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Sep 1, 2015 18:50
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Yeah what the poo poo, we use a large amount of electricity and before Solar City told us to gently caress off because the roof isn't some platonic roof ideal or some bullshit they were looking at I think 12-18 panels. 36 is goddamned absurd.
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Sep 1, 2015 18:54
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Phanatic posted:
So a couple things, first, IJ Review is a site started by the former online director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee who briefly ran an online group called Conservative Daily, along with the former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. The site is edited by Benny Johnson, formerly Buzzfeed Benny, who was Buzzfeed's Republican voice before being fired for repeated plagiarism. It's a site that has a stated goal of being a cross between BuzzFeed and The Drudge Report. National Republican interest in solar is still quite negative, despite some states like North Carolina turning around to be quite positive for residential rooftop solar. Their article was written based off an aggregator's article which was written off the original local news report. Note that IJ Review says "Southern California Edison nixed the system’s final approval, and it sat unused for an entire year." but the actual timing on things is Install at the end of September 2014, the homeowners told Solar City they would be cutting ties with them in June 2015, then went on vacation, the panels were removed and roof repaired in July 2015 after they got back. The local news report aired at the end of August 2015. This was a $0 down lease system that they never paid a dime for, as the leasing fees weren't going to start until after the system was turned on. Solar City did not charge the homeowners for installation, removal, or roof restoration. Installers ask your usage before installing, and generally aim for a 2/3 offset, so I think the most likely things here are between the following: 1) They didn't provide full usage, just a recent bill, which would have been from summer 2014 and their AC would have been running, then could have said it was a typical bill. 2) There was a confusion by either Solar City or the homeowners with regards to monthly kWh and monthly dollar bill, causing Solar City to mistakenly use monthly kWh as monthly cost and then converting that back to the annual kWh they'd need. 3) A fuckup by someone on Solar City's end making a typo or doing something incorrectly and it somehow not getting caught before install by either Solar City or by the family, who should at least been able to notice their system was nearly 2 times too big for what would make sense. Boten Anna posted:Yeah what the poo poo, we use a large amount of electricity and before Solar City told us to gently caress off because the roof isn't some platonic roof ideal or some bullshit they were looking at I think 12-18 panels. 36 is goddamned absurd. Depending on where you are and what you were trying to do, your roof may be too shaded to meet minimum design factors for rebates and so might not be worth your time or theirs. The other thing that causes Solar City to not bother is some roof materials they just won't work with.
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Sep 3, 2015 03:28
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fermun posted:Depending on where you are and what you were trying to do, your roof may be too shaded to meet minimum design factors for rebates and so might not be worth your time or theirs. The other thing that causes Solar City to not bother is some roof materials they just won't work with. It's not shaded at all, the problem is that it bows a little bit or something, so they can't use their mounting brackets for some reason. They said another company might be able to do it but they won't.
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Sep 24, 2015 07:01
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Bloomberg thinks renewables is starting to impact the cost of coal/gas generated electricity. The solar subsidy will be phased out over the next couple of years which will probably stall growth though.
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Oct 7, 2015 06:02
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Boten Anna posted:It's not shaded at all, the problem is that it bows a little bit or something, so they can't use their mounting brackets for some reason. They said another company might be able to do it but they won't. It causes 2 problems, one with the mounting brackets taking more work but it also causes potential issues with how they set the system up. A little bit of a bow is actually a shading issue. Every panel on an array hooked up to the same inverter has to maintain a voltage, if all the panels are perfectly parallel and experience the same amount of shade, then no problem. When panels in an array experience different shade or when panels have to have either a different azimuth or tilt, then they will have a different amount of light hitting them so all panels in the array would produce less to maintain the voltage for all panels if they were on the same inverter. The way to correct for this is either microinverters, or ACPV. Microinverters are inverters that are attached to the rear of the panel and AC power is sent from the array, ACPV have microinverters built into the panel itself so that the panel produces alternating current. Both of these solutions are to have each panel be its own "array". Solar City does not like to do anything complicated, they aim for a team to get in and get out. Their insistence on ideal roofs makes their pricing very attractive but they are all about volume and if your usage, shading, or roof slows them down, they don't need you, there is enough demand right now for them to only accept the best case scenario roofs. By only doing standardized roof setups, their installation crews are about 2-3x as fast as a crew which will work on all roofs, and since it costs about $1000 per crew per day, they can cut off $1-3K from installation costs. They can pass on some of that savings while only accepting a standardized roof type that lets their crews treat roofs as essentially an assembly line setup. Other companies will do it, but it tends to be the companies that work in the area for people who are willing to accept higher price for either custom builds or long-term warrantied with good customer service purchased systems. You won't find the cheapest guys doing anything too hard. If you're still interested you should look into doing it in the next year or so before things start to expire.
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Oct 7, 2015 06:56
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Watts Bar Unit 2 got its operating license today: http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/30326069/watts-bar-unit-2-gets-operating-licensequote:The Spring City reactor that will be the nation's first new nuclear generating plant of the 21st century has gotten the go-ahead from the federal government.
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Oct 23, 2015 05:55
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First US nuclear plant of the 21st century...is a Gen II design.
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Oct 24, 2015 04:50
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Pander posted:First US nuclear plant of the 21st century...is a Gen II design. Aren't the reactors going up in Georgia going to be done way sooner, and either gen III or gen IV?
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Oct 24, 2015 05:02
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Nintendo Kid posted:Aren't the reactors going up in Georgia going to be done way sooner, and either gen III or gen IV? Looks like Watts Bar 2 will go online in 2016, Vogtle 3 & 4 are schedule for 2019 & 2020 respectively. (http://www.southerncompany.com/what-doing/energy-innovation/nuclear-energy/pdfs/vogtle-nuclear-brochure.pdf)
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Oct 24, 2015 05:09
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Pander posted:First US nuclear plant of the 21st century...is a Gen II design. Yeah, its a win-lose.
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Oct 24, 2015 05:10
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And why?
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Oct 24, 2015 07:14
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:And why? They started building it in the 80s, stopped in '88, then restarted again in 2007, so they were basically just finishing what they started, which is an old design. They've made quite a few updates though - I saw Unit 2 being constructed in January and I think we'll be heading out again later this year or early next year, it's pretty impressive.
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Oct 24, 2015 14:16
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Oh. Ok...
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Oct 24, 2015 15:43
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Phayray posted:They started building it in the 80s, stopped in '88, then restarted again in 2007, so they were basically just finishing what they started, which is an old design. They've made quite a few updates though - I saw Unit 2 being constructed in January and I think we'll be heading out again later this year or early next year, it's pretty impressive. Its still a beautiful reactor, and I'll take a Gen II over a Coal plant any day.
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Oct 24, 2015 15:49
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CommieGIR posted:Its still a beautiful reactor, and I'll take a Gen II over a Coal plant any day. The backstory is that TVA started building a whole bunch of multi-unit reactors back in the '70s. Normal construction/finance/regulatory delays meant some got finished faster than others. Watts Bar II was having lots of problems early on, and by '88 TVA decided they didn't really need the capacity anyway, so they mothballed it where it was. 20 years later, they started needing new capacity, and figured that finishing WB II was the cheapest option, so they upgraded their design and went forward with it. I think WB II was the last of that batch. Any future nukes will have to start from scratch.
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Oct 24, 2015 16:08
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Yeah, I walked around Satsop the other day, no way they're completing that ever. Anyone nerdy enough to be reading this thread would probably enjoy driving out there if you're ever in Seattle.
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Oct 24, 2015 16:18
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Trabisnikof posted:Yeah, I walked around Satsop the other day, no way they're completing that ever. Anyone nerdy enough to be reading this thread would probably enjoy driving out there if you're ever in Seattle. My old boss was in negotiations to turn it into a datacenter about 7 or 8 years ago. I'm pretty sure you're right, if they do end up doing anything with it they'll probably have to start from scratch. I saw some pictures of the core area and they had filled it in with a ton of rebar and concrete. Also do modern reactors need cooling stacks like those?
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Oct 24, 2015 17:28
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ElCondemn posted:Also do modern reactors need cooling stacks like those? Technically no reactor needs cooling stacks like those, they're just one very common and economical way to cool water. Lots of coal plants use them too. Many nuclear plants use direct heat exchange with a lake or ocean to cool. I think there's a plant in Arizona that cools with sewage outflow.
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Oct 24, 2015 17:38
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Trabisnikof posted:Yeah, I walked around Satsop the other day, no way they're completing that ever. Anyone nerdy enough to be reading this thread would probably enjoy driving out there if you're ever in Seattle. Yeah, I love taking that route when I drive to the coast.
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Oct 24, 2015 18:50
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Deteriorata posted:The backstory is that TVA started building a whole bunch of multi-unit reactors back in the '70s. Normal construction/finance/regulatory delays meant some got finished faster than others. Watts Bar II was having lots of problems early on, and by '88 TVA decided they didn't really need the capacity anyway, so they mothballed it where it was. Pretty much. The delayed construction also allowed TVA to correct some known flaws with the reactor design as well, so its a Gen II with noticeable improvements.
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Oct 24, 2015 18:54
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Deteriorata posted:20 years later, they started needing new capacity, and figured that finishing WB II was the cheapest option, so they upgraded their design and went forward with it. I think WB II was the last of that batch. Any future nukes will have to start from scratch. ...unless cheap natural gas chokes off nuclear expansion for another twenty years.
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Oct 24, 2015 22:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I've seen a few people get excited over it.
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Oct 27, 2015 18:35
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blowfish posted:...unless cheap natural gas chokes off nuclear expansion for another twenty years. Even if cheap natural gas chokes off nuclear expansion it will have run coal bankrupt by then.
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Oct 27, 2015 18:42
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Wanderer posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk Where did that video title come from?
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Oct 27, 2015 19:57
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