[Changleen]

Cool! Go China. This is what happens if you don't pay attention and don't invest in research and technology. What you think is your first world technology is suddenly trumped by what you still think of as a second-world nation:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-03/02/content_4247782.htm

Experimental nuclear fusion device on discharge test in July

BEIJING, March. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- China's new generation experimental Tokamak fusion device will conduct its first discharge test in July or August this year. If the experiments prove successful, it would be the world's first experimental nuclear fusion device to come into operation.

Li Jiangang, head of the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and leader of the project, said the enterprise is a "major move" for China to tap the clean energy from nuclear fusion.

China has provided the project, dubbed the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), with an investment of 165million yuan (about 20 million U.S. dollars).

The EAST's final assembly has been completed. The device will be subject to vacuumizing, cooling and galvanizing experiments from Feb. 20 to March. If the discharge experiment proves successful, it will await state inspection and approval according to routine procedures.

According to Li, the EAST can create plasma with a temperature between 50 to 100 million Celsius degrees and a lifespan of 1,000 consecutive seconds.

"Once successful in the discharge tests, the EAST will be the first full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device everput into operation in the world, and will be unbeatable for at least one decade," Li said.

n the mid 1980s, nations including the United States and the former Soviet Union launched a 10 billion-euro ambitious plan, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which was joined by China in 2003.

"The EAST is the only prototype nearest to the ITER and, thus, it can serve ITER advanced research in terms of engineering technology and physics," Li said.

Using deuterium, which is in seawater, as fuel for reaction, a hydrogen plasma torus operating at over 100 million Celsius degrees will produce 500 megawatts of fusion power. The development of ITER is based on the idea of edging out irrecycled mineral resources such as uranium and plutonium.

All the commercialized nuclear reactors in the world were designed for fission, a process contrary to the ITER's fusion, andhave to consume irrecycled mineral resources such as uranium and plutonium. Waste of fission reactors are radioactive while a fusion reaction is rather environment-friendly.

The EAST is an upgrade of China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics institute in 1994. The HT-7 made China the fourth country in the world, after Russia, France and Japan, to have such a device.

That is cool.

Hey BeerDemon, you can change your sig now:

"China IS the site of the worlds first Tokamak fusion device"

 

[Westy]

In the not to distant future the US will be out trumped in every category except for consumerism, and Microsoft.

 

[Changleen]

I wonder who will be first to build a space elevator? You guys like big stuff, maybe you can do that.

 

[narlus]

In the not to distant future the US will be out trumped in every category except for consumerism, and Microsoft.

i think we will still have a strong lead in piercings and tattoos.

 

[narlus]

it's cool to see fusion finally taking some shape...i did a paper (in high school?) on the tokamak reactor design. non-technical, mind you. i am not a physicist.

 

[sanjuro]

Cool! Go China. This is what happens if you don't pay attention and don't invest in research and technology. What you think is your first world technology is suddenly trumped by what you still think of as a second-world nation:

Uh, who invented the microchip?

And which country with 100 million or more people have the worse human rights record, qualifying them as second world?

China claims to have developed a fusion generator. I guess we can throw away all our research then and surrender to the Chinese.

 

[DirtyDog]

Changleen should run an international journal on fusion development.

 

[sanjuro]

I think he should write about his country's problems and see if any of us care.

 

[BurlyShirley]

China sucks.

 

[valve bouncer]

I think he should write about his country's problems and see if any of us care.

That was pretty weak mate. Chang's never been scared to point out England's problems. If you're too self absorbed to see beyond the end of your nose then it's more your problem than his.

 

[sanjuro]

That was pretty weak mate. Chang's never been scared to point out England's problems. If you're too self absorbed to see beyond the end of your nose then it's more your problem than his.

Changleen is from NZ. That's not the same country right?

 

[BurlyShirley]

Changleen is from NZ. That's not the same country right?

No. He is just hiding out down there because he's wanted in europe for Holocaust denial.

 

[Transcend]

Fusion rocks. Does it actualy have any real downsides (besides cost)?

 

[ohio]

Fusion rocks. Does it actualy have any real downsides (besides cost)?

Um, it takes more energy than it puts out (right now). That seems to be a major downside for a power source.

 

[Transcend]

Um, it takes more energy than it puts out (right now). That seems to be a major downside for a power source.

Well there ya go, that's why I asked.

Isn't this reactor just proof of concept though? Could a fusion reactor actually sustain a reaction and be stable enough to be a reliable, clean energy source?

 

[DaveW]

Changleen is from NZ. That's not the same country right?

He's a limey that lived for a few years in your country and has ony been down here a short while.

 

[sanjuro]

Well there ya go, that's why I asked.

Isn't this reactor just proof of concept though? Could a fusion reactor actually sustain a reaction and be stable enough to be a reliable, clean energy source?

That's the concept, but the reality is fusion is a big science experiment.

 

[ohio]

Well there ya go, that's why I asked.

Isn't this reactor just proof of concept though? Could a fusion reactor actually sustain a reaction and be stable enough to be a reliable, clean energy source?

I think so, though to be honest, I know less about this than wikipedia so you'll get a better answer there.

 

[Changleen]

Uh, who invented the microchip?

And which country with 100 million or more people have the worse human rights record, qualifying them as second world?

China claims to have developed a fusion generator. I guess we can throw away all our research then and surrender to the Chinese.

Did you get up on the wrong side of bed?

China haven't done this independantly, they're part of an international consortium that includes the US. It's just they are taking it more seriously than most other nations, including most of Europe (I'd say the French and Japanese are really serious about it too) and have gone ahead and got the damn thing off paper. For the sake of the whole planet I think that's a good thing.

It's funny you get pissed off with me for 'US bashing' in one of my least US bashing threads for a while. I was bashing the shortsightedness of most of Europe and countries like NZ and Australia too for not taking this obvious and neccassary next technlogical step seriously. I mean NZ won't even let nuclear power vessels into it's waters. That's pretty backward if you ask me, although we do get more of our energy from renewables than just about anyone.

 

[Changleen]

Changleen should run an international journal on fusion development.

If someone would pay me to do that, I'd love to.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

"August 12, 2006: Beijing was levelled by an enormous blast when the first tests of a Tokamak reactor went horribly wrong. By only using $20 million to make this particular device, corners were cut by everyone. There are now 15 million less people in the world."

I have a very bad feeling about this. Usually things that create such power should cost more than a Gulfstream V.....but that's just me...Of course that's just the government funding...anyone know if they have additional funding...cause 10 billion euros is waaaaay more that $20M......

 

[ragin-sagin]

Cool! Go China. This is what happens if you don't pay attention and don't invest in research and technology. What you think is your first world technology is suddenly trumped by what you still think of as a second-world nation:

You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you ever heard of ITER? Read up.


Edit: Ok, I didn't mean to sound like such a d!ck, but seriously, do some research into it.

 

[sanjuro]

Did you get up on the wrong side of bed?

I hate foreigners!!!!

 

[Transcend]

"August 12, 2006: Beijing was levelled by an enormous blast when the first tests of a Tokamak reactor went horribly wrong. By only using $20 million to make this particular device, corners were cut by everyone. There are now 15 million less people in the world."

I have a very bad feeling about this. Usually things that create such power should cost more than a Gulfstream V.....but that's just me...Of course that's just the government funding...anyone know if they have additional funding...cause 10 billion euros is waaaaay more that $20M......

It costs more in America, where gov't issue hammers are $4000.

 

[DaveW]

I hate foreigners!!!!

So do I!! .....You loco.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

It costs more in America, where gov't issue hammers are $4000.

But can you make a pen that writes in zero gravity for less than 10 G....I didn't think so....I'll just take a pencil thanks....

 

[Changleen]

[Editted for clarity]

There are 2 factors main factors for a viable fusion reactor. By viable I mean a reactor that is commercially viable and can produce energy for use in power generation.

The first is the so called Q value. This is the ratio of power put into the reaction to get it started compared to power output. Once Q>1 is achieved the reactor is putting out more energy than has been used to start it off.

In 1998, The JT-60 tokamak in Japan produced a high performance reversed shear plasma with the equivalent fusion amplification factor Qeq of 1.25 - the current world record of Q. So we have already broken this barrier.

The ITER reactor in France is predicted to be able to produce a Q value of around 30.

There is a more complex factor to this too, in the long term the reactor will need to be self sustaining. To achieve this, you need a Q of above 5. Hopefully if the ITER project is as successful as it is predicted to be this is not a problem. (Edit: That paragraph is really unclear - I mean once a reaction is self sustaining the Q value is potentially infinite, you just feel in more duterium to keep it going - I mean that you need to get to 5 before our current designs of reactors reach a state where they can (potentially) self sustain.)

The second, and arguably more important factor is Neutron heating density. This is how we'll actually derive power from a Fusion reactor. Just like a fission power station we're essentially using the thing as a boiler to heat water to drive a generator.

The walls of a tokamak will be very thick, probably made largely from a material like stainless steel (although the actuall interior surface of the reactor will be something better able to deal with the heat and high energy particles flying around) and this stainless steel will have cooling channels running through it though which water will be pumped. The water will be boiled to steam and bob's your uncle - turbine spins and electricity is produced.

To achieve this heating, the Q value isn't the determining factor, but rather the neutron heating density. This is pretty complex but suffice to say achieving high Q does not (neccassarily) equal a high neutron heating density.

A good reactor needs a nice high density and it is predicted that within the ITER generation technology we may be able to achieve upto a 95% heating effeciency, which is pretty awesome.

There's tons of material about this on the innahobo so if you're interested you can go look for yourselves. The trouble is a lot of it is out of date, (damn lazy scientists) or in Japanese or Chinese.

However, Fusion is not the pipedream some people seem determined to make it out to be, it is actually a very realistic and promising source of future energy. The main problem it has to overcome now is funding. The US has been up and down on the whole thing, and as the world's leading economy with potentially rth most cash to throw around this is disheartening.

ITER was initially proposed as a far bigger project, but Congress voted against funding it in 1999, (annoyingly a year after the Japanese had a real proof of concept) and withdrew from ITER. This left Canada, European Union, Japan and Russia. Fortunately the US decided to get back involved in 2004, albeit at a far lower level of investment. The US also had it's own project called FIRE which it dropped funding for in 04 and transfered the funds to ITER. Japan and France are the biggest contributors to ITER by a massive margin. France is taking over 50% of the cost and Japan around 30%.

I'd love to be able to give more details about the Chinese project, but I can't read Chinese. It seems they originally were just heading up a research project as part of the foundations for ITER, but at some point thought 'Hmm, this looks promising' and have gone ahead with a reactor which they hope will be capable of a Q significantly above 1.

Oh BTW the computer which controls the magnetic plasma containment at ITER will use a neural network technology. Another cool technology side effect of pushing things forward.

Edit: One more thing - You can thank Ronnie Regan and Gorbachov for getting the ball rolling on this whole Fusion reactor deal in the first place.

 

[Changleen]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you ever heard of ITER? Read up.


Edit: Ok, I didn't mean to sound like such a d!ck, but seriously, do some research into it.

Yeah, thanks, I know all about ITER, this isn't the first thread about this in RM's history. See BeerDemon's sig. he's had it for *a while*.

 

[Changleen]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you ever heard of ITER? Read up.


Edit: Ok, I didn't mean to sound like such a d!ck, but seriously, do some research into it.

Also, As much information as I can gleen about the Chinese project, it does appear that in terms of the technology for producing and sustaining the fusion reaction itself, they are essentially 10 years ahead of everyone else. I don't know about their efforts for harnessing that power, I can't really find anything about it.

 

[Changleen]

I hate foreigners!!!!

One world, biatch.

 

[Ciaran]

One world, biatch.

Not untill I am in control, it isn't.

 

[Changleen]

We're all on this rock together, and I really hope it doesn't take a huge asteroid bearing down on us or alien invasion for us to realise it.

 

[valve bouncer]

In 1998, The JT-60 tokamak in Japan produced a high performance reversed shear plasma with the equivalent fusion amplification factor Qeq of 1.25 -

Well duh, as if that isn't obvious to even the most casual of obsevers..
<---- still stunned that Reactor hasn't put his 2 bobs worth in on this thread.:love:

 

[Changleen]

<---- still stunned that Reactor hasn't put his 2 bobs worth in on this thread.:love:

Me also.

 

[ragin-sagin]

There are 2 factors main factors for a viable fusion reactor. By viable I mean a reactor that is commercially viable and can produce energy for use in power generation.

The first is the so called Q value. This is the ratio of power put into the reaction to get it started compared to power output. Once Q>1 is achieved the reactor is putting out more energy than has been used to start it off.

In 1998, The JT-60 tokamak in Japan produced a high performance reversed shear plasma with the equivalent fusion amplification factor Qeq of 1.25 - the current world record of Q. So we have already broken this barrier.

The ITER reactor in France is predicted to be able to produce a Q value of around 30.

There is a more complex factor to this too, in the long term the reactor will need to be self sustaining. To achieve this, you need a Q of above 5. Hopefully if the ITER project is as successful as it is predicted to be this is not a problem.

The second, and arguably more important factor is Neutron heating density. This is how we'll actually derive power from a Fusion reactor. Just like a fission power station we're essentially using the thing as a boiler to heat water to drive a generator.

The walls of a tokamak will be very thick, probably made largely from a material like stainless steel (although the actuall interior surface of the reactor will be something better able to deal with the heat and high energy particles flying around) and this stainless steel will have cooling channels running through it though which water will be pumped. The water will be boiled to steam and bob's your uncle - turbine spins and electricity is produced.

To achieve this heating, the Q value isn't the determining factor, but rather the neutron heating density. This is pretty complex but suffice to say achieving high Q does not equal a high neutron heating density.

A good reactor needs a nice high density and it is predicted that within the ITER generation technology we may be able to achieve upto a 95% heating effeciency, which is pretty awesome.

There's tons of material about this on the innahobo so if you're interested you can go look for yourselves. The trouble is a lot of it is out of date, (damn lazy scientists) or in Japanese or Chinese.

However, Fusion is not the pipedream some people seem determined to make it out to be, it is actually a very realistic and promising source of future energy. The main problem it has to overcome now is funding. The US has been up and down on the whole thing, and as the world's leading economy with potentially rth most cash to throw around this is disheartening.

ITER was initially proposed as a far bigger project, but Congress voted against funding it in 1999, (annoyingly a year after the Japanese had a real proof of concept) and withdrew from ITER. This left Canada, European Union, Japan and Russia. Fortunately the US decided to get back involved in 2004, albeit at a far lower level of investment. The US also had it's own project called FIRE which it dropped funding for in 04 and transfered the funds to ITER. Japan and France are the biggest contributors to ITER by a massive margin. France is taking over 50% of the cost and Japan around 30%.

I'd love to be able to give more details about the Chinese project, but I can't read Chinese. It seems they originally were just heading up a research project as part of the foundations for ITER, but at some point thought 'Hmm, this looks promising' and have gone ahead with a reactor which they hope will be capable of a Q significantly above 1.

Oh BTW the computer which controls the magnetic plasma containment at ITER will use a neural network technology. Another cool technology side effect of pushing things forward.

Edit: One more thing - You can thank Ronnie Regan and Gorbachov for getting the ball rolling on this whole Fusion reactor deal in the first place.

I got served.

 

[Changleen]

I got served.

Only in Geekland.

 

[blue]

China's a third world country...not a second world...Please try to tell any economist/international relations type person/diplomat...

I don't think they have much of a chance of making it in the big leagues with all the historically powerful (Euro Union, US, Japan) nation-states...They do not have the economic capability...

 

[sanjuro]

China's a third world country...not a second world...Please try to tell any economist/international relations type person/diplomat...

I don't think they have much of a chance of making it in the big leagues with all the historically powerful (Euro Union, US, Japan) nation-states...They do not have the economic capability...

except for the 1 billion chinese...

 

[Transcend]

China's a third world country...not a second world...Please try to tell any economist/international relations type person/diplomat...

I don't think they have much of a chance of making it in the big leagues with all the historically powerful (Euro Union, US, Japan) nation-states...They do not have the economic capability...

Sure thing pal, stay in school.

 

[blue]

except for the 1 billion chinese...

I apologize for the drunken post, but China is still very rural and un-industrialized. It will take between 25-50 years (REALLY FAST) at the current growth rate (that is unsustainable, especially given their form of government) before they can "catch up", per se.

Sorry, I don't know why everyone is running around screaming about China. If there's one int'l actor that the US should be concerned about, it's the Union.