I know we have some nuclear enthusiasts on this list, so thought some of you might be interested in this news report: https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/137847/uk-reactor-takes-first-steps-towards-fusion/

There's a saying in our family that "everything takes longer than you think". They've switched a Tokomak Energy have just switched-on a fusion reactor that they hope will reach 100 million degrees sometime in 2018. This is the temperature you need to sustain a fusion reaction. If this works, they claim they will have a reactor working commercially by 2030.

I've heard the propmises before for most of my life, but as they say, the key to successful forecasting is to forecast often. Eventually it may happen.

The first test will be a bomb. With three times more power than fission power, can the world be trusted with such energy.
Atomic power can not be controlled as it is, do you really think peaceful means will be the end result.
You can guarantee experiments are further advanced than what you ever hear about.
With England France and the USA and no doubt Russia all experimenting I say it is a forgone conclusion their first aim will be for destructive purposes.

Better of with solar power.

Dear Graham,

Eventually it may happen - I agree. However the goal
of fushion energy still needs significant investment.

The company has thus far been able to raise 20 million
pounds from private contributors. Let us trust that
as each milestone and engineering challenge is met
they will be able to garner more financial backing to
continue with the journey.

Of course we have the
additional problem on issues which require radical solutions
that are likely to harm vested economic and political
interests. New ideas, instead of being welcomed for the
opportunities they open up for the improvement of the
human lot, have always been seen as threats to those
who have become comfortable in their ideologies. Let us
hope that this will change in the next decades.

Graham, like the small gold mine I recently worked on in the Ashburton region of WA? Closed down some 10 yrs ago, it has just had $30 Million shovelled into it to get it up and running, with another $40 Million to go. I wondered (whilst welding up rusted out tanks, & corroded pumps etc) at the cost of implementing & using more modern technologies such as biological recovery methods, as opposed to the old school cyanide methods...all of which to get tax breaks and minimise expenditures I suppose.

I still feel that once the fossils with their fossil fuel mentality have had their day, with the last litre of crude oil auctioned off on E-Bay for some ridiculous amount, only then will we see inroads into "renewables, alternates" and their like.

If it actually gets up and running I would applaud all concerned.

doog,
"The first test will be a bomb."

No it won't. Bombs that used nuclear fusion were developed ant tested in the 1950s. But getting the controlled self sustaining nuclear fusion needed for a power station is far more difficult and of no great military advantage.

Even if Australia's better off with solar power, that's of very limited use in England due to its latitude, climate and high population density.

We were gunna have fusion before I left school, then before I left Uni, then before I left work.

I very much doubt it will come before I leave the planet, & with this history, I doubt it will come before my kids leave the planet.

Who cares, we still have plenty of coal, & burning that is like a restoration project. We are restoring the planet's atmosphere balance, & probably only just in time for life as we know it.

Not being a sheep who follows the "man made global anything disaster garbage," I am a full supporter of burning coal. It is the only fuel source we have that is efficient enough to cover base load power generation.

Gas isn't enough. You need to use more gas to generate what is required. Solar and wind power may look good on paper to the tree huggers, but in the end will probably never be enough to cover even a small amount of the country's requirements.

How about spend the money on making the burning of coal much more efficient and stop worrying about the CO2 going into the atmosphere. After all, there are lots of other good scientists out there who claim there is a deficit of CO2. And these scientists are not govt paid puppets.

Hasbeen, "We were gunna have fusion before I left school, then before I left Uni, then before I left work"

So, almost as long as 'they' have been confidently claiming that a safe, permanent means of disposal of waste is 'on the horizon', if not imminent.

The last mentioned, disposal, has just about been sorted for Uncle Sam, the Brits and other countries, who just know that the Land of Oz that was beaut for the Brits to test bombs (and rob Australians of using the land forever), has even more governments who are lining up, rears exposed, to accept whatever waste they want to ship this way.

As for fusion, wasn't that always the 'bait & switch' to sell yesterday's nuke technology and avoid talking about the mammoth costs of ever decommissioning them?

One day it will work I hope. The worry no one seems to want to face is
will it be too late ?
We may have gone over that peak of technology into a collapse.
It will take so much money and resources to get from just one
experimental fusion machine, to a working operational machine and then
to a fleet of fusion machines world wide, that we will be exhausted
before we reach that goal.

It could be that someone will have a working machine and the rest of
the world may have to rely on it to bootstrap the rest of the world.

I think Alan's Thorium machine is a far quicker solution.

Currently, around a billion Indians are burning wood and cow dung to cook their meals. Unless Indian wood and cow dung produce no CO2, I would suggest that an enormous amount is going into the atmosphere, and if they keep using those fuels, will keep doing so.

IF coal-fired power stations could provide all their electricity needs, as long as they produced LESS CO2 than the current methods, then it's a bonus for environmentalists. Yes, coal-fired power stations produce CO2, but the big question is: would they produce less than current cooking methods ?

So why not ?

The current generation of nuclear power stations are vastly safer than the earlier generations: we don't hear of Chernobyl-type accidents about the reactors in France or Finland. Such nuclear reactors produce very little CO2. Australia has plenty of uranium. It could even be exported to India, to avoid almost all CO2 production far into the future.

So why not ?

Joe

Hope Aidan and doog will be on hand for pedaling and treadmill duties when their precious wind and solar sun fails, as it does and will.

Joe, much as I would hate to cook my food on cow dung, & cooking on campfires is for the birds as far as I am concerned, don't forget that these fuels are circular when it comes to CO2.

Not that it matters of course, but you have to have grass, herbage or trees to provide those fuels The CO2 produced in the burning has to be first extracted from the atmosphere, & is simply returned with the burning. Our flora needs more CO2, so I'll stick to good old coal powered cooking thanks.

Infact, if greenies were in any way conservationists there would be a thriving industry supplying cow dung to those inner city high rise apartments, so they could practice what they preach.

Of course we all know that green is simply the resprayed red of communism, & has nothing to do with conservation. The way they have us going, we will soon be back to horse & carts for city deliveries, so they will have lots of horse dung delivered right to their front door, ready for collecting. I wonder if they are ready for using it?

Anyone know if horse dung is as good a fuel as cow dung? Hell this could become as interesting an argument as whether E10 ethanol contaminated petrol is as good as the real stuff.

Hi Has been,

Yes, there's a project that could be funded by GetUp: to pay for and deliver, say, half a ton ne of cow dung for each inner-city Greenie apartment. Imagine the kale they could grow with that !

And as we move back to using horses, deliveries of horse dung to those Greenies could be done every week. Just leave it in the foyer of their apartment blocks, thanks. They'd be thrilled.

And anyway, if it's good enough for Indians, it should be good enough for their fellow-environmentalists in Australia.

No ? They're superior in some way, they should have the latest Manterra black marble kitchen bench top and five-thousand-dollar fridge ? How's that ?

Joe

Hi Everybody,
We have had a very safe nuclear reactor operating at Lucas Heights in Sydney for about forty years.
Just think how our economic circumstance would change for the better if we generated power from
a nuclear generators rather than coal or gas and then we could sell all of the coal overseas.
I say bring it on sooner than later because sooner or later we are going to be forced to have it anyway.

The problems with fusion energy is firstly is is vastly expensive, and secondly that anything that is even vaguely radioactive with have the greeny fright bats revved up.

That modern nuclear reactors are orders of magnitude safer than even renewable energy is ignored by these fright bats for whom an anti nuke stance has become ideological dogma.

The cost of nuclear energy is almost entirely the capital cost of the plant as the cost of uranium incl enriching, reprocessing and disposal is measured in cents/MWhr, which is why thorium and other technologies that require a higher capital cost are not even explored.

I fully expect to see fusion energy become technically possible, but unlikely to see it become economically feasible in the next 50 yrs.

Thorium is a green, cheap, plentiful, and dependable energy source.

The USA had a proven, working, and reliable reactor back in the sixties that was decommissioned by politicians and the military industrial complex because they were unable to make bombs from it.

We should not be the dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste, thorium molten salt reactor technology that can use the waste, and in the process reduce waste risk from thousands of years down to hundreds. The bonus is unlimited cheap energy that will make fossil fuels obsolete.
Both China and India are on the verge of commissioning “Molten Salt Reactors”.

I fully understand the resistance by some contributors; after all they are methane breathing fossils that have a vested interest in the maintenance of fossil fuels and their planet destroying byproducts.

https://youtu.be/F9e64AFieC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9e64AFieCM&feature=youtu.be

So, how is that 1 million year storage in the Yucca Mountains going? And might it take the remains of US battle ships?

In the US the best laid plans for storage seem to slide and slide and the very 'Progressive' Obama put Yucca off.

Any reasons why Uncle Sam's State Department is so nice to visiting Oz dignitaries? John Howard seemed to undergo an epiphany, 'Nek minute, he was selling nuke to the very surprised Canadians. Hot Damn, but that State Dept is good.

Next, from the lessons learned overseas, why wouldn't the Oz feds resolve storage before considering reactors for Oz?

I am happy with nuclear generation, but at the same time it was an Australian government with a dumb-ass idea that the Brits might just hand over nuke bomb secrets, that allowed Australia to become a nuclear bomb test site. And despite assurances easily given prior, the clean up has not restored the land.

leoj said; the Brits might just hand over nuke bomb secrets,
I can tell you for sure that Australia had, note had, all the secrets
needed to produce bombs and nuclear power stations and had indeed
designed a power station for Jervis Bay.

Bazz,

Thanks for that information. I haven't come across it before, but then one might not expect to.