2. General Fusion raises $20M
• Fusion in plasma achieved by synchronized
pistons setting up shock waves
• $0.04 / kwH
• NEG 2113
3.
4. Which Path?
• Caution and Carbon • Fusion, High Burn
Sequestration Fission
– $19 billion to push – $10 billion to energy
carbon deep into ground projects
• No ROI • At least low yield fusion
• Danger of carbon dioxide • Much more energy
leaks cheaper
– At best status quo • 10x – 100x more
economy abundant economy
• Energy enough for space
5.
6. FP Generation Fusion
• First round design funding – 2009
• First approach problematic, new approach:
• Multiple AmbipolarRecirculating Beam Line
(MARBLE)
7. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics
• R & D corp into fusion, high energy x ray
sources
– Plasma confinement @ energy up to 2 billion
degrees
– Hydrogen and Boron fusion
– Focus fusion
• Dense plasma focus device
10. Has Cold Fusion Been Achieved?
• Rossi and Focardi
– Claim to fuse a proton onto a nickel nucleus
• A growing number of researchers believe there is fusion
here
• Typically would require a high energy plasma to do this
– CF claims to produce some nuclear catalyst that makes the
fusion require less energy.
» It is known that such catalyst exist but known ones are
expensive.
11. China wants 10 GW solar by 2015
• 50 GW by 2020
• PV price competitiveness (projected)
– 2008: $4/W installed
– 2009: $3.25/W
• Competitive in high price markets
– 2015: $2.5/W
• Competitive CA, Az, NV, NM, CO, UT
– 2020: $2/W
• Competitive in southwest
– 2025: $1.5/W
• Competitive throughout US
– 2030: $1.25/W
• Competitive everywhere
12.
13. Oil News
• US part of Bakken fields to be reassesed
– 2008 assesment: 2.5 billion barrels
• US consumes 18 million barrel / day (mbd)
• US currently pumps 9.1 mbd
– Texas pumps as much per day as we import from Saudis
• When is peak oil production?
– Currently projected by 2015 at latest
18. Status of near completion reactors
• India
– Prototype Fast Breeder (PFBR) - 2012
• Requires no water for emergency cooling
• Running at 62% over budget
– Largely new fuel costs and [over]design changes
• Produces and uses own nuclear fuel
• Two other Commercial Fast Breeder Reactors(CFBR)
begin in 2017
– Kunankulum-2 PWR now connected
19. Near Completion Reactors
• China
– QINSHAN 2-4 PWR 650 Mwe
– CGNPC Hongyanbe 1 PWR 1080 [2012]
– CGNPC Ningde 1 PWR 1080 [2012]
– CNNC Sanmen 1 PWR 1250 [2013]
• Russia
– Energoatom Leningrad II-1 PWR 1070 [2013]
• Argentina
– Atucha 2 PHWR 745 MWe [2012]
• France
– Flamanville-3 PWR 1650 MWE [2012]
• Canada
– Bruce AI PHWR 769 MWe [2012]
– Bruce A2 PHWR 769 MWe [2013]
• Taiwan
Notas del editor
The goal is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The company claims plants would cost around US$50 million, allowing them to generate electricity at about four cents per kilowatt hour.f there are no funding delays, then in 2010-2011 for completion of the tests and work for an almost full scale version (2 meters instead of 3 meter diameter).The third phase for General Fusion is to raise $50 million for a net energy gain device with a target date of 2013 if the second/third phase are roughly on schedule.If they get $300-500 million for commercialization, the first commercial scale unit could be 2016-2018.http://www.generalfusion.com/generator_design.htmlThe outside of the spherical tank will be studded with approximately 200 pneumatic pistons. These pistons will impact the tank, inducing a spherical acoustic compression wave in the liquid metal that will travel to the centre of the sphere. So the compression wave is generated in liquid metal, lead in this case which compresses the central cavity containing a plasma with a spherical compression wave.
The end state of successful development of transformational technology (like nuclear fusion or factory mass produced deep burn fission) is a society that has a sustainable energy production that is hundreds of times larger. It is a society that can use those technologies to open up the solar system to human exploration and colonization.TBD – uses of less than NEG fusionTDB – what high burn means and ways to get thereWhat is the objective for society - spending trillions to develop new capabilities with carbon sequestering. Plenty of research needed and trillions to implement an inherently weak and limited plan or to aim for a revolutionized society and set of solutions.Is it better for a country to build up a new trillion dollar industry based on better landfill techniques for garbage so that an economy of roughly the same size does not choke on its own waste or to spend the money on technologies that enable a clean economy that is hundreds of times bigger. If you dialed back the clock hundreds of years, cities were choking on horse manure and using a lot of horses - there could have been costly solutions where we stuck with horses but cleaned up the waste or there was the shift to cars which while it has pollution actually has less pollution issues until the scale of the economy is ten to one hundred times bigger.
FPGeneration FusionUses IEC – Inertial electrostatic confinement.Inertial electrostatic confinement (often abbreviated as IEC) is a concept for retaining a plasma using an electrostatic field. The field accelerates charged particles (either ions or electrons) radially inward, usually in a spherical but sometimes in a cylindrical geometry. Ions can be confined with IEC in order to achieve controlled nuclear fusion.The magnetic field produced by the MIX magnet is known as a multi-pole field, effectively an alternating arrangement of north and south poles arranged about each other to produce a field null in the center. This type of field produces a plasma confinement topology that is stable to magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) perturbations, and is an effective means to trap not only electrons, but also a cold plasma. This core-trapped plasma can reach fairly high densities and may serve as a target for fusion collisions with the recirculating ion beams.First generation was MIX approach. Funded in 2009, MIX approach now considered non-viable.
The MARBLE achieves a large source region by combining multiple ion beams which lie on a common axis, with each beam at a unique energy which differs from the others. The underlying idea is that charged particle electrostatic mirrors consist of equipotential surfaces, and not material surfaces as is the case with photon reflectors. Particles with total energies equal to a particular potential surface are reflected by that surface, but particles with substantially higher energies can pass through unimpeded. An electrode geometry can easily be found where ions and even electrons (hence ambipolar) of several different energies are contained in a linear electrostatic trap. Regions which act as mirrors for one group of particles serve the dual function of acting as a lens for the other groups of particles.In early 2011, FPGeneration designed and constructed a MARBLE prototype designed to trap five distinct recirculating beams. The system was assembled using only simple conically shaped electrodes, inexpensive parts, and went from design to pump-down in only six weeks. Initial results look promising.
The dense plasma focus device consists of two cylindrical copper or beryllium electrodes nested inside each other. The outer electrode is generally no more than 6-7 inches in diameter and a foot long.The electrodes are enclosed in a vacuum chamber with a low pressure gas filling the space between them. The plasma focus device is shown in the figure above.TBD Hydrogen-Boron fusion
A pulse of electricity from a capacitor bank (an energy storage device) is discharged across the electrodes. For a few millionths of a second, an intense current flows from the outer to the inner electrode through the gas.
This current starts to heat the gas and creates an intense magnetic field. Guided by its own magnetic field, the current forms itself into a thin sheath of tiny filaments; little whirlwinds of hot, electrically-conducting gas called plasma. A picture of these plasma filaments is shown above along with a schematic drawing.This sheath travels to the end of the inner electrode where the magnetic fields produced by the currents pinch and twist the plasma into a tiny, dense ball only a few thousandths of an inch across called a plasmoid. All of this happens without being guided by external magnets.Focus Fusion represents a fundamentally diges that create inhomogeneities) are avoided as they decrease predictability. The tokamak, for example, functions by attempting to produce a plasma that is stable and quiet.In contrast, the plasma focus device functions by using instabilities that nature provides. It is natural instabilities that cause the plasma filaments to form and later to compress themselves into an ultra dense plasmoid to generate fusion temperatures. Such instabilities are common in nature and, as Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine has emphasized, are the way that nature evolves and creates new structures and new types of order.In contrast, the plasma focus device functions by using instabilities that nature provides. It is natural instabilities that cause the plasma filaments to form and later to compress themselves into an ultra dense plasmoid to generate fusion temperatures. Such instabilities are common in nature and, as Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine has emphasized, are the way that nature evolves and creates new structures and new types of order. This brings their switching capability up to full operational specifications.
The catalyst is needed to overcome the electrostatic barrier to bring another + proton into the + nucleus. http://aleklett.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/rossi-energy-catalyst-a-big-hoax-or-new-physics/
Why is production holding up?1 – The high oil price environment up to 2008 spurred a frantic response from oil companies to develop previously marginal economic fields, with those decisions now bringing a delayed last gasp production increase.2 – Actual decline rates for fields in production are at the lower end of expectations.
2011 Russia, Energoatom Kalinin 4 PWR 950 MWe2012 Finland, TVO Olkilouto 3 PWR 16002012 Russia, EnergoatomVilyuchinsk PWR x 2 702012 Russia, EnergoatomNovovoronezh II-1 PWR 1070Most Russian reactors are being uprated. In December 2009 Rostechnadzor approved a 4% increase in power from Balakovo-2, a V-320 unit completed in 1988. Rostov-1, the newest operating V-320 unit, has been approved similarly. During 2010 the uprating program is expected to be completed for all VVER units except Novovoronezh 5: 4% for VVER-1000, 5% for VVER-440. The cost of this was put at US$ 200 per kilowatt, compared with $2400/kW for construction of Rostov-2. Novovoronezh 5 started a 9-month upgrade in September 2010, which will extend its operating life to 2035http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/status-of-nuclear-reactors-that-should.html2012 China, CGNPC Hongyanhe 1 PWR 10802012 China, CGNPC Ningde 1 PWR 10802013 Korea, KHNP Shin Wolsong 2 PWR 10002013 USA, TVA Watts Bar 2 PWR 11802013 Russia, Energoatom Leningrad II-1 PWR 10702013 Korea, KHNP Shin-Kori 3 PWR 13502013 China, CNNC Sanmen 1 PWR 12502013 China, CGNPC Ningde 2 PWR 10802013 China, CGNPC Yangjiang 1 PWR 10802013 China, CGNPC Taishan 1 PWR 17002013 China, CNNC Fangjiashan 1 PWR 10802013 China, CNNC Fuqing 1 PWR 10802013 China, CGNPC Hongyanhe 2 PWR 1080
