Speaking of wasting money …

Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light? If you have a personal favorite theory, that is in someway related to the Electric Universe, this is where it can be posted.
BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:54 pm

Remember the article, pushing fusion, that I posted earlier, dated June 2021? It stated

https://www.neimagazine.com/features/fe ... r-8826122/
As part of its net zero carbon emissions by 2050 goal, the UK government has also announced that it is looking for a 100 hectare site to build the world’s first prototype nuclear fusion power plant, and hopes to start construction by 2030. The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) project, as it is known, is being overseen by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and aims to have an operational facility by 2040.
Well, here’s another article, dated yesterday, which indicates the first article was not exactly being truthful …

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19867 ... pposition/
THE UK Government is considering a Scottish site for a new nuclear fusion energy station - despite the Scottish Government’s opposition. Conservative Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng will choose one of five potential locations to build the prototype fusion power plant, including a site at Ardeer, near Stevenston, on the Ayrshire coast. … snip … Known as the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (Step), the project aims to prove that fusion technology can produce energy for the electricity grid and pave the way for similar, commercial power stations. … snip … A total of £222 million in preparatory funding has been allocated to select a site and develop a concept design, with a “considerably higher quantum of money” then required to build the working power plan by 2050, according to Leon Flexman of the UKAEA.
This seems to indicate that the working PROTOTYPE is not slated to be finished until 2050, not 2040. And that means that having enough commercial plants on line to provide even a fraction of the UK's power likely wouldn’t occur until 2060 or even 2070 (given how long large power plants take to build). Thus, fusion powering even the western world is clearly STILL more than 40 years away, at least. Thus, the suggestion that fusion will save the world from the climate crisis the AGWalarmists claim will occur before that is SILLY. It's dishonest. It's propaganda.

Then we have the article below boasting about the effort to site this prototype fusion plant in another region of the British Isles …

https://westbridgfordwire.com/coal-fire ... ergy-site/
A Nottinghamshire power station has been cut from a shortlist of places which could become a pioneering fusion energy site.

… snip …

However, another Nottinghamshire site is back on the shortlist, as a site known as ‘West Burton A’, in Retford, will instead be considered to host the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) fusion project.

Fusion produces a source of clean electricity by copying the processes that power the sun – and the new site could be built as soon as 2040, if scientists can finalise the technology.
Again we see the 2040 date being used to try and sell the public on what they are doing. And, truth is, the claim that what they are doing is copying the processes that power the sun is dishonest, since in venues that the public probably isn't aware due to lack of interest in astrophysics or because the mainstream media won't often cover news questioning the mainstream), mainstream scientists admit that they still do NOT understand how the sun works. That being the case, how can right now they possibly be “copying” the processes used to power the sun? But that fact doesn’t stop gnomists from massive land acquisition and plans to spend hundreds of billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars, with consequences spanning decades into the future.

By the way, I thought this statement by one of the government employees in another article also questionable …

https://www.irvinetimes.com/news/198665 ... vent-held/
PEOPLE in Ardeer and beyond are to be asked for their thoughts next week on setting up a nuclear fusion plant in the area. … snip .. Leon Flexman from UKAEA commented on the influence of public opinion in a council meeting this week, January 21. “If there was a huge outcry against fusion coming to any of the sites, we would give it consideration.”
Seriously, do any of you really think any size outcry against a fusion power plant by the people of Ardeer (population all of 9000) would affect the government decision … given that Scotland's government is already on record against it? The truth is this gnome has become too big to fail and those behind them aren’t going to let the unhappiness of even 9000 people stop them. After all, while they try to *sell* the fusion power plant site on the basis of a few thousand new jobs they’d create in the community, the truth is that the mortgages, vacations, educations, retirement plans, etc, etc, etc of tens if not hundreds of thousand of people are now dependent on the gnome moving forward over at least the next 40 years. Just saying …

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Feb 06, 2022 12:52 am

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/tech/ ... 225862002/
With 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the sun, scientists hit — at least for a fraction of a second — a key milestone on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California were able to spark a fusion reaction that briefly sustained itself — a major feat because fusion requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.

… snip …

“The result is scientifically very exciting for us," said study co-author Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for Lawrence Livermore's fusion program. "But we’re a long way from useful energy.”

Maybe decades, he said.

… snip …

These experiments created burning plasmas that lasted just a trillionth of a second, but that was enough to be considered a success, Zylstra said.

Overall, the four experiments in the Nature study — conducted in November 2020 and February 2021 — produced as much as 0.17 megajoules of energy, That's far more than previous attempts, but still less than one-tenth of the power used to start the process, Zylstra said.

jackokie
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by jackokie » Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:24 pm

The longest journey begins with a single step. And with mainstream science, piles of taxpayer money. And nobody cares if you're walking in circles.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Feb 10, 2022 5:15 am

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AATFGTU
Fusion Research Reaches 'Milestone,' Could Lead to Cheap, Clean Energy

Scientists are closer than ever to cracking the code of nuclear fusion and providing an alternative source of energy that would be cheaper and cleaner for the environment.

Researchers at the UK's Oxfordshire Joint European Torus (JET) performed a record-breaking experiment they say has brought them closer than ever to harnessing energy from nuclear fusion. They reported generating a record "59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy" over five seconds, which shatters—and more than doubles—the 1997 record, also set by the JET, of 21.7 megajoules.
Oh ... we're to get excited? Sorry, but I believe a total of 59 megajoules released over 5 seconds (which is what this, https://news.datumlist.com/science/five ... ak-fusion/, explicitly said happened) works out to 11.8 MW . But JET has boasted that they produced 16.1 MW in an approximately 1 sec experiment in the 1997 experiment (see https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/research/joint-european-torus/ and https://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley ... an-bullick ). Let's see ... 11.8 MW in 5 seconds is less than 16 MW in 1 second … so where’s the new record? I don't see it. And left out of this is that JET consumed 700MW back in 1997 to produce that 16MW. How many MW did the current *record* consume to make it's 12? Just curious … ;)

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Fri Feb 11, 2022 7:59 pm

Regarding my last post and it’s observations …

You’re going to see a lot of mainstream articles touting the marvelous achievement of JET. Claiming that they produced more than double the energy they did back in 1997, even though the math doesn’t really work. They’ll do that because, face it, they need to sell nuclear fusion to keep the money pouring in. For example, here’s an article from yesterday …

https://www.firstpost.com/world/uk-scie ... 64921.html “UK scientists make major nuclear fusion energy breakthrough: Everything you need to know”

And all you need to know folks is … don’t complain! Keep quiet and keep that tax money rolling in to them. Because those people insist they need to save you from climate catastrophe (and pay for their nice lifestyle). And even if salvation comes after the catastrophe, it’s still worth it (to them).

And don’t you dare look beyond the headlines and pretty pictures of the articles they write. Don’t you dare do your own math and remember any real history. Don't you dare think for yourself. The STATE will tell you all you need to know.

And in the end you’ll be completely dependent on them for energy to heat your house, cook your food and run your car. The STATE needs that … to control you ... and what the STATE needs is all that matters to the people already in control.

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:36 am

So … just as the folks pushing the gnome filled narrative of mainstream astrophysics have other agendas, I've just learned that the person who Biden has chosen to help control and write the narrative of the Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition section of Department of Energy, Sam Brinton, has other agendas ...

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/r ... t-n1558281

Reassuring isn’t it folks … to know such an important matter is going to be the hands of *they/them*, whose #2 priority is apparently “Protecting LGBTQ Youth from #ConversionTherapy.”

And it’s much worse than that. Read the linked article and be appalled. Visit his website … https://samuelbrinton.com … and be appalled. Check out the many articles in the mainstream press on him … and be appalled.

I’m also appalled by his age and lack of experience. It seems to me, someone a little more of both should be named the Deputy Director of such a potentially important department at the DOE . Oh he’s got experience … but most of it seems to be pushing his #2 priority (or is that really #1?). He himself says (https://idss.mit.edu/news/sam-brinton-saves-the-world/) “My time at MIT was spent coming out and coming into my own,” and he admits fellow nuclear engineering students told him the only reason he was admitted into MIT was because of his “diversity fellowship”. There may be a little truth in that. And from the sound of things, he was very, very busy during his MIT stay ... at being a social activist. Maybe too busy to have learned much real engineering.

According to his Linked In page (https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelbrinton ) after graduating from MIT, he spent 1 year, as a “Clean Energy Fellow”, at an organization called “Third Way” in DC … which just reeks of leftist agendas. See for yourself: https://www.thirdway.org . Don’t try to tell me that organization isn’t highly political in its agenda. Just look at the opening web page. Just look at their About page.

Following that, Brinton spent 2 years 4 months as a “Senior Policy Analyst” for the Bipartisan Policy Center, again in DC. How in the world does anyone become a SENIOR analyst just 1 year out of college? That REEKS of agenda. And this Bipartison Policy Center just reeks of agenda too … the UNIPARTY’s agenda. Look at the five quotes they highlight near the bottom of their About page (https://bipartisanpolicy.org/about/ ):

“It is a pleasure to be here at the Bipartisan Policy Center among many old friends, like Leon Panetta, and a few old enemies...like Leon Panetta. Senator John McCain”

“Candor generates trust. Trust is the basis on which real change, constructive change, is made. President Joe Biden”

“Success depends on developing relationships, keeping your word. Senator Bob Dole”

“Bipartisanship isn't an option anymore, it is a requirement. Senator Tom Daschle”

“Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today's political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship. Senator Olympia Snowe”

Every one of them is clearly a member of the UNIPARTY.

Next, returning to Mr Brinton’s resume, he says he spent the next 7 months founding a consulting firm, Core Solutions Consulting” in … or course … DC. So this KID, with all of 3 years experience in anything under his belt, claims he was advising our leaders on the solutions to the “complex socio-technical questions facing the nation” … with contracts from advanced nuclear companies (BAC - who have hands out to the tax payers), non-partisan think tanks (BAC - yeah, as non partisan as the Bipartisan Policy Center ... :roll: ), and top tier universities (all of them probably with leftist agendas). And strangely enough, I can’t find any indication on the internet of any such company operating in Washington DC, so did it fold after his departure? That’s success?

After that, he suddenly moves to Berkeley (another political stronghold of the left) and takes a Job as Director of Global Political Strategy and Legislative Affairs for a “non-profit” start up (how’s that work?) called Deep Isolation … where he’s worked the last 4 years plus. Their website indicates this is a company with all of 20 employees. Their idea is to deeply bury nuclear wastes (very innovative :roll: ). The CEO is Elizabeth Muller, and Sam Brinton was (according to her), their first employee. I think Brinton’s title means he was basically in sales … trying to sell the concept to investors and the nuclear power industry. This too isn’t exactly the sort of experience that lends itself to making the best choice amongst alternatives.

Plus, the name Elizabeth Muller rang a bell. Sure enough, Muller is high, high up in an organization called Berkeley Earth (http://berkeleyearth.org/team/ ). That's a group of die hard Global Warming believers, founded by Elizabeth's AGWalarmist Dad, Richard Muller. Ah ... the plot thickens. You see, Berkeley Earth is a very sketchy organization. The organization was originally called the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, which also had both Muller and his daughter on the board. BEST did a lot of demonstrably bogus work and made a lot of bogus claims to push the AGWmeme. In other words, *scientific integrity* means nothing to them. And I can prove it.

For example, with great fanfare, they put out a study that claimed to confirm previous results about Earth warming and then Richard Muller, one of the chief authors, claimed that warming had not stopped. That there had been no pause around the year 2000. That was a complete LIE and they knew it.

Here's a chart from the BEST report followed by a chart not in the report but prepared using the BEST data:

http://cbdakota.files.wordpress.com/201 ... eworld.jpg

Note that the top graph, from the BEST report, hides what the bottom one (prepared from BEST data) shows. A PAUSE. Professor Judith Curry, who was a co-author of the BEST report (and who is now despised by the AGWalarmist community and considered a traitor to their cause) said the project’s research data showed there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties. She's been quoted saying "There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,” which is what Muller claimed. In other words, she effectively said Muller lied. She said ”To say that there is [no pause] detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate." And then she went on to add, "This is 'hide the decline' stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline."  That's a pretty damning statement from the CO-AUTHOR of the BEST report which made Muller famous in AGWalarmist circles.

What this means is that Muller, his daughter, and any organization they found is not to be trusted. They have an agenda. And their employees have an agenda. And if Biden appoints one of their employees to be a top official in the DOE, look out ... there’s a political AND FINANCIAL agenda behind it.
 
There's one more fact worth mentioning. Muller’s BEST report was published WITHOUT peer review. The decision to do that was made by Richard Muller without consulting Curry. Curry said "I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did." And what was Muller’s excuse for bypassing the peer review process? That their work was "too important" to wait for that process. That’s should send alarms bells ringing on any website that purports to value science.

In fact, http://www.cato.org/publications/commen ... s-lukewarm noted that "the BEST team has yet to publish one peer-reviewed paper, despite conspicuously dominating the op-ed pages for a year now. Their critical paper on the "urban heat island" — which concludes there isn't one — has been outright rejected." In other words, Muller’s work on the “urban heat island” effect, which was so important to the topic of global warming, was so shoddy that even mainstream publications controlled by AGWalarmists rejected it.  

And finally, just to show how dishonest these people are, when Muller published the above mentioned BEST report in 2012, he claimed he was a former AGWskeptic. He must have felt that would help sell what he was claiming. But he lied about that too. There is NO evidence, whatsoever, that he was EVER a skeptic … just the opposite (which I can prove on demand).

Now you see why I warn everyone on this website to examine the motivations of the other side in these technical issues we have discussed?

Now, back to Sam Brinton’s resume. During that time he *worked* for Deep Isolation, was also Head and then Vice President of “Advocacy and Government Affairs” at the Trevor Project back in Washington. How he managed that I don’t know but did that have anything to do with *nuclear*? No. He says it himself: “I ensure that the organization is advancing policies and positions that help LGBTQ youth in crisis. I lead Trevor’s work on the federal, state and local level and in the executive, legislative and judicial branches. My role focuses on both LGBTQ issues as well as the mental health and suicide prevention space.”

And now he’s off to the Biden Administration as a top bureaucrat in charge of our nation’s nuclear waste effort. Lucky us.

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:28 pm

The mainstream media, tirelessly working to keep the taxpayer money flowing …

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... y-industry
The power of stars to meet our energy needs? This is something to be excited about

Arthur Turrell

Scientists working on a doughnut-shaped machine called Jet, or the Joint European Torus, were able to double the previous world record (set in 1997) for energy released by fusion reactions.
A claim I still dispute.
In keeping with Jet’s design and objectives, less fusion power was generated than was needed to heat the fuel.
Design objectives? I hardly think so. JET’s expressed goal at the time it was proposed was to achieve a Q of 1 where Q is the ratio of fusion power produced to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. That’s how the powers that be at the time defined it. The key phrase is “power required to maintain the plasma in steady state”. That implies (and most of the public and politicians at the time interpreted in this way) that Q accounted for energy losses ... that if Q was 1, then the reactor was producing enough energy to sustain the reaction despite those energy loses.
In fact, no experiment has yet yielded more energy from fusion than has been used to kick off the reactions – this remains an outstanding goal of fusion scientists around the world. What the latest results provide is a compelling indication that bigger and better star machines that work similarly to Jet, such as the internationally funded Iter project now under construction in France, will be able to produce more power than they consume.
Maybe, but not necessarily ... for the reasons I’ve already pointed out.

By the way, I found a very interesting chart in a recent article (https://risingtidefoundation.net/2022/0 ... or-russia/ ) …

https://www.solidaritaet.com/images19/fusion.jpg

Taken from a 1976 report by the US Energy Research and Development Administration, it compares the cost of possible paths to a fusion reactor versus actual funding. The date of completion of each path is noted and you’d expect that the shorter the development time, the more money would have to be expended. But If you measure the area under each path (i.e., total expenditure of money), you find something interesting. The Maximum Effective Effort (1990) takes 35.5 units (years times cost/year) to finish. The “Moderate effort” (2005) takes 74 units of cost to finish. And if you look at the actual funding line on the chart, barely a fraction of that … only about 17.5 units of cost were expended between 1978 and 2013. As the article complains, up to that time the fusion energy program had essentially collapsed. That is, until AGWalarmism reared it’s ugly head as a motivation. Then, no matter the expense, fusion HAD to be developed … which in my view is a recipe for a boondoggle of monumental proportion.

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue May 24, 2022 4:48 am

The truth about mainstream fusion ...

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nuclear ... uel-crisis
Nuclear Fusion Is Already Facing a Fuel Crisis
Bottom line of the article is that ITER and it's follow-on reactors will need tritium ... lots of it ... to work. And tritium is rapidly become one of the most valuable substances on earth. According to the latest estimates, there is less than 20 kg of tritium on Earth right now. And as ITER drags on, the best sources of tritium to fuel it and other experimental fusion reactors are slowly disappearing. Plus, it has a half life of about 12 years so when ITER is ready to go, half the Tritium now available will be gone. Currently, it costs $30,000 per gram. Since it's estimated that a working fusion reactor will need as much as 200 kg a year to function, that works our to about 6 BILLION dollars a year ... at today's prices! YIKES!

Now never mind the cost. Here's the kicker. The article states that scientists have known about this problem for decades. They developed a way to use the fusion reactors to “breed” tritium, but when the cost of ITER "ballooned" from $6 billion to $25 billion (it's actually more), they dropped ITER's planned testing of the method. So now ITER's own guy is admitting that testing the technology will have to wait until the next generation of reactors are built ... after 2035. And then it may take another 20-30 years to find out if it works. So there is no way fusion reactors built on the ITER concept will be ready before the turn of the century. Thus, the whole premise for building ITER so urgently ... to stop global warming before it's too late ... is clearly bogus.

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JP Michael
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by JP Michael » Tue May 24, 2022 6:38 am

I like this fusion talk.

Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion pB11 prototype is coming along well. Of all the available fusion reactors, Lerner's seems the most promising because it does not require moving parts (eg turbines, steam etc). They're ironing out issues with plasmoid stability and contaminants which are holding them back.

If SAFIRE's heat generation claims are legitimate, it is promising due to the fact that its two fuels are hydrogen and metal (any metal, including radioactive ones). Unlike Lerner, SAFIRE is significantly lacking on the transparency front, having concentrated much recent effort on the marketing arm of it's new parent company, Aureon Energy, and leaving most of the science cloaked in obfuscation.

David DuPoint is publishing again with claims of a new PrimerFusion reactor. He has interesting plasma containment and beam control mechanisms on his patented bowl magnet shapes. However, unlike Lerner and SAFIRE, he does not explicate a mechanism for electrical generation for his alleged pB11 "reactor", so his claims must remain spurious until this is clarified.

ITER and STEP are utter wastes of time and money, as already covered in this thread, due to reliance on rare fuels and questionable heliophysical processes.

jackokie
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by jackokie » Tue May 24, 2022 2:17 pm

It looks like Lerner and DuPoint are both using Hydrogen and Boron.

From the PrimerFusion website:
PrimerFusion will use Boron and Hydrogen fusion to produce energy very efficiently. When Boron and Hydrogen fuse, the primary product is highly charged helium-4 alpha particles. When these highly charged particles collide with a collector, the charges are extracted and converted into usable electricity via a transformer that contains no moving parts. Therefore the need for a complicated system that uses heat to produce steam to drive a turbine to drive a generator is eliminated with PrimerFusion.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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JP Michael
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by JP Michael » Wed May 25, 2022 4:12 am

Yes, but what is DuPoint's "collector"? At least the Focus Fusion reactor ejects the helium through a solenoid, with secondary collection of x-ray energy through metal latticework in the reactor containment shell. How does the PrimerFusion device collect the energy from the excited helium?

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Jun 12, 2022 8:45 pm

Yet another delay ...

https://www.science.org/content/article ... on-reactor
France’s nuclear regulator has ordered ITER, an international fusion energy project, to hold off on assembling its gigantic reactor until officials address safety concerns. This month, the ITER Organization was expecting to get the green light to begin to weld together the 11-meter-tall steel sections that make up the doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak. But on 25 January, France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) sent a letter ordering a stoppage until ITER can address concerns about neutron radiation, slight distortions in the steel sections, and loads on the concrete slab holding up the reactor.
This article ...

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/202 ... cnnphotos/

... says "One day's delay costs about a million euros."

But irregardless ... the article insists it's worth it ...
Time is running out

The scale and ambition of the ITER project may seem enormous, but it is, at the very least, a proportional response to the mess humans have made of the planet. Since 1973, global energy usage has more than doubled. By the end of the century, it might actually triple. Seventy percent of all carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere are created through humans’ energy consumption. And 80% of all the energy we consume is derived from fossil fuels.

Now, the Earth is barreling toward levels of warming that translate into more frequent and deadly heat waves, famine-inducing droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels. The impacts of the climate crisis are getting harder and harder to reverse as entire ecosystems reach tipping points and more human lives are put on the line.

The world is now scrambling to rapidly decarbonize and speed up its transition from planet-baking fossil fuels to renewable energy like solar, wind and hydropower. Some countries are banking on nuclear fission energy, which is low-carbon but comes with a small, but not negligible, risk of disaster, storage problems for radioactive waste and a high cost.

But there are serious questions about whether the world can make this green transition fast enough to avert catastrophic climate change.
My opinion is that if you believe that climate change garbage, you probably also believe in Dark Matter and the Big Bang.

And I've a bridge you can buy. ;)

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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Jun 12, 2022 9:52 pm

Regarding the MIT/Commonwealth fusion effort …

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/0 ... monwealth/
Commonwealth’s machine, like most other fusion reactors, would rely on deuterium and tritium, both natural isotopes of hydrogen.

The oceans are filled with deuterium. ... snip ...

Methods for extracting deuterium from water are well established and routine. Tritium, which contain two neutrons in its nucleus to deuterium’s one, is far rarer in nature, but it can be extracted from lithium.
There you have it. That's MIT/Commonwealth completely glossing over the problem of getting sufficient tritium to operate ANY of the many reactors they envision to solve the climate change problem ... their supposed motivation for rushing ahead with this alternative to ITER. There’s not enough tritium in the world right now to run a single commercial reactor for more than a few months. And they have barely begun the process of designing a breeder for it. And even if they can get one built, how often will they have to shut the reactor down to remove the tritium and refurbish the lithium *blanket* containing the tritium? How long does that take? And that's only part of the problem commercial fusion is facing.

https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion- ... -up-to-be/
Replacing the burned-up tritium in a fusion reactor, however, addresses only a minor part of the all-important issue of replenishing the tritium fuel supply. Less than 10 percent of the injected fuel will actually be burned in a magnetic confinement fusion device before it escapes the reacting region. The vast majority of injected tritium must therefore be scavenged from the surfaces and interiors of the reactor’s myriad sub-systems and re-injected 10-to-20 times before it is completely burned. If only one percent of the unburned tritium is not recovered and re-injected, even the largest surplus in the lithium-blanket regeneration process cannot make up for the lost tritium. By way of comparison, in the two magnetic confinement fusion facilities where tritium has been used (Princeton’s Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, and the Joint European Torus), approximately 10 percent of the injected tritium was never recovered.
That article goes on to talk about the problem of parasitic power consumption ... the power needed to run the reactor. Now *perhaps* the MIT/Commonwealth folks have solved that problem ... but are they are even addressing the tritium problem? Just saying ...

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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Jul 05, 2022 6:58 pm

It's seems that EVERY SINGLE DAY there is at least one article in the mainstream media telling us how wonderful it is that we are so close to having fusion.

Here’s a few of today’s articles …

https://interestingengineering.com/fusi ... ess-energy “A new fusion power station will mimic the Sun to provide limitless energy”

https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/07/05/drea ... hin-reach/ “Dream of unlimited, clean nuclear fusion energy within reach”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ ... oole-ukaea “UK unveils nuclear fusion plant set to generate limitless energy and £11bn economy boost”

https://paidforarticles.com/why-major-b ... ach-647685 “Why Major Breakthrough Puts Dream of Unlimited, Clean Nuclear Fusion Energy Within Reach”

Most such articles don't contain anything really new from what was posted a month ago … six months ago … a year ago … two years ago.

So what is the purpose of these articles? TO PROPAGANDIZE US.

To convince us to keep shelling out the BILLIONS of dollars they need to keep this venture going ... to keep them all employed ... indefinitely. To make us believe if they’re just allowed to spend, spend, spend … paradise on earth is just over the horizon.

Now mind you, more than $20 billion ago, we were told that ITER was to be the proof of concept for fusion. ITER isn’t even functioning, yet here they are announcing design of the European DEMO fusion plant that will cost still more billions and billions … and which they admit is decades away from functioning itself. No proof of concept needed, I guess, to spend more of your money.

And notice that one of those articles specifies the date 2054 as the goal for delivering commercial fusion FROM THE DEMO. Meaning that it will be more than 30 years before they even begin construction of a real commercial plant (as opposed to a demo). And yet they sold this entire program the past 2 decades on it preventing the nightmares that AGWalarmists have been painting about Climate Change. Except this DEMO plant isn’t slated to prove the concept of commercial tokamak fusion until more than 20 years AFTER the date climate alarmists said it would be too late to prevent a global climate catastrophe. Doesn’t that make you wonder if we’re being played by the elites? AGAIN.

BeAChooser
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Re: Speaking of wasting money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:07 am

https://www.johnpatrick.com/can-fusion- ... e-problem/
Can Fusion Solve the Climate Change Problem?

Written: July 2002

The frequency, duration, and strength of storms, flooding, and forest fires are increasing, as we see every day in the news.
Notice that when they beat the drums for mainstream fusion they always start off with a pack of lies. None of the above is true.
Experts are predicting things will get worse, a lot worse, unless the countries of the world take aggressive action. Even previous conservative naysayers are changing their views on the situation. Most of the debates are over except for what aggressive actions should be taken.
And more lies. No REAL conservative naysayers have changed their views. What we’ve learned the last 8 years is that a lot of claimed conservatives are not conservatives but Fabian Socialist UNIPARTY RINOs who have been sabotaging conservatives for a long time.
The short term energy situation has been exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And more lies. This is complete GARBAGE. Ninety percent of what you've heard about the Ukraine fiasco is complete GARBAGE.
In my opinion, even the significant venture investments being made is not sufficient. As much as I believe in startups, I think it will take a country to put its resources behind fusion development. That country may turn out to be China.

China is investing one trillion dollars in a nuclear fusion reactor project called EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak).
And more lies. China isn’t investing a trillion dollars in EAST. More like a BILLION was spent on EAST.

And notice that when all was said and done, the article hypes the fusion projects (like EAST and ITER) but doesn't answers the title question.

Because the answer doesn’t really matter to those hyping fusion projects.

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