Re: Is fusion sh.t?
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:58 am
Can someone explain why we're suddenly talking about plutonium in a fusion thread?
Nuclear proliferation is still a risk with a neutron source like a fusion reactor being used to produce plutonium from inert U238. But neutron sources are also potentially useful for therapeutic isotope production.
Because someone asked if there was potential for proliferation. Which is perfectly reasonable question to ask in a thread called "is fusion sh.t?", as it's one of the ways fusion could be sh.t.
But who actually suggested that there would be potential for production of Pu-239 in the first place? That seems to be a reaction to someone saying there was potential and sideshowjim is (legitimately) asking how.sideshowjim wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:19 pmCould someone explain how there's the potential for production of Plutonium 239?
Yrah, but then isn't it the isotope seperation (seperating gaseous isotopes of Pu) that requires big fancy centrifuges?shpalman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:41 pmCan Pu be separated from U chemically?sideshowjim wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:19 pmCould someone explain how there's the potential for production of Plutonium 239? Is it purely smooshing* the neutrons released into some handy Uranium?
It still requires a whole bunch of very specialist centrifuges etc to actually refine Pu to any big explodey use, and there's not the inherent "We need this Uranium to generate power and not for anything explodey, nope, not us guvnah" issues with ensuring purely power generation use, unless I'm mistaken.
So it seems a Better way of nuclear power generation if non-proliferation is your goal, but I can't speak to any of the resr.
*I believe this is the correct technical term
Yes, it’s turned into a gas first, like UF6, then spun through multiple stages.sideshowjim wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:43 pmYrah, but then isn't it the isotope seperation (seperating gaseous isotopes of Pu) that requires big fancy centrifuges?shpalman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:41 pmCan Pu be separated from U chemically?sideshowjim wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 7:19 pmCould someone explain how there's the potential for production of Plutonium 239? Is it purely smooshing* the neutrons released into some handy Uranium?
It still requires a whole bunch of very specialist centrifuges etc to actually refine Pu to any big explodey use, and there's not the inherent "We need this Uranium to generate power and not for anything explodey, nope, not us guvnah" issues with ensuring purely power generation use, unless I'm mistaken.
So it seems a Better way of nuclear power generation if non-proliferation is your goal, but I can't speak to any of the resr.
*I believe this is the correct technical term
If i knew more about this, I'd probably have a more important job...
I would have a suspicion that some, or even many, of these are investment scams. The fact that they are promoting a possible implementation of a thermodynamically feasible energy technology just makes it an even better spiel for the scammers than all those other energy investment scams promoting implausible or impossible thermodynamically infeasible schemes, typically to make energy with no fuel.Al Capone Junior wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2024 11:38 pmInteresting article about fusion startups and certain projects they have going
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/ar ... sion-power
I think the main point is that fusion is only 30 years away
I remember Steorn. Well, I didn't completely remember, but I managed to fine-tune my google search until it came up.IvanV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 9:44 am... Ten years ago or something we had a bunch of scam companies promoting free energy generation by harvesting zero point energy. In fact it hasn't even gone away, my failed googling trying to identify some Irish company that had a lot of hype about it at the time...
That was the one. Actually their fake tech was some gobbledygook about harvesting energy from magnetic fields, which is probably why my googling failed. There was some other guy around at the same time with his fake zero point energy machine covered in insulation foil, that was always on the edge of being available for delivery, until it wasn't.shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:14 amI remember Steorn. Well, I didn't completely remember, but I managed to fine-tune my google search until it came up.IvanV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 9:44 am... Ten years ago or something we had a bunch of scam companies promoting free energy generation by harvesting zero point energy. In fact it hasn't even gone away, my failed googling trying to identify some Irish company that had a lot of hype about it at the time...
It was some misunderstand to do with the magnetic scalar potential being non-conservative in a loop around a current.IvanV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 11:15 amThat was the one. Actually their fake tech was some gobbledygook about harvesting energy from magnetic fields, which is probably why my googling failed. There was some other guy around at the same time with his fake zero point energy machine covered in insulation foil, that was always on the edge of being available for delivery, until it wasn't.shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:14 amI remember Steorn. Well, I didn't completely remember, but I managed to fine-tune my google search until it came up.IvanV wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 9:44 am... Ten years ago or something we had a bunch of scam companies promoting free energy generation by harvesting zero point energy. In fact it hasn't even gone away, my failed googling trying to identify some Irish company that had a lot of hype about it at the time...