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The Natural Philosopher

wrote:
On 28 Jan, 13:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
wrote:
On 28 Jan, 13:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Mike Scott wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
...
In fact, there is a puzzle, in that the earths actual temperature is
more than can be accounted for by the solar radioation and its initial
temperature post formation, leading to a lot of speculation that it is
in fact a large fission reactor in its own right.
Isn't there a large molten iron core that makes up the difference? Been
there since year dot, or thereabouts, cooling all the time.
yes, there is, but the surface temps don't match that. Hence speculation
about fission being in the mix somewhere.
- There certainly HAVE been natural reactors in the past. (Gabon)
- The concentrations of Uranium isotopes today, show that by and large
there was a LOT of fission going on to leave what's left. How much heat
this priduced nd where is ..debated.
- cheock out 'georactor' in google for a theory that isn;t that
respactable, and nowhere near esastblished thinking, but is inetersting
to say the least.
But out of curiosity, what happened to all the research into fusion
reactors? Anyone else remember ZETA?
Still going on. The last gasp of the last torus was actually
significantly energy positive,and a new thing is being built in France
IIRC too go one step furher..only about another 9 steps to a commercial
proposition.
Actually the commercial demonstration reactor will be the one after
the one in Provence.
I remember Clive Sinclair with 'commercially demonstrable' pocket TVS
around 1962. He had an aerial booster hidden under the booth at the
trade fair..

Even today its pretty hard to get a decent picture on a portable TV...

The sort of vision he had, is pretty much what an I-phone is ..today.

Only 45 years later...

So I see no reason to take back 'only another 9 steps to go' ;-)

So far we have, after 40 years demonstrated that:-

- fusion reaction can be done other than using an atomic bomb as a
detonator.
- demonstrated that in smaller scales, it can in fact be energy positive.

We haven't yet demonstrated that it *could* be commercial, though that
may be closer..

We have certainly demonstrated that right now it isn't *remotely*
commercial.

;-)

T

How long it will take to get a commercial fusion reactor is purely a
matter of funding.

Is it though..?

If it were that simple it wouldn't NEED funding.The private equity boys
would be in there like ferrets up a trouser leg.

The fact is there are problems still in there with no known solutions.
Or none that equal commercial viability.

Until the investment/return is more quantifiable, it will be a research
project and nothing more.

I agree that throwing more top notch engineers and phsyicists and
mathematicians at it would not be a waste, but infinite funding would be.

I believe the total UK budget for fusion research
is ~14m per annum. Compare that to the subsidies that go to wind
power, which are of the order of 100s of millions - projected to be 1
billion by 2010, and the number gets lost in rounding errors. When
fusion eventually produces power, it will be one of the best
investments society has ever made.

And windmills will prove to be the worst. Sure.;-)

By the way, fusion fuel produces about 10,000,000 times the energy of
fossil fuels per kg.

I know. It better had really, the fuel is light and hard to extract :-)

T