Fusion Power

[freebeard]

Virgil, wrote in his Aeneid: "sic itur ad astra" ('thus one journeys to the stars')

The struggle to get everyone paying a central authority for their energy needs dies hard, doesn't it?

[freebeard]

Another tech from the 1970s, not worth a new thread:

https://investors.metals.co/news-releases: NORI and Allseas Lift Over 3,000 Tonnes of Polymetallic Nodules to Surface from Planet’s Largest Deposit of Battery Metals
by The Metals Company -- Nov 14, 2022

During the historic deepsea trials, engineers drove the pilot collector vehicle across over 80 kilometers of the seafloor, collecting approximately 4,500 tonnes of nodules and bringing over 3,000 tonnes up a 4.3-km riser system to the surface production vessel, Hidden Gem

Here's some fine reporting:

Allseas engineers put the system through a series of tests achieving a sustained production rate of 86.4 tonnes per hour, roughly equivalent to transporting the mass of 40 Tesla Model S vehicles up the 4.3-km riser pipe every sixty minutes. The pilot system is expected to be scaled up to include additional collector heads and a wider diameter riser pipe in preparation for NORI’s Project Zero, which will target a production rate of over 200 tonnes per hour., as Leading Scientists and Marine Experts Continue Gathering Environmental Data.

How much is that in Rhode Islands? Not enough ore to manufacture batteries for 40 Teslas, the approximate weight of the finished vehicles.

Ore vs finished product?

[redneck]

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This is interesting…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38

>

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[freebeard]

?t=258 Deuterium and Helium 3.

Isn't that stuff just laying around on the Moon?

I never liked the Tokamak approach. Direct electricity seems more adaptable to space travel.

[oil pan 4]

It was all BS.
It was 300 units of energy in, 3 units out. About 99.9% of the fuel wasn't consumed.
https://youtu.be/cvcPF6-jkA4

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cvcPF6...ature=youtu.be

It is looking more and more unlikely all the time that fusion power will not work for commercial power generation.
It works great in weapons.
It will probably work for a space propulsion system with almost current technology.
We would have to improve efficiency about 99% to break even.

[freebeard]

It seems like we could innovate fission power for a long while before needing fusion. [Thorium]

[redpoint5]

As Alex Epstein mentions, if we decriminalized fission and stopped making bespoke works of art for each project, the costs could be drastically reduced. Nuke plants should be mass produced using a proven manufacturing template; no need to get approval for each and every aspect of design, each and every time, since the design would go through the approval process just once. Then the only hurdle is a small study to determine the suitability of the proposed site.

[freebeard]

I keep seeing these posts like #12 where if you asked me what Polymetallic Nodules are today, I'd have no clue.

[oil pan 4]

All fusion outside of stars and nuclear weapons, busted?
We could sustain nuclear fusion if there was a way to replicate the conditions at the flash point of thermonuclear detonation... super critically for fission kicks off some where around 6 million psi and then from there fission ignition creates a lot more pressure.
https://youtu.be/p3VGDCa9fZg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p3VGDC...ature=youtu.be

[freebeard]

I'll say this for Thunderfoot: He made it through without squealing "Welll....."

He's right of course, but after establishing that the fusion reactions at the center of the Sun are as powerful as the proverbial compost pile, he seques away to fusion vs fission. Never discusses the Birkland currents that connect the Sun to all the planets, and the Galaxy. An electrical gradient that stretches from the Oort Cloud to the Photosphere.

It is interesting that the surface of the Sun has a density that's a fraction of that of the air we breath. Just looking at it [through filters] you'd never know.

Also that tourists take pictures next to the elephant's foot that prolly killed the photographer who caught it while it was still on fire.