RE: [cdn-nucl-l] Re: U.S. Should Rejoin Revised Fusion Energy Project

["Adam McLean" <adam.mclean@utoronto.ca>]

Hi Ed, Jerry and Rod,

Ed, you want money to design new reactors?  Rod, you speak of 'doing things
the easy way' and proclaim your motto of being a lazy cheapskate.  Consider
this; a list of fission reactors currently in various stages of design and
development...
(see http://www.nucleartourist.com/ for details of most below)

ACR - Advanced CANDU Reactor
ABWR - Advanced Boiling Water Reactor
ENHS - Encapsulated Nuclear Heat Source
GFR - Gas Cooled Fast Reactor (including GCR/VCR-MHD, GCR-graphite wall, and
plasma/vortex flow reactors)
GT-MHR - Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor
HTGCR - High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor 
IFR - Integral Fast Reactor
IRIS - International Reactor Innovative & Secure
LMFBR - Liquid Metal Cooled Fast Reactors (including LM-FR, MSBR)
MHTGR - Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor
PBR - Pebble Bed Reactor
PMR - Prismatic Fuel Modular Reactor
S80+ - System 80+
SBWR - Simplified Boiling Water Reactor including the ESBWR
VHTR - Very High Temperature Reactor
+
Molten salt core reactors (HERACLITUS, MSBR, AMSTER)
and
OCR - Organic Coolant Reactors

Add to that list projects designing supercritical water cooled reactors,
high-conversion reactors, and ALWRs and CANDUs with thorium-based and spent
LWR fuels.  In fact, THIRTY EIGHT (38) reactor designs and fuel cycle
concepts were submitted to the advanced water-cooled reactor component of
the Gen-4 advanced reactor design committee.  A further TWENTY ONE (21) were
submitted for evaluation to the gas-cooled reactor concept committee.
Finally, another THIRTY THREE (33) were submitted as part of the
liquid-metal cooled reactor system committee.  See http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/
for details on many of these designs - that's 92 in total if anyone's
counting.  There is certainly no shortage of effort in reactor design nor
money to sustain a concerted effort in bringing the next generation of
fission reactor to marketable form.  I might suggest that in fact there is
far too much division in the industry to carry out this goal, and further,
to convince the public that the best qualities of each reactor will appear
in the next set of reactors that are built.  This I believe was the original
motivation for the Gen-IV project and an excellent motivation for going
forward.

The fusion industry, on the other hand, has two branches; inertial, led by
the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, with two developmental projects,
OMEGA and NOVA, and ~10 university-based programs) and magnetic (led by
ITER, with 4 major operating developmental projects JT-60, JET, Tore Supra,
and DIII-D and ~40-50 university-based programs).  ITER and NIF are focal
points for which the entire worldwide fusion community (10,000+ scientists
and engineers) has a goal to see them forward and succeed.  Smaller fusion
programs focus on various aspects of the design, not one with a goal to
achieve anywhere near what ITER will achieve in its lifetime.  This is
attested by the variety of fusion machines which currently hold records in
performance (JT-60 in Japan with the high-temperature record, TORE-SUPRA in
Japan with the long-pulse operation record, JET with the high-power
production record, etc.) ITER is designed to incorporate all of the advances
that fusion science and technology has brought over the past 10-25 years of
very real improvement in all aspects of understanding and fusion performance
(see my previous message).

Finally, Ed and Rod, I'd urge you to confront those "horrible fears" of
yours that ITER will become a "will-o-the-wisp" or "pie in he sky" by
reading the physics basis for the performance estimates of the machine.  The
full design specifications are available online here:
www.iter.org/ITERPublic/ITER/reports.html
Including assessment of all major systems.  If you see a deficiency or error
or false assumption, let me know and I'll dig into it - I just might be able
to find an answer in journals or other publications but if not, chances are
I know someone that can.

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: cdn-nucl-l-admin@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA
[mailto:cdn-nucl-l-admin@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA] On Behalf Of Edward
Oleen
Sent: Monday, December 23, 2002 4:21 PM
To: cdn-nucl-l@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA
Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] Re: U.S. Should Rejoin Revised Fusion Energy Project


Yes, it is pronounced "eater", and that is exactly
what fusion power projects do - eat money. For the
cost of the "eater" project we could probably
design a whole new generation of fission power
plants, and get a couple of working power reactors
into the bargain.  I'd sooner see some of the
"eater" money going into high-temperature
high-power superconducting power transmission
systems, so we could (co)locate fission plants in
remote areas and avoid the political hassles as
exemplified by the furor over the Indian Point
power plants.

What is it - 3.5 decades we have spent
"researching" fusion power? And where have we
gotten? Damn near nowhere, is where.  Yes, we have
learned a lot about handling plasmas - and the
more we learn the more we learn there is to be
learned. I hate to say it guys, but I have this
horrible suspicion that the only form of
containment that works is gravitational - inertial
and magnetic seem to be will-o-the-wisps.

I'm an engineer - and a lazy one at that.  If it
can't produce gobs of power IN EXCESS OF THE
INPLANT POWER, I'm really not interested in it in
other than an intellectual way, and I can't see
that we are going to solve our oil-dependency
before we run out of oil with fusion.

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