Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

Sometimes, you just have to do for yourself, so if you want nuclear power, you build a reactor. The Wall Street Journal's Sam Schnecter reports on a group of science fiction fans and amateur scientists who are working on home-based fusion reactors:

Getting into their elite "Neutron Club" requires building a tabletop reactor that successfully fuses hydrogen isotopes and glows like a miniature star. Only 42 have qualified; some have T-shirts that read "Fusion -- been there...done that."

Like many such projects, it has its quixotic side, since fusion works well for, oh, the sun, but practical applications are harder to come by:

But they won't be powering homes anytime soon - for now, fusors use far more energy than they produce. [Fusors are the tabletop reactors.]

For now and likely, for the foreseeable future. But that's not the point. This is something that you do because it can be done, it fascinates you, and into the bargain, it acts as a highly specific secret handshake for those who do it.

While some amateurs, like Mr. [Frank] Sanns, think fusion power holds promise, others are less hopeful. "Basically, it's almost like, over the gates of hell, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter,'" says Richard Hull, who built his first working fusor nearly a decade ago.

We have nothing but admiration for people who do something for the sheer love of it, however arcane that love may be. These guys have a community that supports and nurtures their fusion passion - it's at Fusor.net - and since the WSJ article numbers them at about 100 worldwide, the Internet is the right place for them to found that community. (Though we wouldn't be surprised if they found each other through FidoNet in an earlier age.)

Lots of great detail in the article, so take a read. If fusion interests you, visit Fusor.net. (We think the electricity demands of fusion, not to mention the purchase of stuff like deuterium, might quell our curiosity - you really have to want to do this and commit yourself to it.)

"This is an early un-retouched photo of one configuration of Pillar of Fire. It was put together quickly for visit by Carl Willis. The POF configuration in this case consisted of a normal feedthrough and stalk with a voltage divider on the bottom that goes to ground. This was a neutron producing run." from Fusor.net.

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog