Viable nuclear fusion perfected 20 years ago

What changes would you expect to see if 20 years ago nuclear fusion (ITER or HiPER) had been perfected capable of producing energy at costs that were competitive with coal etc.

Fossil fuels (at least for energy producing purposes) and nuclear fission would obviously be the first ‘casualties' but what else would change – unless there is a major breakthrough in hydrogen storage or battery technology then petrol or diesel are going to be the main forms of vehicle fuel – or will methanol get a look in?
 
There was something like that in 1960s

Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
Idea by Philo T. Farnsworth and later improve by Robert Hirsch

but they had very bad luck.
the Farnsworth Television labs, who developed the Fusor, was part of ITT Corporation.
In 1960s ITT placed Harold Geneen in charge as CEO.
He put ITT's main lines of business to insurance, Sheraton Hotels, Wonderbread and Avis Rent-a-Car.
and shot down telephone/electronics company and Farnsworth Television labs in 1967

Philo T. Farnsworth wend to United States Atomic Energy Commission
but the AEC decided to concentrate funding on large tokamak projects
this was end of Fusor

in 2006 Robert W. Bussard has improve the reactor now called Polywell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

what wen Fusor was ready in 1970 ?
it take some time until first reactor go on line
but with Ol-crisis in 1973 chance that dramatic
the USA build massiv Fusion reactor replace power station working on Ol
(later also coal and nuclear fission station)

OPEC lose there political weapon agaist USA
so the middel East nation has to look for other ways for polical problem

other use of Fusor reactor
they light weight so build in submarines and ships even aircraft !
also NASA use Fusor for replace NERVA Fission Engine

so on long term Ol, coal, gas remain "cheap" for world market
because there not use for power station in industry nation
only for cars and petrochemical industry

impact on Cold War
with cheap "Save" fusion energy in US, the USSR get behind because use of Fission energie or Ol, coal use
the KGB will try to get some Fusor technology for USSR

the USA goverment can use this for strategic arms limitation talk.
they offer Fusor technology for reduction in Nuclear wapon.
 
You forget that most of the large oil companies are based in the US. They're mostly against innovations in private transportation though...
 
Pardon my wet blanket

I have recently begun to wonder if the first generation fusion plants would be a lot less Utopian than most people assume. I see them having huge capital costs in relation to their generating capacity. Also I see them having a serious relaibility problem. Controlling an intensely hot plasma flux is tricky business and I see the flux periodically becoming unstable and shutting down as regularly as early mainframes crashed. So here you are the linchpin of a major grid supporting a large metropolitan area and Poof the head Technobabble Guy tells you than the flux just destabilized and you are delivering nada to the grid and he is unsure when he can get it back up.
 
all the large tokamak have all that problem :
Controlling an intensely hot plasma flux

the Polywell is much easer in this and cheaper in work costs, as tokamak concept
last one has gigantic work cost, even it works you cant not pay it.

why was Polywell not taken ?
AEC is fix on tokamak concept, they take no other fusion concept. special after Cold fusion histeria

so Robert W. Bussard used the Office of Naval Research funding to developed the Polywell
(AEC refused the Polywell )
until the money run out and the Program end.

this way of many US goverment shoot down research after money was used up
For DAPRA or NASA this is typical...:mad:
 
Here are some issues that might come up:

* If the gas is not being used by the U.S., consider that it means that the People's Republic of China is using it to rapidly develop. This could make things worse in the Middle East, considering China could care less for Israel, and has a strong relationship with Iran in OTL. Also consider by proxy, this allows some of that fuel to be used by North Korea.

* Second, with the uranium or plutonium base a major problem is th eradioactive waste. Just consider that no member of Congress wants to have a nuclear waste facility in their district. This was the reason the proposed Yucca Mountain Facility died in Committee in 1998, despite the actual construction of a site.

* Third, in order to purchase uranium for the reactors, one has to go to Namibia, South Africa, China, Kazahkstan, and Russia. All of whom are not exactly high on the lists of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. This is especially true in 1990, wherein the Soviet Union and China can suddenly use the uranium issue to sustain their regimes....

* Fourth, after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing, consider that any crackpot could certainly use a propellar driven plane to cause a meltdown event. Just remember that Osama bin Laden actually had plans to conduct such an operation.
 
I was thinking ITER and HiPER designs as the size of the buildings means that it will restrict the initial impact to power production only - things like Polywell, being smaller, open up other possibilities.
 
Here are some issues that might come up:

* Second, with the uranium or plutonium base a major problem is th eradioactive waste. Just consider that no member of Congress wants to have a nuclear waste facility in their district. This was the reason the proposed Yucca Mountain Facility died in Committee in 1998, despite the actual construction of a site.

* Third, in order to purchase uranium for the reactors, one has to go to Namibia, South Africa, China, Kazahkstan, and Russia. All of whom are not exactly high on the lists of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. This is especially true in 1990, wherein the Soviet Union and China can suddenly use the uranium issue to sustain their regimes....

* Fourth, after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing, consider that any crackpot could certainly use a propellar driven plane to cause a meltdown event. Just remember that Osama bin Laden actually had plans to conduct such an operation.

Could it be that you are thinking of a fission reactor and not a fusion reactor?
 
Here are some issues that might come up:

* If the gas is not being used by the U.S., consider that it means that the People's Republic of China is using it to rapidly develop. This could make things worse in the Middle East, considering China could care less for Israel, and has a strong relationship with Iran in OTL. Also consider by proxy, this allows some of that fuel to be used by North Korea.

* Second, with the uranium or plutonium base a major problem is th eradioactive waste. Just consider that no member of Congress wants to have a nuclear waste facility in their district. This was the reason the proposed Yucca Mountain Facility died in Committee in 1998, despite the actual construction of a site.

* Third, in order to purchase uranium for the reactors, one has to go to Namibia, South Africa, China, Kazahkstan, and Russia. All of whom are not exactly high on the lists of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. This is especially true in 1990, wherein the Soviet Union and China can suddenly use the uranium issue to sustain their regimes....

* Fourth, after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing, consider that any crackpot could certainly use a propellar driven plane to cause a meltdown event. Just remember that Osama bin Laden actually had plans to conduct such an operation.

Viable fusion in theory means goodbye fission and the Uranium/Plutonium problems you mention.
 
Viable fusion in theory means goodbye fission and the Uranium/Plutonium problems you mention.

Actually the Russians thought fission/fusion hybrid where the 14 Mev neutrons of the fusion reaction cause fission in a U238 jacket was most likely to produce an economical fusion reactor. So once again I am cautioning you that fusion is not quite as Utopian as you think.
 

Glen

Moderator
What changes would you expect to see if 20 years ago nuclear fusion (ITER or HiPER) had been perfected capable of producing energy at costs that were competitive with coal etc.

Fossil fuels (at least for energy producing purposes) and nuclear fission would obviously be the first ‘casualties' but what else would change – unless there is a major breakthrough in hydrogen storage or battery technology then petrol or diesel are going to be the main forms of vehicle fuel – or will methanol get a look in?

Hmmm....to make this a viable timeline, you'd have to have some significant (though possibly narrow) divergence well before 20 years ago.
 
Kalan & PMN1- Actually, I am still thinking of fusion reactors. Please note:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/fusion_rockets_000719.html

In both cases, U-235 or U-238 uranium deposits are used as a fuel source for fusion reactors. As such, the danger becomes very real. Also as Tom_B mentioned, the Russian technology you mentioned in glowing terms was based on a U-238 derivative fuel...

Jaded_Railman- Unfortunately, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Homeland Security, the planes actually pose "a grave and serious threat":

http://www.tmia.com/security/airplane.html

As such, the planes can actually pose a very dangerous threat to the nuclear reactors. They pointed out that a hit at 350 mph could certainly be resisted, but a collision at 550 mph would cause a major disaster...
 
As such, the planes can actually pose a very dangerous threat to the nuclear reactors. They pointed out that a hit at 350 mph could certainly be resisted, but a collision at 550 mph would cause a major disaster...

The plane in the video I posted hit at 500 mph, so I think we've just some overly cautious risk assessors.

EDIT: It's also worth mentioning that catastrophic failure in a fusion reactor is not only much, much harder to achieve, but it's far less dangerous than with a fission reactor.
 
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The plane in the video I posted hit at 500 mph, so I think we've just some overly cautious risk assessors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) and the Department of Homeland Security being overly cautious? :rolleyes: That is certainly a first. Just remember that a 50 MPH difference in speed can certainly change variables a great degree. Also consider that according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the threat was certainly a very real....
 
It wouldn't have terribly much effect. Modern powerplants take around 15 years to simply build, not counting getting zoning permission, drawing up blueprints, getting funding for it, and planing the infrastructure lines it'd take up...

I'd say the first one would either just be coming online or would be a couple years off yet.

Now if it was developed 30 or so years ago and started coming online 20 years ago you could probably write off the wars against Iraq (and tone down the Iran-Iraq War) and the 9/11 attacks because they wouldn't have the oil providing as much funding. Kuwait and Qutar wouldn't be the economic boomers they are now, and the US might not go to war to back Kuwait with nothing to gain from it.
 
Actually the article by NASA, does state the exact opposite:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/fusion_rockets_000719.html

...

Actually, the NASA article says you need uranium for the fission reaction, and deuterium and tritium for the fusion reaction. The proposed engine even uses anti-matter.

As for the fusor, the idea seems to promise fusion power on a small scale. From what I get from the idea, fusor has a hard time scaling up. Tokamak on the other hand, gets more efficient the bigger it is. Could an early use of fusor mean that tokamak never gets off the ground, as scientists are too busy improving the efficiency of fusor?
 
Actually the article by NASA, does state the exact opposite:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/fusion_rockets_000719.html

From what I get, the article talks about using uranium-238 (btw, non-fissile) as a coating. There's no mentioning of it being used for the fusion process itself. Like I said, it wouldn't work out.

For a reminder:
Nuclear fusion is the process that occurs in stars - ie turning light elements into heavier ones and energy is released in the process. Hence light isotopes like Deuterium, Tritium and Helium-3.
Nuclear fission is the opposite - turning heavy elements into lighter ones, where energy is freed. Hence, you use U-235. Also know that all the heavy elements in the universe aren't formed by fusion in the stars directly (because the fusion process of heavy elements takes up more energy than is released), but by the massive energy released in a supernova explosion.

This would also go against the the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own site:

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors.html

Either way, they would seem to have more authority as to what isnecessary!

I don't get your point there... :confused:
 
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