Using the DV subspace tap

[tjoflojt]

You've got it exactly backwards. The current issue with fusion is not the amount of heat generated by the process, but rather the fact that fusion takes place only at extremely high temperatures. Assuming it is even real, cold fusion would generate at least as much waste heat as regular fusion, but can take place at far lower temperatures, making it far more practical.

well, thanks for setting me straight

ITER's fusion so to speak works at 15 million degrees. however at 15m degrees it doesnt really work well, the maximum fusion effectivity lies at 150 million degrees.

those temperatures are just ridiculus, how are they contained?

[Quadhelix]

Does it make at least a gigawatt of net energy?

Gigawatts are units of power. For units of energy, you want gigawatt-seconds (i.e., gigajoules), or gigawatt-hours (1 gigawatt-hour=3,600 gigajoules).

To answer the question that you were trying to ask, ITER is designed to produce 0.5 gigawatts of power for about 1,000 seconds, returning about 5-10 times the original energy investment, at least according to Wikipedia.

[thekillman]

those temperatures are just ridiculus, how are they contained?

arrays of supercooled superconductive magnets are used to create a magnetic containment field. the plasma has a charge, so Lorentz force applies and thus the plasma rotates, containing it. a transformator creates a superhigh amp current through the plasma to heat it, microwaves heating it aswell (mostly to plasma form so it becomes conductive and the ampage takes over)

in the wall, there was some kind of material that when bombarded with neutrons would form tritium, which goes back into the fusion core and fuses with deuterium. this creates a neutron and thus the cycle continues. cooling is also built into the wall which generates the electricity.

ITER consumes more power and the plasma isnt stable for long enough yet i believe. again, upscaling will increase powerproduction and decrease powerneeds on a relative scale.

[thekillman]

Selected facts: The central solenoid coil will use superconducting niobium-tin, to carry 46 kA and produce a field of 13.5 teslas. The 18 toroidal field coils will also use niobium-tin. At maximum field of 11.8 T they will store 41 GJ. They have been tested at a record 80 kA. Other lower field ITER magnets (PF and CC) will use niobium-titanium.

to show some figures

[tjoflojt]

ok, thanks for the info

[morrismike]

currently the iter consumes more energy. however, once they can make sustainable fusion, upscaling would increase net power generation.

cold fusion is better known as chemically catalyzed fusion. its essentially a power enhancer: put a watt through and you get ten watts out of it. the additional 9 watts generated by cold fusion.


ITER's fusion so to speak works at 15 million degrees. however at 15m degrees it doesnt really work well, the maximum fusion effectivity lies at 150 million degrees.


and ironically, yes, current expectation puts commercial fusion power at 2050

I don't think the ITER can actually harness energy and use it for electric production it merely dissapates it for a few seconds. I don't think you can ever get the ITER to make 100s of MW. Maybe if they learn a lot they can build a fussion plant but there are many hurdles to overcome even if achieving sustainable fusion reaction is nearing fruition. I'm curious of what sort of steam generator would be used? There was a US Navy and several Russian subs using liquid metal reactors but the material technology is lacking as making heat exchanger tubes that can withstand 4000F + isn't real practical as the properties/alloys that might tolerate that in the future would be difficult to form into tubes and would have atrocious thermal conductivity. I'm all for funding research to the point of diminishing returns, we just need to careful about the perception/expectations of the public.

The cold fusion histeria a while back in the states was a scam. Are you talking of something different as I wasn't aware there was any actual cold fusion (ever) that has produced a measurable radiation (gamma or nuetron) flux. I work in the nuclear industry and find it hard to believe we've been keeping plants that create many watts of cold fusion output with a tiny input secret from the industry.

[thekillman]

cold fusion is unbelievably hard to produce and though the possible results have been observed, people still dont know wheter its fusion or inaccuracy.


ITER is not meant to become commercial. its what we can make after putting all our knowhow together, if we can make ITER function properly then we can go to the next phase and build a commercial one

[Quadhelix]

I don't think you can ever get the ITER to make 100s of MW.

The ITER website disagrees:

Scientists have now designed the next-step device - ITER - which will produce more power than it consumes: for 50 MW of input power, 500 MW of output power will be produced.

Of course, they could turn the thing on and find out that it doesn't work, but the current expectation is that it will at least break even.

[morrismike]

The ITER website disagrees:




Of course, they could turn the thing on and find out that it doesn't work, but the current expectation is that it will at least break even.

That power is produced for a whopping 2 minutes.

[tjoflojt]

and for how long were the wright brothers airborne?

[morrismike]

cold fusion is unbelievably hard to produce and though the possible results have been observed, people still dont know wheter its fusion or inaccuracy.

If gamma or neutron flux was not present (both very easy to detect) fusion did not occur. There have been many instances of nickel or other metals changing oxidation in water giving the appearance of fusion but any engineer or nuclear physist will tell you measurable heat from fusion will create lethal levels of gamma and depending upon what is being fused, neutrons. A 10,000 R/hr gamma field (ditto for neutrons) will not heat water but will give a fatal exposure in minutes. The best way to verify that cold fusion has occurred is to look for dead bodies on the lab floor or blind people (roasted corneas) rolling in the own puke.

ITER is not meant to become commercial. its what we can make after putting all our knowhow together, if we can make ITER function properly then we can go to the next phase and build a commercial one

I know that but the tone is always like fusion is licked now that this is running. IF that is a huge success, THEN we still have insurmountable hurdles to overcome.

I'm trying real hard not to give you a hard time but someone reading this thread would otherwise get the impression that cold fusion and normal fusion are things we actually have a handle of.

[morrismike]

and for how long were the wright brothers airborne?

not very long (seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-CvkEUSAO4

very apparent they achieved flight

[tjoflojt]

and here we are, 100 years later, and flight is something we, more or less, take for granted.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Thing is the shield would need to be expanded as the tap would keep building up power which would need to go somewere and from what we've been told Atlantis's shields can only go a sertain distance and then you have nowere to pump the power. Also the bigger the sheild the easier it would be to calculate a jump inside it which would be a disaster for Atlantis.

When the capacitor was full up there was no indication that an overload was going to take place in Daedalus Variations.
There was also no indication that the tap continued to draw any energy once it was full, just that the reality drive activated.

BTW Atlantis's shields require lots of power just to be raised, more than we can supply with whatever independent Naqueda generators we have, if an ST generates a fraction of the overall power a ZPM does then just having one ST may be enough to just raise the shield, more may be required to power it to full, extra STs could be needed to activate the city's other systems, like Hyperdrive engines, sensors, weapons, etc.

If Earth built an ST from scratch themselves then they could install any safeguards they want before the device is turned on to prevent any possible overloads, just make it so the ST stops drawing power once the capacitors are full up and grab a bit more energy when a certain percentage is used up.

That excess energy could be used for baseline power production by using the bursts as an energy source for a eutectic salt power plant (need to find something that can operate at a really high temperature. When you think about the new metals and alloys we've aquired, who's to say we can't use an energy burst to vaporize 100 tons of iron and then condense it at our leisure for a thermal energy source? Maybe use power surges with matter transformer tech to cough out ships?

Exactly, even if there were too much power to make use of on one ship with current tech in use (which there is as far as I'm aware no sign of in DV) there are other things we can do with the crazy amounts of power an ST could produce, surely making any type of matter we wanted could be possible with a whole bunch of STs generating the base energy, then just use MCs to construct basic components.
Churning out as many ships as Earth needs, vessels that can deal with Siege level fleets alone, that would make Earth too powerful, but for some Movie ark to deal with the Wraith once and for all I guess it's OK.

[thekillman]

we can handle fusion, the only thing we cant handle is sustaining it long enough and generating net power gain.

cold fusion has been observed but is hard to reproduce and we dont know whether its CF or measurement innacuracy