DavidPace.com

All of Fusion Energy Research Needs Increased Support

Sat, 03 May 2008 20:17:31 +0000

An article at MSNBC covers the state of fusion research in the United States (US). I agree with its beginning: that fusion research in the US is falling behind that in other countries. This is not an easy statement to make because it can be interpreted as saying that fusion research needs more money, which is nothing new and simply repeats what every other field of federally funded research says. This is where I begin to disagree with the article because it strays into the realm of which fusion projects are most promising, instead of making the argument for providing increased resources to the general concept.

Nit Picking

One nit to be picked away before getting to the fusion discussion is the use of the term “cleaner coal” as one of the energy production methods expected to provide immediate results. As I've mentioned (item 2), there is no such thing as cleaner coal because the chemical process of burning coal never changes. The cleanliness comes from capturing the “dirt” and burying it underground. The US Department of Energy discusses this, saying, “The primary means for carbon storage are injecting CO2 into geologic formations or using terrestrial applications.” Coal does not burn cleanly, we can just put the byproducts in a fancier garbage can. This makes coal the less desirable choice compared to any energy production means that produces fewer byproducts.

Back to Fusion

The article takes its lead from Gerald L. Kulcinski, Director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Kulcinski makes the statement that the US is falling behind other countries in terms of fusion development. The final impression, however, is that magnetically confined fusion research is less likely to lead to an energy production solution than either inertially confined or electrostatically confined fusion. Dr. Kulcinski, possibly taken out of context, is quoted as saying “In my personal opinion, I don't think tokamaks will ever be commercially effective ... I think laser fusion, or heavy-ion fusion, or X-ray fusion has a chance of being economic, probably a better chance than magnetic fusion, but it's hard to quantify.”

We are not at a place where any single fusion energy method is clearly better than the others. While Dr. Kulcinski certainly knows a lot more about fusion than I do and his informed opinion is valuable, the tone of this article might lead the public to believe that investment in magnetically confined fusion energy is a waste. What I take from the article is that generic support of fusion energy should be improved because the US cannot afford to miss out on any of the three dominant methods that might lead to a viable production facility.

Alan Boyle, the author of this article, mistakenly uses fusion and fusion energy interchangeably. For example, Boyle writes, “If Kulcinski had to pick a favorite in the decades-long fusion marathon, it might well be the dark horse in the race: electrostatic fusion,” which implies that Dr. Kulcinski believes electrostatic fusion is the method most likely to lead to fusion energy production. It appears, however, that Dr. Kulcinski is more impressed with this method's ability to achieve fusion in the non-energy limit and he is quoted as directly saying that the present research “has nothing to do with electricity”. The electrostatic device employs the fusion process to serve a useful purpose in the medical field, but not all fusion is energy relevant.

Why Support Fusion?

I am arguing that a more general discussion of the importance of fusion energy is needed in the public sphere. There certainly are energy sources that are both accessible and plentiful today, including solar power and still-dirty coal. Fusion energy has advantages over these and warrants continued development concurrently with solar power.

The Logical Argument for Solar and Fusion

There are plenty of numbers being thrown around about the output of solar energy. I wish to avoid that ongoing discussion because there is a logical argument in favor of adding fusion energy to the solar production: we need an on/off switch.

The on/off switch argument is simple. Humanity does not control the Sun. This fact is partly responsible for why the Sun is so dependable, shining day in and day out. The problem is that we cannot guarantee that the Sun's energy will always be collectable. Basic cloud cover reduces the collection of solar rays. There is a distinct possibility that weather patterns, or even a process as yet unconsidered, will negatively impact the amount of energy that can be collected from the Sun.

Fusion is a completely human-controlled energy source (as soon as it works). This is beneficial because energy needs are not entirely predictable. It is sensible to develop an energy source that can be turned on, or have its yield increased, on demand. Solar energy production varies day and night and according to season. The environmental benefits of solar power should heavily influence its development in a positive way, but we cannot afford to leave such a potentially unreliable energy source as our only means of energy production.

A similar argument can be made for saving coal. Coal has a perfectly good use as an emergency backup. The benefit of coal is that anyone can use it. If you can start a fire, then you can use coal as an energy source. In a time of great emergency, be it natural disaster or other, coal might just be our savior. Coal is so simple to use, and has such a low energy output compared to more advanced techniques, that is does not make sense to burn it now. We should be using more technologically advanced energy sources in the present and save our coal reserves. Why use all of the coal now and then have no backup in the future? What happens if all of the coal is burned within the next 100 years and then a future energy source goes through a period of reduced effectiveness?

Fusion is a worthwhile investment because any multi-billion person population is best served by energy sources that are fully controllable. One person can suffer through lessened energy availability overnight, but large societies need consistency. Even if solar energy dominates the landscape of tomorrow, fusion energy is the responsible partner in times of hardship that cannot be predicted today.

Which Fusion Research Deserves Support?

This is the section where fusion research needs to differentiate itself from the similar sounding funding increase requests of other fields. Having three unique and active arenas (magnetic, inertial, and electrostatic confinement) is a positive result of fantastic advances in research. While experts will have their own favorites, there is no scientific reason to allow one method to take precedence over the others. At least, there is no support for choosing a preferred method at this time. Additional work might produce a clear leader, but all three methods suffer from downsides and unresolved issues. The following table is a one item collection of problems with all three methods (of course, greatly simplified).

Magnetically Confined

A sustained fusion plasma has never been attained and arguably the best tokamak performance of all time took place more than ten years ago, suggesting that fusion energy progress may be slowing.

Inertially Confined

The lasers can only fire a few times each day, but a power plant would need 432,000 to 864,000 shots per day (source).

Electrostatically Confined

Devices are typically small and it is not known whether making them larger will lead to significant energy production.

The next table is a short compilation of benefits from each method that can be achieved even in the worst-case scenario of little useful fusion energy results.

Magnetically Confined

Even if tokamaks cannot cover humanity's energy needs alone, the concept of fusion-fission hybrids provides a clear path to a sustainable and immediately applicable energy production system.

Inertially Confined

The hardware of the program, high-power lasers, will continue to receive huge amounts of funding regardless of fusion energy relevance because of the Stockpile Stewardship program in which these laboratories provide for testing and maintaining US nuclear weapons without full-scale detonation tests. As the technology improves this will become cheaper and more reliable.

Electrostatically Confined

Many viable uses besides fusion energy (nuclear weapon detection and neutron production for non-energy uses), so further development and support of this method is most likely to provide a return on investment regardless of energy success.

Conclusions

I was taken aback by the MSNBC article and thought that it missed the point. Without a Ph.D. (at least, not yet) and not working in a fusion lab there is little room for me to present a scientific argument that covers the most recent advances in this field. That is why I have presented an argument on both logical and scientific grounds for increased support of all branches of fusion energy research. We need fusion because it has the highest energy yield and is completely controllable. Fusion energy is a source that is most useful for all of the future problems that have not been foreseen, for the energy crunches that lie ahead and strike without warning. Let's have solar energy, but do not count on it as a sole provider.

There is no obvious fusion energy method. Of the three methods presently being researched, each provides unique physics challenges and possibility. If the US does not support this increasingly developing field then we can expect to be buying this technology from the rest of the world in the same manner they have been buying ours over the past century. If the prosperity of the US is due to our scientific prowess, then where will trailing in energy research lead our nation?

Technorati Tags: fusion, fusion energy, physics research, media criticism

Notes from TTF 2008

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:17:38 +0000

The 21st U.S. Transport Taskforce Workshop website has begun posting the presentations of its attendees. These can be downloaded from the conference program page.

The Transport Taskforce, in addition to having one of the more exciting conference names, is concerned with providing a forum to fusion researchers in which to discuss and further the understanding of plasma transport issues. That makes this a great conference to learn about some of the cutting edge research in fusion.

Some Notes

The opening talk reviewed advanced turbulence simulations and presented interesting information about synthetic diagnostics (no slide numbers on the presentation, but the synthetic diagnostics section is labeled in the PDF link to follow). The simulation code outputs profiles of plasma density and temperature fluctuations. Synthetic diagnostics take the full profiles of the simulation and pare them down into what an experimental diagnostic would have measured. This is used to compare the simulation results with experimental measurements.

Validation of Nonlinear Simulations of Core Tokamak Turbulence: Current Status and Future Directions [PDF]
ITER received considerable attention and was mentioned in many presentations, either as a side note or as the main point. This makes sense in the context of increased simulation and modeling because only computer-based ITER work can be done right now, unless you work in Cadarache (this ITER movie contains music).
My talk focused on power spectra characteristics associated with intermittent plasma pulses and increased transport levels. Since the TTF website is already hosting this file, I'm not going to put it on my site.

Exponential Frequency Spectrum and Anomalous Transport [PDF]

Bad Apples

Apple laptops had a surprising and uncharacteristic poor performance. Computer problems during a conference are nothing new, but it's usually Windows software that does the crashing. When this happens, the Mac users are happy to point out that their hardware works wonderfully. They might even add that Keynote is better than PowerPoint. At TTF, however, at least three Macs delayed presentations. The opening talk was delayed when the Apple laptop running on the projector froze. It was the worst kind of freeze because the cursor was still active even though no files could be opened. Someone sitting in front of me said, "so much for the stability of Macs" and garnered a few chuckles. The other delays were caused by complete crashes in which the laptop had to be forced off and restarted.

The one Linux laptop I saw used did not have any problems at all, though it did take a lot longer to set up in the first place.

Technorati Tags: plasma physics, physics conference

A Weakness in Digg

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:39:09 +0000

Digg is a website that allows its users to recommend and vote for interesting items found on the internet. Items that get enough votes are then presented to a large number of people via the front page. Ever since I joined Digg I have been impressed by how the site works. Granted, it does not take a lot for a computer program to impress me. One aspect of the site that is decidedly unimpressive, however, is the way in which it compares a user's submission to those already on the site. When a user submits something to Digg, this user is presented with a list of items that might represent the same thing. This prevents the same items from being submitted multiple times... if the later user finds something they think already covers what they are trying to present.

My most recent submission was the photograph of the filament source from the undergraduate plasma lab at UCLA. While I have written about this photo previously, the Digg submission is only for the image. I gave this submission the title, "Fancy Lightbulb Makes Plasma for Students" because the white hot filaments are basically light bulbs. During the submission process Digg asked me whether the following stories were duplicates of this one (the most absurd are in bold):

GE Announces Breakthrough : Low-Cost Organic LED Production
Debbi Chambers Shares and Evening with Ray from the Secret |
British Olympic agencies oppose Chambers bid in Beijing
A thermodynamic equilibrium of nitrogen plasma
Report: EA goes hostile for Take-Two
IT Business Leadership Summit 2008
A real lightsaber coming to a store near you!
Someone at Google hates Jews
NCAA's method to underdog madness
Ghosts of the Iraq War Haunt Congress in Senate Chamber
House to have secret session for surveillance debate
Pioneer stops production of plasma panels
GE Demonstrates World's First Flexible OLED's
OLED Breakthrough
Wall Art

All of these "possible duplicates" were posted within two days of my item. The algorithm for finding duplicates must assume that most double posting results from multiple people trying to be the first to submit something right after it is available. Anything that has a reference to light or plasma seems sensible, although Digg's image comparison software (provided by idee) should be able to tell that none of these are even remotely similar to the filament picture.

One reason this can be problematic is that if the duplication system keeps showing people completely different items, then people are going to start ignoring it and the number of duplicate submissions might actually rise. There is plenty of room for improvement in this area.

Also acceptable: Vakoom no gud!

By the way, my image is not generating much interest at all. Next time I submit a physics image to Digg I will be sure it's a LOLcat.

Original cat image found on I Can Has Cheezburger.

Technorati Tags: digg, lolcats

What's This? - Number 3

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:00:00 +0000

What's This? hopes to one day be nearly as enjoyable as Bob Park's What's New.

Failures Will Come to Light Much Sooner:
An article from The Economist discusses the ways in which new technologies can spread faster in poorer countries than wealthy ones. They proceed to cite a World Bank report (possibly this one, though the full text download did not work for me) that shows technology propagates much faster now then it did even just 30 years ago. For example, it took about 70 years for the radio to go from invention to widespread use, but only 20 years for the CAT scan to do the same. This implies that newly developed technologies are capable of producing a financial return much sooner than any other time in human history. Furthermore, nations that do not support their science and technology infrastructure will likely suffer the economic consequences much sooner than ever before, hopefully while the elected officials responsible for the budget are still in office. [Originally found here.]
It Might not be the Other Driver's Fault, but it is:
A paper in the New Journal of Physics shows that traffic jams can occur without a bottleneck. You might be stuck in traffic just because there are too many vehicles on the road, not because there is an accident or other specific problem location. This is scientific proof that there are only two ways to relieve traffic congestion: build more roads or reduce the number of vehicles using the existing roads. Reducing the number of vehicles seems to be the easier option because building new roads also requires funding their lifetime of maintenance. It might even be cheaper to provide free public transportation in major metropolitan areas than to satisfy our asphalt needs. The important question is, however, which solution is the more successful platform for a politician? [Originally found here.]
Relax, Your Experiment Will be Running for a While:
Lynda Williams is the Physics Chanteuse and she rewrites pop music songs in terms of physics topics. She was interviewed by The Seattle Times and asked whether other scientists who see her show are a tough audience. Her response was, "Geologists and astronomers tend to be the most loose and easygoing." Is it a coincidence that people studying physics of the longest timescales are the most relaxed? The Chanteuse should hope that no inertial fusion or other laser physics researchers come to the show.
Even our Rovers Prefer to be SUVs:
The Los Angeles Times published an article about the newest Mars rover. Calling it an "Interplanetary Beast," its 1,900 lbs. are nearly five times heavier than the previous rover. This is probably the equivalent weight of ten scientists (maybe only nine Americans?), but the rover is easier to get to Mars than humans and it works longer hours with less complaining (see item 2. of this). Promoting the use of machines over people for space exploration is not popular even though it is more cost efficient and productive to use machines. Besides, even if we ship plenty of humans over to Mars, we could never afford to build all the roads they would need to get to work.

The opinions expressed in this article are not those of a Ph.D. physicist, but they will be.