Is it going to be possible, is the holdup just engineering the container or something else?

If it proved possible and provided energy that would be a game changer.

Skunkworks said:

Is it going to be possible, is the holdup just engineering the container or something else?

If it proved possible and provided energy that would be a game changer.

Yes, yes no.
Yes.

Depending on the cost per unit of energy, but yes it possibly could be a game-changer.

I have a dream of fusion-powered desalination plants all around the coast pumping fresh water inland and making the deserts bloom.

Tamb said:

Skunkworks said:

Is it going to be possible, is the holdup just engineering the container or something else?

If it proved possible and provided energy that would be a game changer.

Yes, yes no.
Yes.

Yes do you mean they cannot fashion a container but that they can do self sustaining fusions for the millboofteenth or whatever before the container fails.

Skunkworks said:

Tamb said:

Skunkworks said:

Is it going to be possible, is the holdup just engineering the container or something else?

If it proved possible and provided energy that would be a game changer.

Yes, yes no.
Yes.

Yes do you mean they cannot fashion a container but that they can do self sustaining fusions for the millboofteenth or whatever before the container fails.

Yes.

party_pants said:

Depending on the cost per unit of energy, but yes it possibly could be a game-changer.

I have a dream of fusion-powered desalination plants all around the coast pumping fresh water inland and making the deserts bloom.

Thus making the oceans excessively salty near the coasts.

Tamb said:

party_pants said:

Depending on the cost per unit of energy, but yes it possibly could be a game-changer.

I have a dream of fusion-powered desalination plants all around the coast pumping fresh water inland and making the deserts bloom.

Thus making the oceans excessively salty near the coasts.

Nah, we’d just position the outflows very carefully.

It depends on the method..

The most promising method at the moment seems to be laser ignition of small fuel pellets which seems pretty damn close to breaking even in terms of energy out / in.

Skunkworks said:

Is it going to be possible, is the holdup just engineering the container or something else?

Fusion power will be available in (current year +10).

From wiki

They require fuel pellets with close to a perfect shape in order to generate a symmetrical inward shock wave to produce the high-density plasma, and in practice these have proven difficult to produce.

What does a fuel pellet look like?

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

Even if it works it will get bought OUT BY BIG SOLAR AND BIG WIND AND MOTHBALLED.

Peak Warming Man said:

Even if it works it will get bought OUT BY BIG SOLAR AND BIG WIND AND MOTHBALLED.

LOL

Obviousman said:

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Skunkworks said:

From wiki

They require fuel pellets with close to a perfect shape in order to generate a symmetrical inward shock wave to produce the high-density plasma, and in practice these have proven difficult to produce.

What does a fuel pellet look like?

Generally they are fairly symmetrical: both spheres & cylinders have been used, AFAIK.
Here’s a mock-up from Wiki:

Peak Warming Man said:

Obviousman said:

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Why not sell the salt?

Obviousman said:

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

dilution

Fuel pellets share a problem with atomic bombs: you want the stuff in the pellet to react, but when it reacts it produces energy which tends to blow the pellet up before the full yield of the reaction has been obtained. So fusion designers muck around with different pellet designs, containment using lasers, magnetic and electric fields, etc, hoping to stumble across a combination that works consistently.

Skunkworks said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Obviousman said:

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Why not sell the salt?

1000L of salt water goes in, 999L of salt water and 1L of fresh water goes out.

PM 2Ring said:

Skunkworks said:

From wiki

They require fuel pellets with close to a perfect shape in order to generate a symmetrical inward shock wave to produce the high-density plasma, and in practice these have proven difficult to produce.

What does a fuel pellet look like?

Generally they are fairly symmetrical: both spheres & cylinders have been used, AFAIK.
Here’s a mock-up from Wiki:

Cool, I presume that little thing is just for display or is its surface so smooth touching it would ruin it?

Carmen_Sandiego said:

1000L of salt water goes in, 999L of salt water and 1L of fresh water goes out.

Got ya.

Skunkworks said:

PM 2Ring said:

Here’s a mock-up from Wiki:

Cool, I presume that little thing is just for display or is its surface so smooth touching it would ruin it?

Yeah, it’s just for display. That one’s only a mock-up, but touching a real fuel pellet container shouldn’t hurt it. In a working reactor the pellets would need to be delivered into the heart of the reactor at a moderately rapid pace, so they can’t be too fragile.

Wikipedia said:

Laser inertial confinement, sometimes known as ‘indirect drive’, involves imploding a microcapsule fuel pellet (known as a ‘hohlraum’) using laser beams. The laser imparts energy to the hohlraum’s outer container rather than the fuel itself, for an extremely short time at an extremely high rate. The outer container absorbs this energy, almost immediately re-radiating it as intense X-rays which compress the fuel from all directions causing it to implode with sufficient pressure for fusion to take place. The advantage of indirect drive is that the energy is re-radiated in a much more symmetric fashion than would be possible using direct drive (i.e. directly energizing the fuel itself), resulting in a more uniform implosion.

So the trick is to get the pellet to implode as symmetrically as possible and to try to make the ensuing reaction proceed in a symmetrical fashion as possible. By using strong electromagnetic fields we can encourage the reaction to be symmetrical; the trick is achieving symmetry without using more energy than what the reaction produces.

Carmen_Sandiego said:

Skunkworks said:

Peak Warming Man said:

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Why not sell the salt?

1000L of salt water goes in, 999L of salt water and 1L of fresh water goes out.

Brine concentration here in WA is about 7%. So 100 litres in, 50 litres of water, 50 litres of brine.

Skunkworks said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Obviousman said:

What is the normal method of removing excess salt in a desalination plant?

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Why not sell the salt?

You would need more space for salt pans to evaporate off the water. If the system for harvesting the salt from the solution is to be similar to how this is done in the interior of Australia and perhaps OS.

It’s possible for amateurs to make a simple fusion reactor. Of course, they don’t have a net positive energy yield, but they do produce neutrons. And look extremely cool. :)

From Fusor

https://lasers.llnl.gov

ratty one said:

Skunkworks said:

Peak Warming Man said:

A brine concentrate is pumped back into the sea.

Why not sell the salt?

You would need more space for salt pans to evaporate off the water. If the system for harvesting the salt from the solution is to be similar to how this is done in the interior of Australia and perhaps OS.

And along the coast in WA.

A lot of overseas salt is made by thermal evaporation. It is known as vacuum salt, because vacuum evaporation is used.

morrie said:

ratty one said:

Skunkworks said:

Why not sell the salt?

You would need more space for salt pans to evaporate off the water. If the system for harvesting the salt from the solution is to be similar to how this is done in the interior of Australia and perhaps OS.

And along the coast in WA.

A lot of overseas salt is made by thermal evaporation. It is known as vacuum salt, because vacuum evaporation is used.

How energy efficient is that system Morrie?

ratty one said:

morrie said:

ratty one said:

You would need more space for salt pans to evaporate off the water. If the system for harvesting the salt from the solution is to be similar to how this is done in the interior of Australia and perhaps OS.

And along the coast in WA.

A lot of overseas salt is made by thermal evaporation. It is known as vacuum salt, because vacuum evaporation is used.

How energy efficient is that system Morrie?

Perhaps the best way of looking at it is to say that it competes with our solar salt, which has to be transported.

Work continues on cold fusion in the US . I wouldn’t write that off either.

Dense Plasma Fusion, I reckon, is more likely to be able to produce commercial power before otherwise conventional fusion reactors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhKB-VxJWpg

party_pants said:

Depending on the cost per unit of energy, but yes it possibly could be a game-changer.

I have a dream of fusion-powered desalination plants all around the coast pumping fresh water inland and making the deserts bloom.

unnecessary

just build dams

we already have enough water – they just don’t have a proper of transporting it eg pipes

Too much con fusion for my liking.

nuclear power is really only good for spacecraft and subs and possibly a dedicated power source for something like a storm-troopers aircon suit / dedicated use for vehicles/ small powersource

the solid state nuclear power source in a storm troopers suit for example was developed over time to keep the soldiers of the old republic cool during battle whilst wearing armour

Isn’t there a source of fusion power approx 93 million miles from us?

bob(from black rock) said:

Isn’t there a source of fusion power approx 93 million miles from us?

Yes but it’s a tricky devil. Goes & hides for hours at a time.

Tamb said:

bob(from black rock) said:

Isn’t there a source of fusion power approx 93 million miles from us?

Yes but it’s a tricky devil. Goes & hides for hours at a time.

.
I thought it was only some of us that hid, and only for part of the time?

bob(from black rock) said:

Isn’t there a source of fusion power approx 93 million miles from us?

only 12 hours a day.,.