Talk:Fusion power

Lawrence M Lidsky and L J Reinders

I believe that this article about "Fusion power" would be more complete if there was a reference to Lawrence M. Lidsky and his article from 1983 "The trouble with fusion". This is mentioned in L.J. Reinders work "The fairy tale of nuclear fusion" published by Springer.

Quote p.495: "The first criticism that aroused some attention goes back to a 1983 paper (Lidsky 1983) by the fusion insider Lawrence Lidsky (1935–2002), at the time a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT and associate director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He also was the founding editor of the Journal of Fusion Energy. Lidsky wrote a paper, called “The Trouble with Fusion” in the MIT Technology Review. At the time he said that he wrote it because “I couldn’t get an internal discussion going. Some didn’t care and some didn’t want to know.” I am afraid that is still the case. He actually was of the opinion that the fusion programme had come prematurely under the sway of machine-builders and that as a consequence science was suffering. An explicit goal was established, generating commercially competitive electricity from D-T fusion early in the twenty-first century. Once such a goal has been set, it is not easy to change. Producing net power from fusion is a valid scientific goal, but generating electricity commercially is an engineering problem, Lidsky said."

L. J. Reinders The Fairy Tale of Nuclear Fusion, Springer ISBN 978-3-030-64343-0 ISBN 978-3-030-64344-7 (eBook)

https://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/iter/Lidsky-The-Trouble-With-Fusion-1983.pdf MIT Technology Review, October 1983

¨¨¨¨ 123johanlindeberg (talk) 16:09, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, given the state of affairs with ITER, this appears true. What I would be interested in is how early is 'early in the 21st century'? First quarter? Johncdraper (talk) 10:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

A simple way to adress this issue could be to include information in the History-section:

In 1983 Lawrence Lidsky (1935–2002), at the time a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT and associate director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, wrote a critical article called “The Trouble with Fusion” in the MIT Technology Review. He said he wrote it because “I couldn’t get an internal discussion going. Some didn’t care and some didn’t want to know.”

In 2021 L.J. Reinders work "The fairy tale of nuclear fusion", a scientific overview of fusion research, was published by Springer.'

The new 5 year delay of ITER has been discussed in media a lot lately, but delays are not uncommon in large scale building projects. That is not what above mentioned critique is about, is my impression. Lidsky and Reinders was targeting a problem within academia, relevant to the concept of fusion power.

All fusion experiments have failed to deliver the goal of fusion power. I believe that "lack of funding" cannot be the only explanation of why that is so.

Steven Krivits 2021 - "ITER, The Grand Illusion: A Forensic Investigation of Power Claims", could well be mentioned in a similar manner. But it is specifically about ITER. 123johanlindeberg (talk) 12:40, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I also see this as an academic echo chamber problem more relevant to ITER and the one big machine issue than to the more serious recent (since around 2018) commercial companies, where they are deliberately not shooting directly for a fusion pilot plant but are using multiple steps iteration, common in the space and wider tech industry. Many articles have been written that higlight the successful use of an iteration process at companies like TAE, Tokamak Energy, and Commonwealth Fusion and the setting of goals, and how they trigger staged funding - and how this is all very different from ITER. So, all these companies have been successful, using the hard currency of replicable results, in persuading a wide variety of investors that this stepwise approach is worth investing in - as opposed to, say, a strategy of partnering up with the DoE, like GA. Now, what we do not know if whether or not there will be some ceiling to all this - whether or not very high temperature aneutronic fusion will ever be viable at commercial levels, for example. Insufficient data. So, I'd be in favour of inserting an echo chamber para for ITER and indeed for much of the public sector approaches, but not for the leading edge commercial companies - yet?!? Johncdraper (talk) 12:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes. And you can use the references.

Prognostic information about startups is not historic fact. That is, it probably isn't suitable for Wikipedia, is my guess. An article on "Fusion power", on the other hand, is suitable, because of its cultural significance. 123johanlindeberg (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

One question that this article leaves me with is how fusion energy can be stored for long periods of time after the process is done and how we can transfer that to the renewable energy industry? Norah b17 (talk) 18:30, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I think current reactor schemes envision continuous operation of a Tokamak (or other magnetic confinement machine), while for Inertial Confinement Fusion approaches envision repetitive explosions on a timescale that is short compared with thermal storage times. Neither of these operating modes is close to being demonstrated. Wcmead3 (talk) 22:59, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

We haven't yet demonstrated that ANY fusion scheme is viable for power production. Achieving that is a monumental task in terms of science, engineering, and technology. Aneutronic fusion would be a monumental step farther. The reason is very simple and well understood: Coulomb repulsion increases with Z of the reactants. Thus, the cross sections are much lower, so temperature and confinement problems are enormously more difficult. D-T is nature's (only) "gift" with any chance of feasibility for power production. Wcmead3 (talk) 23:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The physicist Lawrence M. Lidsky would have wanted to discuss your statements and many more, perhaps even more important ones, with his peers. However, few in this area of expertise were willing to engage in an academic discussion. This is a true well known historical fact that could well be mentioned in this article about Fusion Power. He died in 2002. 123johanlindeberg (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Organizational issue: Tools

The sequence of subsections in the "Tools" section is pretty random. I think a combination of importance and logic should dictate the sequence. The problem I noticed immediately is that AI is just beginning to play any role at all in fusion research. Putting it first just reinforces the current hype about how earth-shaking AI is -- everywhere and for every application. There's also a terminology problem: the form in which "AI" is useful to fusion (and other industrial control problems) is not the form that is most widely known (LLM's). "Machine Learning" is a much more informative name. Wcmead3 (talk) 22:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

How reliable is this source?

From the article:

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has announced plans to build the world's first grid-scale commercial nuclear fusion power plant at the James River Industrial Center in Chesterfield County, Virginia, which is part of the Greater Richmond Region; the plant will be able to generate about 400 MW.

How reliable is this source?

The Last Hungry Cat (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC) The Last Hungry Cat (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I would say that it is NOT and should be removed; the only editor listed is the one who wrote that article, and many other articles are written by "staff". Thanks for finding that. ---Avatar317^(talk) 06:40, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I asked, because the claim sounds highly implausible, and it has not been reported by any mainstream news sources. If it was actually true, I would expect it to be covered in all of the major news outlets. The Last Hungry Cat (talk) 00:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@The Last Hungry Cat: You are absolutely right: "If it was actually true, I would expect it to be covered in all of the major news outlets." - and FYI, we have a policy for that: WP:EXTRAORDINARY - "Exceptional claims require exceptional sourcing" - Thanks again for noticing that!! ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I enjoy finding and removing unproven claims. I'm a big supporter of clean energy, and every fake claim like this can only serve to hurt the cause. The Last Hungry Cat (talk) 02:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I just removed it. The Last Hungry Cat (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2024 (UTC)