Assuming no commercial LENR: Frakking does buy us a lot of time, probably well over 100 years. Trucks, Planes, Trains and Ships could all switch to natural gas for fuel, and even cars will swap over if oil gets too expensive. We can also make liquid fuels out of natural gas (GTL), at current gas prices (and likely future) it is profitable when oil is >$50/barrel http://www.worldenergysource.com/articles/pdf/economides_WE_v8n1.pdf . Because frakking has dropped the price of natural gas so much even as oil has stayed high it is likely GTL will ramp up very fast in the next decade, there is now about 200000 barrels per day global capacity (0.25% of global demand).
I believe the fusion power corporation HIF presentation was done in 2010, and it does seem the technological problems to be solved are simpler than ITER or NIF: -low firing rates (0.5Hz) per chamber -only 2 ion beams per chamber (from a single source) with no fragile optics to protect and far lower accuracy requirements than laser ICF -liquid lithium jets/waterfalls that intercept the neutrons and EM impulse to prevent damage to the chamber walls and reduce neutron activation issues that are a huge problem for tokomaks -simple in-built tritium breeding from neutron capture in the lithium jets -high efficiency and well understood technology linear accelerators and beam conditioning (as adapted from other particle accelerators) I really like that a single heavy ion accelerator can run 20 reaction chambers, and that those reaction chambers can be swapped out, experimented with and rapidly developed in competition with each other without shutting down the whole plant. But there are also many other smaller scale hot fusion concepts that all have at least some chance of paying out economically/commercially within the next 30 years (as opposed to ITER/DEMO and NIF that in my opinion have none). It would be nice to see them all funded to the $50-100 million level for a few years to see if one or more of them looks promising enough to carry on with 1/ Field Reversed Configuration - eg Helion Energy, Tri Alpha 2/ Electrostatic Confinement - eg Polywell/EMC2 3/ Magnetised Target Fusion - eg General Fusion 4/ Levitated Dipole - eg MIT LDX 5/ Focus fusion - LPPX In particular Helion and Tri-Alpha would be pretty awesome if they worked out as they could also be adapted for efficient fusion propulsion in space, and might also work in large aircraft, perhaps Polywell and Focus Fusion also fit that criteria. On 2 April 2012 03:35, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: > Heavy ion fusion is an interesting technology but I suspect that it is not > as simple to put on line as the speaker in the video suggests. There > appears to be many difficult engineering challenges to solve and they take > time. Does anyone know of an actual working system that has been > constructed since the 2004(?) filming of this presentation? Also, the > natural gas available due to fracking far exceeds the quantity suggested by > the speaker but I realize that he had no way of knowing that this resource > would come into being. > > Dave > > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Lynn <[email protected]> > To: vortex-l <[email protected]> > Sent: Sun, Apr 1, 2012 8:08 am > Subject: Re: [Vo]:"There is no tomorrow" Video > > Very well presented. The first half should be looked at by all > politicians responsible for implementing the long term plans required > to maintain our standard of living. But I disagree with the ultimate > conclusions. All the problems presented including mineral, and water > shortages (possible exception of overfishing) are solvable with other > energy sources. Even ignoring LENR I am quite sure that we have > access to all of the energy that humanity needs from alternative > sources like solar, nuclear, wind at a price not far above today's > very low prices. > > But even without viable LENR there is a technology available that > could manufacture oil and electricity from inexhaustible sources for a > price about half of current oil and electricity. Not many people have > heard of it but Heavy Ion Fusion would be a total solution: > http://www.fusionpowercorporation.com/corporation > 1 hour long presentation: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2emKoMgZ03U > > In summary Heavy Ion Fusion uses a huge linear accelerator driver to > fuse lead coated D-T targets, and is expected to cost about $20Billion > for 100GW output (no sense in building smaller owing to ignition > energy requirements). That is many times cheaper than nuclear and > avoiding all the problems of nuclear power. HIF creates energy at > high temp that can be used to create hydrogen in sulphur iodine cycle, > that can then be combined with CO2 from the atmosphere to create > hydrocarbons at about $50/barrel equivalent. Waste heat from hydrogen > production can then make electricity and waste heat from electricity > production can then do huge-scale desalination. > > A few hundred of these plants dotted around the world would provide > for all of humanities future energy and water needs, and the > technology does not require any breakthroughs - it could be built > within 10 years using mostly 1970's technology - it is for example > much simpler and more easily implemented technology than what NIF or > ITER requires. And it is very compatible with existing > infrastructure. > > The problem is that it requires the political will to spend $20-30 > billion over 10 years to get it working - actually similar cost to > ITER or about 2-3% of cost of the 'war on terror' > http://costofwar.com/en/ but it would be a much cheaper way of > ensuring access to oil than middle eastern intervention has been. > > > On 1 April 2012 01:49, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: >> They paint a pretty gloomy picture. The unknown future has always >> appeared >> limited, but somehow we seem to get through it and I think LENR will come >> to >> the rescue this time. >> >> Dave >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Patrick Ellul <[email protected]> >> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> >> Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2012 8:05 pm >> Subject: [Vo]:"There is no tomorrow" Video >> >> Most of you might have already come across this, but here it goes: >> >> About the future of >> energy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg&feature=share >> >> How much of the figures are for real? What about the gloomy conclusion? >> >> Regards, >> >> >> -- >> Patrick >> >> www.tRacePerfect.com >> The daily puzzle everyone can finish but not everyone can perfect! >> The quickest puzzle ever! >> >
