Hearted Youtube comments on Ziroth (@ZirothTech) channel.
-
152
-
148
-
142
-
137
-
133
-
131
-
126
-
126
-
118
-
116
-
115
-
113
-
104
-
104
-
102
-
100
-
100
-
98
-
96
-
95
-
91
-
90
-
87
-
86
-
86
-
82
-
81
-
79
-
71
-
71
-
69
-
67
-
64
-
64
-
62
-
61
-
60
-
59
-
56
-
51
-
49
-
48
-
47
-
46
-
43
-
41
-
I was tempted to “pre-empt” your video, but decided instead to listen right through.
You are absolutely correct about the lithium breeding issue. It is an area that has had too little “investment” of technology and effort because the current strand of research is focused on -
1. getting stabilised plasmas
2. Establishing a “burning” plasma with all of the potential additional stability issues associated with a burning plasma versus a non-burning plasma.
3. Getting the required gain in thermal efficiency - I.e. more nett power out and than power used to establish the maintain the burning plasma
4. Running the plasma for long enough to be a viable producer of energy.
All of which problems are still yet to be resolved. And until they can be, the next phase of a “production prototype” will not be financed by anybody.
It is during the “production prototype” phase that the breeding issue will need to be resolved- alongside many very serious metallurgical problems that many scientists do not yet realise they are going to face. (or maybe, some do, but are deliberately keeping quite about these so as not to throw a spanner in the works of the development efforts).
My personal opinion, for what it’s worth, is that these issues will hold up the introduction of fusion reactors for a longer period of time than that taken by the physicists and engineers to establish a burning plasma.
But many in the industry think that taking the energy from a fusion reactor will be as straight forward as doing so from a conventional nuclear fission reactor. Technology which is well established.
Again, my personal opinion is that you are comparing chalk with cheese.
But, on the bright side, I think the problem is a “nut that can be cracked” if there is enough investment in the research.
ITER may provide a number of answers - but to be honest, I think that ITER is now as much a costly white elephant which is diverting money that could be better used elsewhere - as far as fusion research is concerned.
Again, my opinion, is that nuclear fusion will be solved and developed by private initiative - not through a project such as ITER.
There is much evidence that this is happening already.
40
-
40
-
Rock at this temperatures and pressures (at 10 km or below, provided the right spot is chosen) is not like the rock here on the surface. It's actually getting softer and even partly melts, a bit like thick, highly viscous magma with solid parts in it, having quite different thermal conductivity. And there are saline fluids which also can transport heat. Of course there is a limit, but with the right amount of water pumped in, there will be little issues with keeping it hot.
But there are other issues. In case a non water-permeable layer of clay is penetrated, and water spreads into formerly dry layers below (e.g., into Anhydrite), those may swell, raising the land above quite a bit. This already happened, and it literally ruined villages. Such issues are hard to predict, because of the actually unknown structure details and porosity of the rock below. Another issue is liberating toxic substances from under ground that were kept there before, e.g. heavy metals or radioactive material. And in case of a movement of the (softer) rock below, the pipes may easily get crushed, posing another issue.
We actually don't know very much detail about the earth's mantle, as it is hard to just go and have a look. Thus it is difficult to chose the right spot to drill.
39
-
39