Helium-3 Article in USA Today

Alan Anderson wrote:

It makes little sense to spend money on a series of latest, greatest
designs, while not spending enough on an existing design to actually get
something useful out of it.

"It makes little sense to spend money on internal combustion engines for
aircraft, while not spending enough on existing steam engine designs."
-- an imagined criticism of the Wrights

IF tokamaks can reasonably be expected to lead to commercially competitive
reactors, or at least return enough basic physics knowledge applicable
to other designs that may be competitive, then that could well be the case.

It could be, however, that tokamaks are expensive dead ends. If fundamentally
different kinds of reactors are needed for commercial viability, then it may
make more sense to just go with those. Not all engineering demonstrations
are necessarily created equal.

It's troubling that a mere demonstration reactor is going to cost $10+ B.
That's a hell of a lot more than the first fission reactor (or even the
first fission power reactor) cost, even adjusting for inflation. It's hard
to see how progress is going to be made quickly if all the eggs are forced
into one giant basket. (The analogy to space programs is obvious.)

Paul

glbrad01 wrote:

On most small asteroids, you'd have all the He 3 mined in a week,
and
then what? A month's journey to the next one.


I was referring to the complete list of originally listed
elements, not
just the Helium-3. Mining them would be just part of mining the
complete
package of everything the asteroid has to offer. All of its material
resource. All of it! We will want it all. "And then what?" Most
definitely
on to the next one. There will be a whole industry devoted to seeking
out,
hunting down, these loose lesser bodies for mining their materials.
There
will be no worthless materials from them. Every ton of otherwise
worthless
mass already in the space environment is a ton of low cost shielding
material for just about any kind of facility we will construct in
space. And
we will be constructing a lot of large, and ever larger, facilities
for
every kind of use in space.

I agree there. My thinking would be that in the early stages we'd bring
small rocks (starting at 1,000 - 5,000 tons) into High Earth Orbit.
These are used:

1. To make craft for more missions to get the next size up of rock (30
times bigger each time)
2. For habitat construction
3. For SSP construction

Later, we could build colonies in orbit around some of the larger
rocks.

I'm not sure if seeking out is an issue. Prospecting - may be, but that
could be remote sensing.


These rarer, lighter elements, will be bonus riches (to be taken in

passing) but it seems to me that not one asteroid will be found to be

without them in viable quantity for leeching out. They will be too
valuable
not to mine any amount there to be mined whatsoever. As to broad
frontage,
"surface area," a cubic meter is a cubic meter and what's more, the
total
facing area to the sun of all of the asteroids in the inner system
(out to
the asteroid belt and maybe beyond) is vastly, vastly greater than
the
Moon's. The total Helium-3, along with the other elements in the
list,
resource to be mined should be at least equal to and probably far
greater in
amount than what we will draw from the Moon. Which of course in no
way
belittles that potential resource (those potential resources) with
regard to
getting it (them) from the Moon. The Moon is at hand, the asteroids
are for
later.

And also precious metals. If we process a 100 million ton NEO, we'd
have enough precious metals to flood the Earth market. We'd be pricing
Gold by the ton, not by the ounce.

The Earth will get enlarging asteroid watches, enlarging numbers of

asteroid hunters, and ever increasing numbers of danger eliminations,
for
free--as we progress in expanding our occupation of space itself--as
yet
another bonus. Probably the biggest bonus of all from space to those
who
will be remaining on Earth.

In any case, even being an O'Neiller, I finally share the
realization that
basing ("basing" rather than "colonizing") the Moon has to come first
before
anything else in space, so to base--in the beginning--all else
pursued in
space (including Lagrange point orbital colonization). People who
will leave
for the Moon thinking to colonize it will eventually remove
themselves to
space colonies, rotating miners and others to the bases on the Moon,
for
reasons I won't go into in this thread.

I think NEOs would be a better target than the moon, even now. However,
I support a return to the moon because the moon is a better target than
no target.

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:
It's hard to see how progress is going to be made quickly if all the
eggs are forced into one giant basket. (The analogy to space
programs is obvious.)

It's equally hard to see how progress is going to be made if you never
progress beyond tons of small scale, limited goal experiments either.

We don't know just how well tokomaks are going to be work with any
degree of certainty, and we won't know until we build one.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

It's hard to see how progress is going to be made quickly if all the
eggs are forced into one giant basket. (The analogy to space
programs is obvious.)


It's equally hard to see how progress is going to be made if you never
progress beyond tons of small scale, limited goal experiments either.

That's a straw man, of course. If an alternate concept does prove
to be superior, it (or an even better one) would be further developed
beyond 'limited goal experiments'.

We don't know just how well tokomaks are going to be work with any
degree of certainty, and we won't know until we build one.

There have been detailed engineering studies of tokamaks as power
reactors. The costs remain troublingly high. The cost of ITER
remains high. High costs == few trials (and conservative ones)
== slow progress.

The alternate concepts, IF THEY WORK, promise smaller, cheaper
reactors. For example, the levitated dipole has sufficiently
higher beta that it could sustain an ignited DT plasma witb
a power of just 15 MW. Assuming it works, of course.

Paul

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

It's hard to see how progress is going to be made quickly if all the
eggs are forced into one giant basket. (The analogy to space
programs is obvious.)

It's equally hard to see how progress is going to be made if you never
progress beyond tons of small scale, limited goal experiments either.

That's a straw man, of course. If an alternate concept does prove
to be superior, it (or an even better one) would be further developed
beyond 'limited goal experiments'.

No, it's a fact. Regardless of the machine chosen, you'll eventually
have to steel your courage, build a full size one, and hope.
Christopher on the other hand is advocating continuing small
experiments in the hope that one will produce cheap results.

We don't know just how well tokomaks are going to be work with any
degree of certainty, and we won't know until we build one.

There have been detailed engineering studies of tokamaks as power
reactors. The costs remain troublingly high. The cost of ITER
remains high. High costs == few trials (and conservative ones)
== slow progress.

Cryogenics, high voltage, radiation, clean room environments, high
tech materials... All of which lead to high costs. I suspect other
systems will be more expensive than fusion enthusiasts think as well.

The alternate concepts, IF THEY WORK, promise smaller, cheaper
reactors. For example, the levitated dipole has sufficiently
higher beta that it could sustain an ignited DT plasma witb
a power of just 15 MW. Assuming it works, of course.

I'm once again reminded of Rickover's dictums about the differences
between paper reactors and real reactors.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

That's a straw man, of course. If an alternate concept does prove
to be superior, it (or an even better one) would be further developed
beyond 'limited goal experiments'.


No, it's a fact. Regardless of the machine chosen, you'll eventually
have to steel your courage, build a full size one, and hope.
Christopher on the other hand is advocating continuing small
experiments in the hope that one will produce cheap results.

No ****, Derek. And it's quite possible that the decision to
proceed would not be a good one for tokamaks, but would be a good
one for a better reactor concept. Equating the two is just
being simpleminded, ignoring the finer details that could
enable one to discriminate the possibilities.


There have been detailed engineering studies of tokamaks as power
reactors. The costs remain troublingly high. The cost of ITER
remains high. High costs == few trials (and conservative ones)
== slow progress.

Cryogenics, high voltage, radiation, clean room environments, high
tech materials... All of which lead to high costs. I suspect other
systems will be more expensive than fusion enthusiasts think as well.

Other concepts make much more efficient use of magnetic fields.
This leads to reduced magnet mass and cost. Other concepts can
have much *smaller* reactor vessels, also leading to lower unit
cost.


The alternate concepts, IF THEY WORK, promise smaller, cheaper
reactors. For example, the levitated dipole has sufficiently
higher beta that it could sustain an ignited DT plasma witb
a power of just 15 MW. Assuming it works, of course.

I'm once again reminded of Rickover's dictums about the differences
between paper reactors and real reactors.

And I'm reminded of the story of the drunk who, having lost
his car keys, searches for them under the lamp because that's
where the light is.

The goal of all this is a commercially viable reactor. If tokamaks
can't deliver on that goal, continuing with the development is, at
some point, stupid, even if they are in a more advanced stage of
development than the alternatives.

Paul

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
[snippy-snip]
It's troubling that a mere demonstration reactor is going to cost $10+ B.
That's a hell of a lot more than the first fission reactor (or even the
first fission power reactor) cost, even adjusting for inflation. It's hard
to see how progress is going to be made quickly if all the eggs are forced
into one giant basket. (The analogy to space programs is obvious.)

Precisely. ITER is the ISS of fusion research. There
is little to recommend it among alternatives on its
merits alone, it survives mainly due to the mechanics
of international cooperation and as a construction jobs
program (the location for the reactor was more
contentious than any of the design details, due to the
huge benefit to the hosting country).

Derek Lyons wrote:
It's equally hard to see how progress is going to be made if you never
progress beyond tons of small scale, limited goal experiments either.

I find it utterly fascinating that anyone could describe
projects costing hundreds of millions to billions of
dollars as "small scale". If a billion dollar reactor
is "small scale" for fusion research, then quite frankly
maybe fusion power is not going to be viable in the near
term.


We don't know just how well tokomaks are going to be work with any
degree of certainty, and we won't know until we build one.

I think that maybe, just maybe, there have been more than
one or two tokamaks built over the years. I think you
maybe meant to make a different point there.

Derek Lyons wrote:
No, it's a fact. Regardless of the machine chosen, you'll eventually
have to steel your courage, build a full size one, and hope.
Christopher on the other hand is advocating continuing small
experiments in the hope that one will produce cheap results.

I asked you kindly to not grossly mischaracterize my
position. Perhaps that was too much to ask of you,
Derek?

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:
No, it's a fact. Regardless of the machine chosen, you'll eventually
have to steel your courage, build a full size one, and hope.
Christopher on the other hand is advocating continuing small
experiments in the hope that one will produce cheap results.

I asked you kindly to not grossly mischaracterize my
position. Perhaps that was too much to ask of you,
Derek?

That's the position that you seem to be espousing.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL