In other news - looks like the world's energy problems have been solved
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This OT post is allowed because I hope like hell it will come to be.
With the production of that much energy in such a small space, the combustion engine would pretty much be obsolete and the entire world would have access to power at virtually no cost. Build the reactor... and that's it. Getting hydrogen is just a wee bit simpler and cheaper than getting uranium, oil, or coal out of the ground. Not to mention the impact it could have on space craft, space stations, satellites... you name it.
With the production of that much energy in such a small space, the combustion engine would pretty much be obsolete and the entire world would have access to power at virtually no cost. Build the reactor... and that's it. Getting hydrogen is just a wee bit simpler and cheaper than getting uranium, oil, or coal out of the ground. Not to mention the impact it could have on space craft, space stations, satellites... you name it.
Sounds good to me. Only problem now is what are all of those oil and coal workers going to do once they have no job.
Oh, and "...The key breakthrough involves using a “magnetic bottle” to contain the vast amount of heat, which rises into the hundreds of millions of degrees, created by the nuclear reaction."
Am I the only one picturing Homer Simpson looking down into a smoldering bottomless hole in the ground as one of these magnetic bottles gets lose and winds up burning its way to China?
Oh, and "...The key breakthrough involves using a “magnetic bottle” to contain the vast amount of heat, which rises into the hundreds of millions of degrees, created by the nuclear reaction."
Am I the only one picturing Homer Simpson looking down into a smoldering bottomless hole in the ground as one of these magnetic bottles gets lose and winds up burning its way to China?
It wouldn't be an instant turnaround. You'd still need to build some infrastructure to support it. Even 10 years from now there will still be plenty of vehicles and machines powered by coal oil and natural gas even if this got implemented tomorrow.
Anybody remember Joseph Newman's perpetual energy machine from late 70's early 80's? He was a MS inventor that claimed to have a machine that created more energy than it used to produce it
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Yep, Was on Johnny Carson back in the mid 80's. He was a real weirdo, but got lots of national attention.
Couldn't remember his name, but I remember it. Seems like he was on the Tonight Show. I remember one of my profs at State saying a few profs went down to take a look at it & estimated the efficiency to be pretty high (but not 100% obviously).
Speaking as an engineer that works in energy, this is a huge development. However the impact on the Oil industry is likely to be small for decades at least. Transportation drives ( pun intended) the oil market in the world. Until the energy density of batteries allows people to drive 100's of miles and refill quickly, internal combustion is not going anywhere. Now for general electricity, where coal still dominates that's going to change as fast as they can build the new plants or convert the old ones. There will still be a distribution problem to be solved ( hydrogen pipelines) but that can be done fairly quickly if need be.
Now with cheap electricity, then the transportation market will change. My hope is the us starts to move to high speed electric rail for trips up to 1000 miles. But that in itself will take decades. At least as long as it took to build the interstate highway system. And probably in the same right of way.
Now with cheap electricity, then the transportation market will change. My hope is the us starts to move to high speed electric rail for trips up to 1000 miles. But that in itself will take decades. At least as long as it took to build the interstate highway system. And probably in the same right of way.
If only... http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric#range
(speaking as an engineer in the energy business).
Heavy trucks may always use ICEs but the adoption rate of plug-ins so far has been 3x faster than it was for hybrids... and now within three years nearly every car sold has some form of hybrid system. In 10 more years plug-ins will be ubiquitous with personal transit. This development will only help drive the energy cost down further and reduce well-to-wheel impacts.
The numbers aren't in this article but somewhere else I think the numbers were included and it talked about costing something like $40B for a 100MW reactor off a production line. That should obviously come down as the technology progresses, but I'm guessing it will be 10 years before the first one is built and another 15 years before one is used in anything other than a military capacity. $4B for a 100MW reactor would be a good bit more expensive per MW than current nuclear plants (I think like 3 or 4 times more expensive), so even if it came down by a factor of ten it would still be crazy expensive.
ETA: All wrong. The numbers I saw were referencing the ITER, which is a intergovernmental experimental project re nuclear fusion. Don't think Lockheed has put any projected numbers out.
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"Refill quickly". And yeah battery tech could advance fast enough to make this a reality. But I'm not betting on it in decades.
The average cycle time to create a new vehicle in the auto industry is about 7 years. The average time people change cars is 6 years. Even with mass adoption, that's a long cycle. And that's after 2025 when this tech is ready.
I like the Tesla's. I'm thinking of getting one. But for me to drive to MSU from Houston in one will require an overnight stay for at least 16 hours to recharge. Not to mention the fact it is $90k.
Plug in cars are getting massive adoption, but all electrics will take decades. Including an overhaul of the transmission grid
The average cycle time to create a new vehicle in the auto industry is about 7 years. The average time people change cars is 6 years. Even with mass adoption, that's a long cycle. And that's after 2025 when this tech is ready.
I like the Tesla's. I'm thinking of getting one. But for me to drive to MSU from Houston in one will require an overnight stay for at least 16 hours to recharge. Not to mention the fact it is $90k.
Plug in cars are getting massive adoption, but all electrics will take decades. Including an overhaul of the transmission grid
Also, per Tesla's website. Driving at interstate speeds in the summer with air conditioning, the range drops to 180 to 230 miles. So that's now a 3 day trip back to Starkville. Unless you know a place with a 40-80 amp 220V circuit to charge me up.