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RE: starship-design: Re: debate
On Monday, December 08, 1997 1:09 PM, Ken Wharton
[SMTP:wharton@physics.ucla.edu] wrote:
>
> Re: debate
>
> Kelly writes:
>
> >>>No we have had runing fusion reactions that produced more power then
> >>>they
> >>>took to run, and have other systms that could work efficently at those
> >>>scales.
> >>
> >>Huh? Give me a hard reference! This would be very exciting news!
> >
> >Why? It hardly made the evening news at the time, and isn't that big of
> >a
> >milestone. Its not like they were comercially usable systems, or even
> >adaptible to such things. Even if they were, they certainly wern't
> >adaptable
> >to commercial operation in our power grids at competative prices. Even
> >the
> >DOE is grdgingly admiting their tours fusion systems, even if capable of
> >producing power competativly, could not be used in any power market now
> >invisioned.
>
> I think you're referring to the recent JET results, which didn't reach
the
>
> break-even point... quite. They broke 50%, I think. Of course, you
could
>
> never make a workable power plant from a device that didn't reach fusion
> ignition (a self-sustaining reaction), even if it does break even.
>
> As for your statement about no fusion system ever being competitive,
> you're
> forgetting that there will be another oil shock one day, and one other
day
>
> coal is going to be a lot more expensive than it is now. True, fusion
may
>
> never be cheaper than a fission breeder reactor, but it still may be
> competitive if current sentiments about fission don't change.
Perhaps there is some confusion in semantics here.
We have built plenty of fusion devices that surpass breakeven - just not
devices that are viable as commercial powerplants. We aren't necessarily
looking for a powerplant design, we are looking for a propulsion design. By
default that includes a lot of the devices (such as bombs) that have
surpassed breakeven.
The antimatter catalyzed concept is just that, an Orion concept with
extremely small fusion bombs.
Lee