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[Vactor]

also anyone interested in the international fusion test plant that is currently being constructed in France:

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

This is the first fusion reaction that they plan on being able to net more energy than spent. (their goal is 10x)

[kuro_suna]

A perfectly safe breeder-reactor would be an awesome solution since it produces more fuel then it consumes and allows a hundredfold increase in the amount of energy to be produced per mass unit of uranium.

Produces more fuel than it consumes...  Run that by me again will you?

It doesn't produce fuel from nothing but it can turn normally non fissile materials into nuclear fuel.
A nuclear reaction produce neutron radiation that can be used to turn one element into another and aside from special reactors used to produce medical isotopes this goes to waste.  Only 0.72% of uranium is the isotope u235 that is usable as fuel but if you expose the other 99.28% u238 to radiation it can be converted into plutonium fuel.
Thorium can be used in a similar way and we have about 4 times more thorium than uranium so we can increase the available nuclear fuel by 550 times.

[sneakey pete]

Try 6000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain

I've been there!

Pretty cool but, really, not a major attraction.

[Yanlin]

also anyone interested in the international fusion test plant that is currently being constructed in France:

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

This is the first fusion reaction that they plan on being able to net more energy than spent. (their goal is 10x)

At what temperature is it expected to run?

[Vactor]

150 million degrees Celsius.  It has to be 10x hotter than the sun as they don't have gravity working to their benefit like the sun does at its core.

[JoshuaFH]

So... that's pretty hot, heh? Seeing as how it needs to create steam to run turbines and stuff, isn't hotter better? Or is it impossible to pour water on it fast enough to stop it from melting away it's casing?*

* = may contain flagrant misunderstanding of how nuclear power actually works.

[andrea]

there is no " casing" . well, there is, but that is for the magnets that keep the plasma in its place. more than for the plasma itself.

anyway, they arent going to use a lot of fuel... if it breaks, it will just stop. maybe melt a little part of the reactor, but no big explosion of heat that destroys everything in a large area. at least, that is what i understood by reading about it on the internet when i was looking at links to throw at yanlin about hot and cold fusion.

[Vactor]

the steam isn't heated off from the plasma directly, the fusion reaction emits neutrons which are able to escape the magnetic holding field and heat the chamber casing, which then heats water.  The 150 million degrees Celsius is used to keep the fusion reaction going once they turn down the external heating processes.  I'm pretty sure the plasma is held in a vaccum to prevent that heat of the actual plasma from dissipating into the machinery.  And yes, if a Fusion reactor fails, the reaction just falls apart, no radiation, probably a small(ish) explosion from the huge amounts of heat they are dealing with, but nothing nuclearesque.