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Home > Energy Week > Episode 129 - The Truth About Biden’s Fracking Claims Is That He’s Consistently Inconsistent | Dr. Greenwald On Fusion Power
Podcast: Energy Week
Episode:

Episode 129 - The Truth About Biden’s Fracking Claims Is That He’s Consistently Inconsistent | Dr. Greenwald On Fusion Power
Category: Government & Organizations
Duration: 00:50:51
Publish Date: 2020-10-27 05:55:18
Description: Oil drops on rising virus cases, increasing Libyan output
https://www.reuters.com/article/global-oil/oil-drops-on-rising-virus-cases-increasing-libyan-output-idUSKBN27B03E
- many people think more lockdowns are coming and that will mean more demand destruction
- Midwest is ghost town
- no one is going out and about
- are masks hindering economic activity or helping it?

The Truth About Biden’s Fracking Claims Is That He’s Consistently Inconsistent
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2020/10/26/the-truth-about-bidens-fracking-claims-is-that-hes-consistently-inconsistent/#6e571dc5223c

- Biden has been wildly inconsistent about his energy policies and oil companies are suffering with the lack of clarity and inconsistency

Interview with Dr. Greenwald On Fusion Power
- project on Fusion energy.
- Fusion = combining light atoms into heavier ones which releases huge amounts of energy. Natural process in universe. Desire to harness it to produce energy on earth. Working on it for 60 years.
- Advantages: unlimited fuel. Would come from water and lithium. Use deuterium, an isotope of water. Lithium used as well. Output would be helium. But fuel has to be raised to 200 million degrees.
- They know how to raise the temperature. Have it isolate and insulate from ordinary matter. Electrons are stripped off the atoms, creating plasma. The stronger the magnetic field the better insulation.
- breakthrough in technology in magnetic fields used in fusion. Superconducting magnets need to be used to make fusion work. But these superconductors didn’t operate in high magnetic fields. Little black crystals were great for experiments in lab but couldn’t use them in practice. Finally, high quality high temperature superconductors are not so expensive.
- trying to build machine based on new magnet technology. First to create and confine a plasma that makes net power. But still not a power plant.
- Construction could start next spring
- Powerplants on scale of 100-500 Megawatts. Advantage of the tech is that it allows you to go smaller. Matches current electric grid.
- Fusion plant is just a source of heat. Makes water hot, makes steam that drive turbines.
- Fits really well within the existing electrical grid. Unlike renewables.
- Quantity of fuel needed is “astonishingly small” especially compared to fossil fuels plants.
- 4/10s of a gram of lithium and deuterium could produce enough energy for a US household for a year.
- cost and complexity are all in the plant and capital investment not in the fuel.
- Another type of fusion - ITER built in south France. Tens of billions of dollars.
- Cooling isn’t an issue because its not a chain reaction. More like an engine.
- Fusion doesn’t produce same kind of wastes as nuclear fission.
- Energy needed to get the plasma hot. Steady input of heating power but much larger output of heat. 20 to 30 times more. Start up power disappears in balance - if it works. Haven’t gotten to the stage where more power is produced than is needed as input.
- 2025/2026 aimed for experiment to be successful. Next stage is to build a pilot plant that would put electricity on the grid - could do that by 2030. To impact world’s energy output, would need 10,000 of these plants.
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems https://cfs.energy/
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-plasma-physics/collections/status-of-the-sparc-physics-basis
- https://www.psfc.mit.edu/files/psfc/imce/research/topics/sparc/MITSPARCbrochure.pdf
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