Green energy : to further impoverish poor Arabs
Green energy : to further impoverish poor Arabs
There have been a number of recent advances in energy technology that have had a damaging effect on the economies of oil producing countries . a lot of whom are Arab countries . All of the green energy tech is that way .
But so far the contributions of "renewable" tech has not amounted to a large amount of energy nor had a large effect on OPEC countries . That may change quite soon . A soon to be startup in fusion could be a really big factor in cheap energy production , of perhaps the same magnitude as the newer oil drilling technology has already had .
Initially I was planning to do a technology article on this stellerator device Wendelstein7x . But the amount of interest in technology on this site appears to be minimal . This article is the result , a more political and economic look . The first live stellerator test is coming very soon . It took quite a few years to design and build . When it happens the effects may be dramatic on the energy markets but only if the device works as expected . I will try to keep NT posted on the results if no one else posts a news item first . Feel free to beat me to the punch if desired ...
The other point I wanted to make is that ISIL is the direct result of new poverty in the Arab world . I really don't think ISIL would have had its dramatic rise in power if not for the effects of horizontal oil drilling tech in the rest of the world .
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As a person interested in Arab welfare which is more important to such readers : Arab welfare or the ultimate development in "green energy" ?
Should I break this comment down some more ? I expect that someone of the liberal persuasion would be very split by which thing to focus on : Arab well being or the biggest development in green energy ever . Which would you support ? You can't have both ... period !
The Arab nations are doomed. They are one trick ponies and their resources will either be depleted or made irrelevant.
The sheiks have seen for a long time now that their corner on energy would be short lived. Interesting how competition for that resource has also been mirrored by a rise in islamic militancy.
how competition for that resource has also been mirrored by a rise in islamic militancy.
There have been numerous articles recently about the contribution of middle eastern poverty to the growth in ISIL .
There are various causes behind ME poverty, closed societies however do not promote the education and creativity that fosters growth and health. Nor does the resulting cultural ideology inhibit extremism.
I am in complete agreement with that statement . To add more detail I would say that the total reliance on one resource that has characterized the oil producing Arab countries has lead to a lack of ability to grow & change . They have massive amounts of petro-dollars but don't expand their economies in other directions . That is their downfall . Perhaps one exception to this is Qatar who has developed other economies to my knowledge . Also Egypt has income from the Suez canal ...
Reminds me of the opportunities for economic growth that both Gaza and The West Bank could have in Israel. In tech development and tourism alone...there is a windfall to be made. Enough to make them all wealthy.
Smuggling can be very profitable !
Note that the Wendelstein7x is another test bed, like ITER. Practical fusion power, if possible at all, is still decades away. I all likelihood, given the Luddites that attack nuclear technology and increase the cost, it will never be feasible. At least until the lights go out.
Practical fusion power, if possible at all, is still decades away.
Feel free to expand on that info . I was basing what I said on articles that said W7X will be tested next week . Are you saying it is still merely a test device and not yet a practical device ?
Yes. It is an important part of the research, but it is a narrow demonstration of the ability to contain plasma for relatively short periods. During that test, you can expect to spallate liters of shield material. It's a good project, but still very early.
Clearly there is a lot that still needs to be done to achieve a practical device . I will be following the progress of this stellerator closely . It looks like it has a lot going for it . But I need to express my lack of detailed knowledge about it .
I support research into the other two technologies as well, inertial confinement and classic tokomak. The techical hurdles are high given the amount of radioactive waste created. But the fuel is unlimited.
I may do some work on the Travelling Wave Reactor next year. That's also very interesting.
The traveling wave device is a form of fission reactor , right ?
can expect to spallate liters of shield material.
Apparently this device produces radioactive material in its shielding . Does it at least have a short half life ?
I have a lot of interest in technical subjects, but find it next to impossible to discuss them on this site. It is very disturbing to speak about technical issues with people who feel that dinosaurs and humans lived together, at the same time, on this planet.
While the stellarator technology is very "new", and in its infancy, once TV and telephones were pipe dreams. So, I have great hopes that this could dramatically influence, for the positive, our energy production. Hopefully, with little added pollution.
As far as the poverty arising in the mid-east from the development of this, or any other, energy production on our part, it is sort of like the butterfly effect. You know, that theory where a butterfly in China flaps its wings and a tornado strikes Kentucky. Well, if it would loosen the hold of ISIL or ISIS on anyone's heart, I'd gladly go out back and flap a sheet around.
The mid-east seems to have all the wealth concentrated in a very few supremely rich, fantastically unconcerned, Arab Sheikhs for whom gold commodes are the norm. The vast majority of the people over there seem to live like rats in hovels, and are fortunate to have a hole in the floor to deposit one's waste. I sincerely doubt that anything we do will affect their lives in any way-- other than to become even more of a focal point for their unlimited hatred.
So, yes, I would be very interested to learn more about the experiments as they occur.
Dowser ,
Thanks for fearlessly putting your views out there for all to see . I will try to keep notice of the developments up to date as they occur ...
Thanks, Petey! I look forward to learning more!
Great article Petey.
Green energy is not only a means to achieve a geo/political advantage; our species will either learn to be contributors to the chain of life on this planet or we will perish like many other species that have not adapted.
If there is in fact development of cheap and widely available energy source I would be surprised if the oil industry didn't buy it up and bury it.
I think there is too much sharing of information for that to be feasible today.
The oil industry is currently in a turmoil due to the huge expansion of horizontal drilling technology . Refiners get a big advantage from that . Crude suppliers take a big hit .
Latest news I could find from a Russian site :
Translated into English :
German fusion reactor Wendelstein 7 -X, belonging to the class of stellarators , the first to be launched December 10, 2015 . The decision on the date of the launch was made possible after receiving special permission from the German regulatory authorities. This was reported on the website of the German publication Die Welt.
Apparently it will not be started up till Dec 10 . We will have to wait to hear about further developments till then ...
Here is a live video feed of the test from 2 days ago . It successfully produced a plasma :
They use superconducting magnets which do not require a large electrical energy demand to run .
This was a live test of the helium supplied stellerator with an actual countdown and a video demonstration of the first plasma produced by this device . Later tests will use hydrogen instead of helium . They can run for as much as 30 minutes at a time and are expected to be able to produce net positive energy output , unlike the other fusion device designs now being built .
Clearly there will be a lot of additional work to be done before that stage is reached ... Hopefully I will have more updates later on .
Here is the latest news I could find about the next stage of the stellerator :
Scientists in Germany switch on nuclear fusion experiment
Apparently they have performed the hydrogen fusion test successfully . It produced a hydrogen fusion reaction .
The Greifswald device should be able to keep plasma in place for much longer than a tokamak, said Thomas Klinger, who heads the project.
"The stellarator is much calmer," he said in a telephone interview ahead of the start. "It's far harder to build, but easier to operate."
They did not say anything about what the next step would be . I expect it is a lot more technical to describe ...
I don't think it would make any difference for the already impoverished Arabs if the civilized world stopped buying oil from the Arab nations. What benefits do the privileged and royalty spread around to them anyway?
Although I expect the current economics are as you described the issue as I see it is for the future of fossil fuels . This fission technology could put a permanent end to fossil fuels as an energy source .
In any case the links I have been posting are about continuing developments in the stellerator technology ...
Is anyone interested in the Chinese advancements in similar technology to this stellerator ? Apparently it has some advantages over the Wendelstein-7X .
The recent experiment's main success was to prove that it was theoretically as viable as a tokomak. It was the first time a stellerator sustained plasma; a goal met by a tokomak decades ago. That's not criticism. This design is theoretically much easier to control. The tokomak design may be a dead end.
Thanks for your insight . I got the same impression about the tokomak from other sources . Apparently this Chinese advance is similar to the stellerator but able to sustain a reaction for even longer than the stellerator .
LINK :
China Close To Creating ‘Artificial Sun’ That Could End Reliance On Fossil Fuels
Chinese scientists have managed to create a hydrogen gas that is three times hotter than the sun.
The artificial solar energy could eventually be used as an inexhaustible source of power, ending reliance on fossil fuels and solving the world energy crisis.
Chinese boffins created the gas in a huge magnetic fusion reactor at the Institute of Physical Science in Hefei.
Invented by Soviet scientists in the 1950s, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) features a massive metallic doughtnut-shaped chamber twisted into a figure of eight .
Researchers were able to use the reactor to produce temperatures of 50 million Kelvins (49.999 million°C) and maintain them for 102 seconds.
The core of the sun is believed to around 15 million Kelvins.
Although a previous experiment by German scientists claims to have produced temperatures hotter than this, it was unable to sustain them for as long.
While the news is an important breakthrough, it could still take decades to perfect the process so that it can be used as a constant power source.
Image credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Via: South China Morning Post
To me the fact that this Chinese tokomak is twisted into a figure of eight sounds a lot like the design of the stellerator . I have no idea how they can tell what the theoretical limit to how long a design can sustain a reaction is arrived at except maybe by testing it in practice .
OTOH the Popular Mechanics version of this story seems to indicate that the stellerator should be able to sustain a reaction longer than this Chinese tokomak :