French Fusion Experiment Delayed Until 2025 or Beyond 272
An anonymous reader writes "The old joke is that fusion is the power of the future and always will be. But it's not looking so funny for ITER, an EU10 billion fusion experiment in France. According to Nature News, ITER will not conduct energy-producing experiments until at least 2025 — five years later than what had been previously agreed to. The article adds that the reactor will cost even more than the seven parties in the project first thought:'...Construction costs are likely to double from the 5-billion (US$7-billion) estimate provided by the project in 2006, as a result of rises in the price of raw materials, gaps in the original design, and an unanticipated increase in staffing to manage procurement. The cost of ITER's operations phase, another 5 billion over 20 years, may also rise.'"
Someone just give this man some money.... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard
Even if he fails miserably its gonna cost a shedload less than all the projects like ITER around the world are
Re:Crazy- this should be funded more to go faster (Score:4, Interesting)
So the Europeans and the US governments say they are firmly convinced of dangerous anthropogenic global warming but they won't spend 15 Bn over 10 years to speed this up?
Probably because its not going to work. Fusion can only be made to work on a large scale, if at all. Every step along the way will cost the 15 billion you speak of and we are probably 100 years away from commercial production of energy. Wind, tide, photovoltaic and solar thermal power work right now. They can be tested on a small scale for a couple of thousand bucks then scaled up as far as you want in many cases.
5 billion? Chump change! (Score:5, Interesting)
Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea of fusion and benefits of fusion are tremendous compared to fossil fuels but I've always wondered how long will it last before it starts eating a significant enough portion of the hydrogen to be a concern. (Or possibly when the helium concentration will become high enough to be a concern.) I imagine that we have enough reserves of hydrogen in the oceans it won't be a concern for many many many years to come but it is an interesting thought experiment.
Ultimately the only "safe" power sources are those that derive their energy from external sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, and wave power; all of which are powered by the sun's energy and/or gravitational interaction with outside sources (aka moon). Granted eventually the sun will run out of hydrogen and we won't be able to use it as an outside source of energy. As long as we're burning things that have a finite source in the closed system of the planet we'll eventually run out or pay some unforseen consequences (Global Warming).
Not exactly the largest concern when it comes to alternative power but still and interesting topic to think about.
-Lifyre
Re:Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
How much more difficult using a H-H reaction would be instead of a D-D reation or a D-T reaction as is used currently? D is moderately abundant in the oceans (something like .015%). My math skills are very rustly after 5 years of not using them at all.
Re:Crazy- this should be funded more to go faster (Score:5, Interesting)
for 10 billion, you can also construct 10 Gigawatts of wind power... which will eventually (within a few years) pay itself back.
Because 10GW of wind power gives you a LOT less energy than 10GW of nuclear. Typical wind power capacity factors are 20-40% (wind doesn't always blow), typical (fission) nuclear capacity factors are 90%-ish. Thus nuclear plants are cheaper than wind even if they cost 3 times as much per GW.
In addition, wind power needs additional grid investment and lots of pumped storage to even out spikes in capacity to be suitable for base load power, while nuclear power plants are suitable from the get-go.
Re:Baah (Score:5, Interesting)
You should search for "Thorium fluoride" in the googletechtalks channel on youtube. There are at least two talks covering the subject, it really made me reconsider the nuclear option. In short, nuclear fission plants were *designed* to produce plutonium. It's actually an advantage when you're in a cold war race. But does it need to? Using molten salts, it is possible to let the nuclear reactions happen in a fluid, making really interesting cycles a possibility. And you wouldn't need to mine uranium any more.
Re:Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty darned difficult:
http://www.tim-thompson.com/fusion.html [tim-thompson.com]
Re:Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Thinking about it a bit more, in comparison, the ideal temperature for DT fusion is 15 keV = 174,000,000 K. I don't know what the pp fusion cross section vs temperature looks like, but since it's not in the tables of the NRL Plasma Formulary [navy.mil] it's probably not worth pursuing.
Re:Baah (Score:5, Interesting)
According to a BBC Horizon show, you are very wrong. We desperately need fusion.
Say equality is a force in world peace. Say you want Americans to cut their consumption in half through conservation and allow everyone in the world to have that lower standard by something like 2020 (global warming and all). The fission plant per WEEK built and the acreage of solar, wind and bio per DAY built would be astronomical.
In my opinion, that is why Obama is allowing Big Coal to continue topping mountains. Nobody wants to be honest about how demand outstrips probable clean supply.
Re:Baah (Score:3, Interesting)
And bear in mind, that no nuclear fission power station turns a profit. Not one.
How about this one? [highbeam.com]
Re:Baah (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Things that make you go 'Hmmm...' (Score:3, Interesting)
The main issues for ITER are in the realm of plasma physics and materials science.
Currently, ITER is predicted to work based on arguments from "wind-tunnel scaling": make it bigger and certain figures of merit improve. This scaling is based on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), but until the darn thing is built there's no way to know for sure whether the predictions are correct. Furthermore, there are "advanced modes" that aren't fully understood from a theoretical standpoint.
The "first wall", the inside wall of the vacuum vessel, is the thorniest problem in terms of materials. It has to both withstand an intense neutron flux, and avoid sloughing off bits that contaminate the plasma. Similar requirements are necessary for the "divertors", which sit in contact with the plasma and kind of hold it in place.
It's important to note that the ITER project is not just the reactor; the associated International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility is key to resolving these tough questions. We've come through the Space Age with some pretty neat materials, but compared to what's required for fusion, they look like child's play.
Re:Not "French" (Score:5, Interesting)
Story goes, Democrats wanted to use their new-found power to add items from their party wishlist onto the budget. Bush gave a specific limit over which he threatened to veto. Instead of cutting back on new stuff, the Democrats had an overnight session and ransacked much of the pre-existing budget. That's also how Fermilab got into so much trouble, along with most of the DOE Office of Science (physical sciences) budget.
I guarantee you there were maybe 5 overworked staffers going over the budget line by line trying to reach a number their bosses liked. "ITER?" "Never heard of it." "It says, fusion research" "Cut it.".
Wouldn't you like to be the lobbyist who offers them a pizza?
Re:Crazy- this should be funded more to go faster (Score:2, Interesting)
We all could, and should (I gave up my car a couple of years ago, and saved carbon AND money; I haven't flown for about 5 years). But that's in the developed world - the rest of the world wants (not unreasonably) to have some of the things we've been enjoying for decades. There's a lot of them, and it will more than offset the savings you and I make.
As I said, the real solution will be complex, and will involve lots if not all the changes and new technologies mentioned. There is no "do this one thing" solution (except for doing nothing, and letting our kids deal with it).
Time to move on (Score:5, Interesting)
There's really no point in continuing with this experiment now.
I have strong confidence in the technical side of this project, meaning that I believe that ITER will work, and generate net energy. Unfortunately it's not clear to me how much we'll actually learn in that process; this is an engineering project more than a scientific one.
I have zero confidence that the ITER path (and related approaches) is one that will ever result in commercial power generation. The energy density of ITER is far too low to be useful, and the only way to improve that is to make more expensive machines. There's no evidence that the technology scales down in cost, and that any approach along this "big dumb" line is useful. Very smart people at the power companies have already given it a big thumbs-down.
This money needs to be turned to other projects. For the price of ITER we can fund a whole bunch of smaller science projects, projects that at least have some hope of being actually useful. HiPER is one that cries out for funding, but so does magnetized target fusion and the polywell. Unlike ITER, the physics of these experiments is not yet understood, but IF they do work then they are FAR less expensive to build. That is a much better way to spend research money IMHO.
Nah, too expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there's your solution.
Well, except the USA's war in Irak [costofwar.com] proved that it cost much more than 10bn to go and kill a few civilians in a small region.
Nah, funding fusion is still cheaper. Could buy around 20 ITERs for the same budget.
Re:Not "French" (Score:1, Interesting)
mod that up
There is some partisanship and a bit of speculation in the comment but the grain of truth is there. A fact is that the US fell from grace in the eyes of the Europeans and Asians after that budget and the chances of the US being in a leadership position in big international science in the future or a trusted partner is greatly harmed.
I and others have been told off the record that the congressmen responsible were known and were pressured significantly after that though now the US is in a situation much like after the first Bush presidency where funding to big science without impact to many districts will suffer until the deficit and economic downturn can be controlled.
I have decided to post anon for obvious reasons.
Re:Crazy- this should be funded more to go faster (Score:3, Interesting)
If any project was threatening to come in 5 years late at double in cost, should money just be thrown at it?
For most projects? Heck no. But this is a research project - and it isn't like a computer game where you need X research points for that fancy new tech. You don't really know how much it's going to end up costing; you can't even be sure it'll work. You can only throw resources at it(scientists, equipment, money, time) and hope to get something useful back.
All you can do is make your best guess and hope you're right. In many cases, coming in at double the cost is more normal than coming in on budget - after all, we're doing something that hasn't been done before.
They probably HAVE done the steps you mention - but that costs money as well, and it ends up being cheaper to only partially step back and rebuild.
If I'm building a skyscraper I'd expect it to be within 10% of budget when done. If I'm building the first solar powered skyscraper robotic greenhouse with pollution filtering equipment, if I come in within 50% of original cost estimates it's an excuse for a party.