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ITER Fusion Reactor To See Further Delays, With Operations Pushed To 2034 (arstechnica.com) 112

Posted by BeauHD from the new-timeline dept.
John Timmer reports via Ars Technica: On Tuesday, the people managing the ITER experimental fusion reactor announced (PDF) that a combination of delays and altered priorities meant that its first-of-its-kind hardware wouldn't see plasma until 2036, with the full-energy deuterium-tritium fusion pushed back to 2039. The latter represents a four-year delay relative to the previous roadmap. While the former is also a delay, it's due in part to changing priorities.

ITER is an attempt to build a fusion reactor that's capable of sustaining plasmas that allow it to operate well beyond the break-even point, where the energy released by fusion reactions significantly exceeds the energy required to create the conditions that enable those reactions. It's meant to hit that milestone by scaling up a well-understood design called a tokamak. But the problem has been plagued by delays and cost overruns nearly from its start. At early stages, many of these stemmed from changes in designs necessitated by a better and improved understanding of plasmas held at extreme pressures and temperatures due to better modeling capabilities and a better understanding of the behavior of plasmas in smaller reactions.

The latest delays are due to more prosaic reasons. One of them is the product of the international nature of the collaboration, which sees individual components built by different partner organizations before assembly at the reactor site in France. The pandemic, unsurprisingly, severely disrupted the production of a lot of these components, and the project's structure meant that alternate suppliers couldn't be used (assuming alternate suppliers of one-of-a-kind hardware existed in the first place). The second problem relates to the location of the reactor in France. The country's nuclear safety regulator had concerns about the assembly of some of the components and halted construction on the reactor.
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ITER Fusion Reactor To See Further Delays, With Operations Pushed To 2034 More

ITER Fusion Reactor To See Further Delays, With Operations Pushed To 2034

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  • No worries. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @05:19AM (#64604755)

    We've undeniably moved closer to fusion power, from between 30 to 50 years into the bright future to between 30 to 50 years into the bright future.

    • In reality, fusion is probably 2-5 years away at this point. Thereâ(TM)s a reactor called SPARC being built based on known, boring technologies, just using REBCO magnets that should get us well over the line to meet energy gain (itâ(TM)s expecting Q_plasma=5).

      Once that science experiment has been done the first power plant should be about 5 years after that. Theyâ(TM)re planning a reactor called ARC which is larger (though not insanely huge like ITER) and will include all the hardware to ge

      • A short prayer is in order.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • As well as a few operations focused on excellent magnets.

        Given the playing field, this ITER delay is probably the best possible news.

        I'll predict this now: ITER will never see plasma and will be disassembled after commercial operations succeed at smaller scales.

        If ITER finally brings us fusion the long, slow way, then I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

        • Given the playing field, this ITER delay is probably the best possible news.

          I'll predict this now: ITER will never see plasma and will be disassembled after commercial operations succeed at smaller scales.

          ITER is sucking up money and talent from all over the world then getting them bogged down in international politics, meaning they are moving slowly and the rest of the world is hobbled in attempts to perform nuclear fusion research. The sooner this fails the better, in my opinion of course.

          Delays at ITER might motivate some investment in private research but that still leaves interested parties seeking qualified talent, and likely a need to get a license from their government when they would be unintereste

      • There's a more practical issue with fusion. I'm excited to see it go forward from a scientific perspective, but almost everyone (including SPARC) is targeting deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion because it's the easiest, lowest temperature reaction. The problem is the amount of tritium available. CANDU reactors produce some, but there are only a few of them in three countries, and they're all old. Combined, they produce something in the range of a few hundred grams to maybe a few kilograms of tritium per year, n

        • The 1.3x multiplication the reactor design provides is just there to maintain the supply. If we really wanted a bunch of tritium, weâ(TM)d build plants specifically designed to produce it.

      • I'd be shocked if it was quite that fast, but it certainly seems like breakthroughs in material science and modeling in the last decade dramatically simplified the problem to be solved. My hopes really changed when several well known fusion researchers more or less simultaneously either started companies or went private. It's a very "put your money where your mouth is" moment. Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic I might live to see a commercial reactor. We'll see though. As it turns out, keeping the sun in

    • Re:No worries. (Score:4, Informative)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @06:33AM (#64604811) Journal

      This is why fusion is 50 years away

      https://imgur.com/fusion-is-al... [imgur.com]

      Basically this shit takes time and money, and it's not seen enough of either.

      • Re:No worries. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @09:41AM (#64605023)

        Fusion isn't "50 years away", it was achieved in the early 50s.

        "Fusion power" in the form of a "mr. fusion", or a "tokamak" or whatever, isn't 50 years away. Given our current capabilities, it isn't feasible at all, simply because there are too many conflicting requirements to deal with in a small volume.

        The pretty imgur picture you've posted is wishful thinking without a basis in reality, unless you also produce the verified assumptions on which it is based, which you won't.

        But it is often thrown around by people who do not understand the problem as a "proof" of something. It isn't, though, it is just a pretty picture.

        • It's as much proof as your claims to the contrary.

          If you're having a discussion, have a discussion. If you're gong to be anal about curating and proof, then be anal. But pick one, not both at once.

          • I am not the one making an extraordinary claim, so I don't have to defend it (although, actually, I'm very much supported by the reality of fusion not happening).

            You're the one making the claim by posting that picture, you're the one who has to justify it.

            I'll even give you a hand, here is the source of your claims:

            https://download.library.lol/s... [library.lol]

            Please provide the reference for the black line and pick any "logic" from the paper that you like, and we can discuss it, just so that we're specific ;)

            • The only thing worse than a Fusion Nutter is a Space Nutter. You'll notice that these people tend overwhelmingly to be software-types and as such have unrealistic expectations from the material world.
              Also, your link doesn't work.

              • The only thing worse than a Fusion Nutter is a Space Nutter.

                :)

                Also, your link doesn't work.

                Damn. Thanks, hopefully the one I re-upped works. It is basically the project proposal with those forward-looking estimates that everyone posts around.

            • Updated link, as I was told the one above doesn't work.

              https://file.io/3oL4T3yXmE4R [file.io]

            • The claim that fusion is not possible, or as good as is a pretty extraordinary claim, regardless of whatever circle jerk you enjoy while making it.

              JET got net positive kinda. ITER is aiming for Q>10 for sustained periods (several minutes).

              You are essentially claiming that ITER will fail in this task, or that somehow ITER will succeed but it will be impossible to go beyond that. In other words you alone are smarter than all the scientists involved. That's a pretty extraordinary claim.

              As for not possible w

              • regardless of whatever circle jerk

                Yawn, fuck off, dumbfuck.

                • https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

                  Hey man, if you crank it in public, don't be surprised if someone notices.

                  • I notice that:

                    - you did not become familiar with the content of the article I posted and did not start a discussion based on what's inside
                    - you did not justify the claims that the picture you posted makes
                    - you switched to ad-hominems instead

                    As I said, you're stupid and need to have your mouth washed. Talk to you parents for help, although I'm guessing it is way too late already.

      • Re:No worries. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @10:56AM (#64605167) Homepage

        *sigh* this dumb chart again. Sorry, here we go...

        The chart you are pointing to was produced in the early 1970s. At that time, the tokamak had recently been introduced and was the first device that clearly outperformed the Bohm diffusion limits and seemed to be free of instabilities even at working conditions. The Soviet systems were small and did not have auxiliary heating, so the US quickly took over leadership by applying money. They built a series of machines in the early 1970s, quickly surpassing the Soviet designs, and then started the design of a much larger system with the specific aim of confining a plasma stably long enough to heat to power production conditions. That design was PLT, and was under initial construction when this chart was produced.

        If PLT did work, then what was needed would be three more machines. The first would increase the size and ensure that power scaled with size and magnet power as expected and no new problems arose. The second would be much larger machine that would run on D-T and produce actual net power. Finally they would add all the bits you need for an actual power plant and that would also be a commercial unit like Shippingport.

        If you look at the lines, you can see the three machines. This is most clear in the green line, but also visible in the blue and yellow. The first bump on the green line is the completion and experimental runs on PLT. After that, starting in 1980, you see the construction and operation of the larger follow-on, which emerged as TFTR. The last two are the D-T system and commercial demonstration units.

        The blue and yellow lines are the same development programs, just different timelines. The blue one, for instance, is based on starting the next machine before the last one is finished its experiments. This assumes that some problems will be built into the designs that will need to be fixed while they are under construction and thus you will need money to fix those and so they will cost more in total.

        Notice that this entire plan is based on the assumption that the tokamak worked. And when PLT came online that certainly looked like the case. So construction of TFTR began. And that failed. And that's why the graph goes flat in the early 1980s, it was clear that there was no point building the next machine until the problems seen in TFTR were figured out.

        At that point the entire graph became meaningless. Throwing money at the problem would not have sped it up. You can't pay people to be smarter.

        So no, this graph does not tell us we have not spent enough money on fusion. It says we did not really understand tokamaks in the early 1970s.

    • No we have not, it's a farce. There won't be fusion power plants in this century. We should spend the billions on things that work.

      There won't even be enough tritium to fuel research plants including ITER.

      Time to put this nonsense to bed and focus on real energy sources that work.

      https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]

      • Doncha worry, in 30 years Phony Stark himself will be ferrying helium-3, tritium and cobalt thorium G in buckets from the Moon for all those reactors to power the GAI model training.

        Until the crust of the Earth melts.

        • Hopefully Phony wises up and realizes we have thorium here already, and that almost all our current reactors waste most uranium, using less than 1 percent of the energy that is there.

          • Thorium ain't flying anytime soon either, I think, the US gubmint doesn't like anything that has "breeding" in it.

            Who knows, maybe they have good reasons to fear it.

  • Lots of scientists will be left twiddling their thumbs.

  • Tokamak is the dumbest shit ever. (Score:3)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @05:24AM (#64604763)
    But hey, they already invested money, so might as well keep going and employ the grandchildren of the original program's founders, amirite? Why not build a dynamite-powered piston engine?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why the dumbest, I can think of at least a couple of things that are dumber.

      For example, a phony stark cocksucker, or a donald trump supporter.

  • ... you're always, ten years, *awaaayyyyyyy*!"

  • We hear the same excuses for like 50 years now. Is this some kind of scam?
    https://www.space.com/when-wil... [space.com]

    Here is a late Dr. Robert Bussard presentation at "Google Talks" about some fatal design flaws of ITER type reactors and possibility achieve fusion much simpler thanks to inertial electrostatic confinement fusion:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Bussard pitched several completely different designs over the years. All of them shared one quality: they don't work.

      • Bussard pitched several completely different designs over the years. All of them shared one quality: they don't work.

        There are some real issues. One of the first is We keep hearing about "Q" - the goal of getting more energy out than put in. They speak of initial thrusts to achieve a Q10 10 times more energy out than energy in. What we seldom hear about is Qtot, where the energy out is compared to the total energy used to generate the power that goes into the fusion device to the power out.

        That is a much more sobering number, something like Qtot .01 Sabine Hossenfelder does a pretty good job explaining https://www.you [youtube.com]

        • > So where we gonna get more Tritium? In juicy irony, we're going to have to build old fashioned fission reactors to supply it.

          Google "lithium blanket tritium".

          The JASON's report is actually pretty readable.

          We will need the fission reactors to supply the startup load, and that will be a close-run thing, but not insurmountable.

          • > So where we gonna get more Tritium? In juicy irony, we're going to have to build old fashioned fission reactors to supply it.

            Google "lithium blanket tritium".

            The JASON's report is actually pretty readable.

            We will need the fission reactors to supply the startup load, and that will be a close-run thing, but not insurmountable.

            Pretty much what I'm saying - And no - it isn't insurmountable. But it does put a bit of a kink in the Fusion power will create clean almost limitless power meme. Going to need good old fashioned radiation intense fission, probably one reactor for each fusion power station.

            And fusion was never really clean to begin with, unless they have some new form of neutron. Seems they aren't saying the need for an old school fission reactor, it's one of those things like Qout versus Qtot. Qout is nice, but Qtot is

          • No, use google to find out why lithium blankets on a fusion reactor won't make enough tritium. it's bullshit.

            We won't have enough tritium to get a fusion based power grid, not even enough to power research until that (fantasized) day.

            https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]

      • Bussard pitched several completely different designs over the years. All of them shared one quality: they don't work.

        There's been a lot of technologies in the past that didn't work until they did.

        As I recall the issue with Bussard's reactor was it wasn't big enough, then the efficiency would have grown to be net energy positive. It was a basic squared-cubed problem, energy losses were squared with size while gains were cubed with size. I recall it was more complex than that but that's a rough idea of the problem. That's why ITER is as big as it is, they can't prove the engineering with something smaller.

    • Hubris is more likely than scam given the number of people involved.

      People think they can do things they can't do all the time.

  • It's so confusing when these entities focus on performative public relations events instead of their chartered mission.

    Blue Origin focused on putting Baldy With Cowboy Hat in space instead of delivering BE-4 engines to ULA.
    Not both New Glenn (not a thing) and ULA's Vulcan are years behind.

    ITER is so far behind it makes BO look timely. If nuclear fusion is realiistic it willl come far before 2030 but from a real player, not these Euro-trash maangers.

    Sciene and research now sit as second fiddle to real comna

  • It's like SLS. Bureaucrats trying to keep the money flowing to their voters and campaign contributors.

    • No voter selects a candidate based on fusion research. Absolutely none.

      But all the heavy industry companies who get money from the contracts give kickbacks to the legislators who approve it. It's pure graft and nothing more. It's a scam.

  • positively, it provides funding and community to fusion

  • ITER.next();

  • Controlled fusion requires a star and every plasma physicist knows this. Controlled fusion research is fraud, plain and simple.

    • we've had controlled fusion on Earth since 1950s. Not with net power gain but you need to be more specific

  • There is not enough tritium in the world nor production of it to supply ITER and research reactors. The miniscule amount made by CANDU reactors isn't enough, and no you can't just jamb a lithium rod into a normal PWR reactor

    It's a not well thought out farce

  • Amazing! We'll have fusion power in only ten years! This is the first time I've ever heard that! Why, yes, I am being treated for a traumatic head injury! How did you know?!

  • The delay is not that bad actually (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday July 06, 2024 @02:00PM (#64605499)

    "The 2016 Baseline envisioned achieving First Plasma in 2025, as a brief, low-energy machine test, with relatively minimal scientific value, to be followed by four stages of assembly and construction, achieving full plasma current in 2033. The new baseline envisions the Start of Research Operation (SRO) in 2034, featuring a more complete machine, to be followed by 27 months of substantive research. The achievement of full magnetic energy will be about 3 years delayed from the previous baseline, from 2033, now targeted in 2036. Deuterium-deuterium fusion operation is targeted for 2035, about the same time as in the previous baseline. The Start of Deuterium-Tritium Operation Phase will be about 4 years delayed from the previous baseline, from 2035 to 2039."

    In other words, the 2025 mark wouldn't have yielded much science anyway .. so 2034 was the real date. With the new delay 2035 will start actual science ==more substantial than the 2025 start .. and full operations in 2039. ..So the real delay is only about 1 year or 5 years if you're pedantic.

  • To predict technology for more than 10 years in the future is act of staggering hubris and arrogance. If these guys are so smart how about a stock tip for next week.
  • It might be time for a little audit of where all the cash is going. Make sure all the people working there aren't driving top of the line Bugattis and such.

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