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Fusion Reactor Project Largest After ISS
Maktoo writes "All proper geeks know Fusion is the Way of the Future. Dec 16th is the date set for selection of the site of the new International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter). A collaboration between the EU, Japan, the U.S., Canada, China, South Korea and Russia, 'ITER would be the world's largest international cooperative research and development project after the International Space Station.' Their goal over the next decade? '[T]o produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for 500 seconds or longer during each individual fusion experiment and in doing so demonstrate essential technologies for a commercial reactor.'"
I am all for more huge international projects, that aren't war!
The more countries work together, the more it gets set into society that people from other countries are okay, and working with them is NOT like working with the enemy.
Pretty Pictures!
High flux neutron beams are commonly available from plain old fission reactors. I doubt they'd go through the trouble.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Most fusion-research in the EU is with tokomaks and stellerators, indeed.
A lott of the research into ICF (inertial confinement fusion, meaning with lasers) happens in the United States.
I guess it's no coincident that fusion through tokomaks can only be used as a power source, but ICF also as a weapon.
I can't help but think that organization is BS. The initial acoustic cavitation fusion experiment which was said to have produced neutrons was never sucessfully repeated. The method described in that website of using Lithium as the cavitation "pusher" has, to my knowledge, not even been attempted or if it has, has never been published. As to their claim that "It is the goal of General Fusion to develop this reactor and generate clean, safe and economical fusion energy by the end of 2004."...well... that's just insane.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Indeed. The fighters will never know peace, but I sure am grateful that USA is making itself THE target for all those nutty terrorists.
Then again, Hussein's not my girlfriend..
Seriously; it's only a matter of time that everybody gets nuclear weapons, so quarreling with half the world seems a bit.. Overconfident?