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Giant International Fusion Reactor Draws Nearer
nnnneedles writes "BBC is reporting that scientists are deciding on where to build the world's first big fusion reactor. The international effort is described as the boldest nuclear initiative since the Manhattan Project, and holds promise for future unlimited, clean energy. The choice on where to build the reactor currently stands between Japan and France, but apparantly, the U.S. is opposing a french site because France opposed the war in Iraq." There's also an AP story.
is eating at French restaurants in DC these days.
Time to move on.
Last time I checked, Canada, Russia and China preferred the Japanese site. And I seem to recall they all opposed the Iraq War.
The site selection has nothing to do with anyone's position on Iraq or else France would have the support of the other countries as well. As it stands, they only have the support of the EU for typical reasons.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
"So now we know where to build it, and who will help in doing it. But how do we make the darn thing WORK?"
Fabulous concept, but we've been 20+ years from having fusion power for about 50 years now... Of course, "we can do it in 20 years" is bureaucrat speak for "we don't have a clue, but why don't you give us some money anyway...."
Never underestimate the power of politically motivated stubborness.
/sig
Wouldn't fusion have to have been made practical for terrestrial power generation before anything like this should be started on? Or did I miss a memo?
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
Not to sound like an ass or something but this seems like a really childish behaviour.
--- No, english is not my mother tongue.
Not to mention the French sensibly rejected calling it the "Freedom Reactor".
What, with their obvious tectonic stability, vast distance from any faults and subduction zones, and lack of volcanic activity, they are the perfect choice for building a big, expensive, multinational fusion reactor.
Personally, my preferred choice would be Canada, somewhere on the Canadian Shield.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
They should build it in the northeast US, like in "Infinite Jest." Then, if/when the entire region becomes uninhabitable, we can force the Canadians to accept the "gift" of our land, and they, in turn, can "cave" to separatist Quebecois demands and give them that region.
Cheap reliable energy forever and ever, and everybody wins, except the would-be French. =)
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
which uses enormous power hungry electromagnets to compress hydrogen to the point at which it fuses. Unfortunately, this means that even if it is actually capable of producing more power than it consumes (like they claim on the web site) it will be monumentally inefficient compared to more modern fusion reactor designs, like the zMachine
It's not because they are peace-loving (France doesn't exactly qualify, historically), and it doesn't even have much to do with them not supporting the war in Iraq, though that made a good litmus test.
Basically, the current US administration wants to hurt, as badly as is conveniently possible, and as often as is conveniently possible, any county that does not cooperate fully with the whims of the US government. Regardless of the convictions and ideals of the populace or the government.
So, since France's people overwhelmingly did not want to be a party to the war in Iraq, and because France's government actually listened to its people, instead of listening primarily to the US and only secondarily to its people, it is clear that France is not sufficiently in thrall to the US, and therefor must be punished.
Iraq was just a test. France failed.
Or passed, depending on your viewpoint.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Our crappy Liberal party decided that we didn't deserve the fusion reactor and dropped Canada out of the race. It's too bad because we were thought to have a pretty good site lined up.
:(
They talked about it in a recent Quirks and Quarks episode (available in Ogg Vorbis!) Really sad.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Ive seen this one... Japan gets it. They gain ulimited energy, use it to fuel their great cities, only to have their robotic servants rise up and enslave them, all the while unleashing a great evil upon the world, that only a perky, well-drawn, female scientist and a guy with pointy hair can stop... meanwhile the villain is secretly planning to use the mega energy device as a weapon to destroy the world... Then Godzilla comes from the Island of Monsters and smushes everything... and we turn them away thanks to the loveable japanese children who sing to Gamera and those two twins that dance for Mothra... and umm... um... and just when Ultron's energy is about to give up, Skippy says, "Ultron I believe in you!" Then half the characters die in a horrible holocaust, while one or two tokens who might've drawn close together to each other in the conflict end up going away to pursue profitable careers in archeaology...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
I worked at the General Atomic D3D facility in San Diego, the 1980s. The biggest limitation on the rate at which they could explore the experimental parameter space was the number of neutrons that the machine would create. The ultimate end of all modern tokamaks is to be turned into low-level radioactive waste when the machine itself becomes activated by the free neutrons liberated by the fusion process.
The more conventional gamma rays, alpha radiation (helium nucleii), and beta rays (fast moving electrons) are dangerous enough but at least they aren't infectious: you can irradiate food with gamma rays and it doesn't turn radioactive. Neutrons get absorbed by nearby nuclei, which then themselves become unstable and radioactive. Ick.
That's not to say we shouldn't explore nuclear fusion as a power source -- just that it is not the perfectly clean energy source that it is often made out to be.
Who in the US administration actually stated that the US opposed a French site because of their opposition to the war in Iraq? What does this have to do with Iraq!? Wouldn't France be the obvious choice? The French have the most experience, e.g. keeping a whole country full of fission reactors humming along.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
You might have a point, if this reactor were intended to SUPPLY energy for a large area.
It's not. This is apparently an experimental reactor. We haven't made this work yet; this reactor is being built so we CAN make it work through experimentation. After that, I would imagine all the countries will simply build their own reactors to supply their countries (and neighbors who wish to purchase energy and/or share in the construction costs) with energy.
What did you think, we'd build one reactor and supply the whole world with energy? Please. At the very least each country will want their own simply so their energy source simple to guarantee the existance of their own energy in case of war or natural disaster.
If this technology WORKED, you think the US in particular wouldn't drop $10bil on it in a heartbeat to build it ourselves? It doesn't work yet, and that's why we all want to build this experimental reactor.
Why is that relevant? What are they going to do, recharge their battery powered Humvees?
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
I had thought that the international community was hesitant to build ITER in Japan because of earthquakes. But, I found this article that seems to say that earquakes will not be a problem for this cite, for anyone who is interested.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
How do you reach that conclusion exactly? Other than not supporting a war without a second resolution I haven't noticed the French supporting much terrorism. You never hear people in Camp X-Ray breaking down and saying "okay, I give in. M. Chirac made me do it."
France does have a large muslim population due to its old (fairly disastrous) colonial association with Algeria but, as many people have pointed out, muslim != terrorist. I'm sure France is making every effort to root out any terrorists that may be hiding there.
There is far more evidence for active terrorist cells in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Birmingham than France. That doesn't make Germany an untrustworthy country, either.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Can you back up the accusation that France harbors support for terrorism?
Also, can you consider that there is no "need" to adapt fusion power to weapons, it is called the H-bomb and I'm pretty sure France already has them.
excuse me but why is this modded +5 informative? The Z-machine is no more modern than 10 years more modern than the tokamak and it sure as hell isn't efficient (in terms of fusion production) by any means. It's barely producing a million neutrons in its implosions; billions of times less than the energy input into the implosion.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
The Americans are against building a huge, experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France because they don't like the French? I'd demand it be built smack dab in the middle of Paris. What could possibly go wrong?
I want the fire back.
Oh, you seriously believe the French government sponsors terrorists, or would ever let terrorists access to highly sensible technological facilities? Can I see sources, facts, proofs?
American media has once again played on words. Terrorism is relative; Americans call them terrorists when they are against them and "freedom fighters" when they are on theirs.
And I would like much better this reactor being in France than being in a country which is actually the puppet of the nation most likely to use it for war (ya, that's YOU if you can't read between the lines). We have seen that treaties didn't mean much for the US, so I would let such a toy at baby Bush's grasp.
This is not a 'claim'; several Tokamaks have acheived 'break-even' on energy-in vs. enevergy-extracted, notably the SPHERE project from Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, IIRC.
James F.
Somthing I've always wondered is, how does this work?
I understand the most of it: B-feild presses the Hydergen together, pressure mounts, then they fuse, releasing heat, right? Well, in and among those big, superconductive wires, how do you get the heat from the reactor out to a boiler? Or do they intend to line the thing with lots of little thermapiles, like an RTG or the like? It seems to me that it would be hard to get all that energy released into a useful form...
Little wonder there's no talk of having the site in the U.S. -- if the international community were to look at the current condition here for nuclear reactor safety and security, and the stance on public disclosure in this regard -- heck, the U.S. shouldn't even be part of the proceedings. (Unless of course Halliburton's doing the infrastructure buildout).
"Hi, we're the guys who orchestrated the French Fry Ban in the Rayburn Office Building Cafeteria, we know exactly how to run everything, who is and is not in the Axis of Evil, and you can't play Nuclear Reactor with us."
he U.S. is opposing a french site because France opposed the war in Iraq.
So instead, they thought they'd like to build it in the country that bombed Pearl Harbor?
Care to back that claim up? Or are you just a fucking moron? For every "forbidden" arms transaction between France and Iraq, the educated observer could cite 2 between the US and Iraq.
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
The most viable known methods of generating and sustaining fusion both use and generate radioactive material.
The best fuel for igniting fusion is a tritium/deuterium mix because it fuses at a lower temperature. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen with 2 additional neutrons. It is "bred" from lithium, but it's still a very radioactive substance. Technically speaking, fusion reactions do use radioactive material as fuel. DD reactions are possible, but they require higher temperatures and are less likely to be viable.
Secondly, the DT reaction emits neutrons. It's a simple matter of math - you have a deuterium and tritium nucleus which collide and produce helium. There's a neutron left over, with high amount energy and no electric charge. It will "ping" right out of the magnetically confined plasma. Most such neutrons will be absorbed by the lithium shielding (creating more tritium) but some will fuse with other parts of the reactor, creating, you guessed it, radioactive waste.
Commercially viable fusion reactors, if they ever exist, will almost certainly produce radioactive byproducts. It will be a great improvement on fission power, as there will be less waste in total with a shorter half-life, but radioactive waste is radioactive waste. Like fission waste, fusion waste will be expensive to deal with and be around for many generations.
For more info, here's a link to the Wikipedia entry.
For all those that are undoubtely going to post something about how America and President Bush in particular are evil for doing something like this here's a little factoid:
/ eu rope/27BRIE5.html?ex=1072069200&en=bf36a06d6e81a8a b&ei=5070
Europe did it first to Spain for it's SUPPORT of the Iraq war. If you don't believe me here's a link (NYT -registration required etc..):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/international
Not that's I'd expect Slashdot (or the BBC) to get the whole story. As much as I like Slashdot this place is definitely ultra liberal and has an agenda to go with that... so always helps to verify anything you hear on this first before you believe it. (As everyone should on ALL media sources before they go spouting it as fact)
You seem to be reading even more into the BBC article than what wasn't there. It's bad enough that this formerly excellent news organization has become so biased in its "reporting", but even in their article it didn't say that the US was stating the reason was because they were mad at France - it's only the BBC saying that's why the US favors Japan. The article only casually mentions that all the other members of the group prefer Japan over France too.
The English will have no choice but to either fund the French effort or invade. As the rest of the EU would frown on invading, that just leaves making sure the French reactor worked perfectly.
In turn, with two fairly substantial doners then backing a French effort, other countries would see no point in funding another, so would join in.
Once America is the lone holdout, the US taxpayer must either pay 100% of the costs of a fusion reactor (which would cost congressmen a lot of votes) or the US Government would have to give in.
Y'see, the important thing in politics is not who is right, or even who is richest, but rather who is the better gambler.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
When a known terrorist can openly fly into a country with no challenge at arrival, when funds, accounts, and property that belong to know terrorist groups are protected, when transactions that are illegal in other countries can be pursued openly, and when you sell countries materials forbidden by international treaty, I call that openly supporting terrorism.
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
We'll basically be like the Tlulaxu and Ixians, but without all the shape-shifting. All I need is money to buy the island and a tech base. Who's with me? I'll set us up a paypal account.
... is access to ITER while conducting experiments on neutron capture to produce fissionables, including weapons grade. France is likely to scream bloody murder sooner or later when the US does this (because they can; because they want to world to see them supporting non-weapons based nuclear work; because they want to be seen standing up to the World Bully; because it could encroach on their own high neutron producing commercial reactor business; etc.). While the people of Japan are equally as likely to find displeasure in what amounts to nuclear weapons research being conducted on their soil, the Japanese government and social structure will keep the noise level much lower than would occur in France. The US could get booted from France (it happened to NATO), but not from Japan.
d f). If the US were interested in energy production, rather than neutron production, they could have pursued thorium based fission reactors (http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDe tail/assetid/25710/page/2). They're not as clean as fusion, but cleaner than heavy uranium and plutonium reactors. They're not externally neutron efficient, because they use their neutrons "breeding" thorium 232 into uranium 233, the actual fuel for the reaction. Thorium reactors can be built as neutron sources, but that's hanging a bag on the design; the more efficient designs don't need or incorporate that because they use the neutrons themselves.
Although fusion is relatively "clean", ITER is still a neutron heavy design (http://wsx.lanl.gov/Publications/neut-activate.p
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
So you were talking about the US.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I am so sick of the how the stories that get posted on Slashdot always have some wording to get this site going on a political bent. This story could have stimulated some interesting technical discussion - but because it had a tag line that mentioned the French / American thing, it will degrade into yet another Slashdot American / European / Asian / etc. bashing....
Please PLEASE keep it about "News for Nerds" and "Stuff that Matters"
The article asserts that the US is opposing the France option because of the Iraq war.
Just because some reporter makes this claim doesn't make it true. What is the source of this? There is nothing in the article to back it up. Maybe the claim comes from a source that is simply guessing as to the US's motives. Maybe the source is trying to divert attention from legitimate objections by claiming this is all politically motivated. We don't know.
Take this article with a grain of salt.
Fusion is the one technology among a handful of others that will fundametally change the face of the world in the next 20-30 years and the U.S., the last "Superpower", is going to let that technology be developed on foreign soil.
ITER has only survived because of international funding. The US came late in the game.
If you come to the bar when the lights are just being turned on, you don't get to take anyone home.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
What the hell does Iraq have to do with it? France have every right to hold their own opinions, does America think that just because they caught Saddam they now have the moral superiority of everyone? The site should be chosen on scientific suitability and somewhere where it wont be at risk of sabotage or control by any one government, it shouldnt be chosen based on the political views of some government in a totally unrealated matter. Its just childish like the Galileo demands.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Basically fusion is not that hard. The problem in a fusion reactor is that the plasma cools off very quickly (seconds). If we let:
EO = energy outflow (cooling of plasma)
EF = energy produced by fusion reaction
EI = energy input (external heating)
then the following equations can be set up:
1) EO 0, the above equations 1 & 2 are hard to maintain. Why? Because hot plasma is cooled down by the reactor walls (+ other kinds of cooling).
Simply put, EO (cooling) is an area dependent function.
EF (energy from fusion) is a volume dependent function.
Thus, if you just build a large enough reactor, you can increase the EF/EO rating as much as you wish. However, a larger reactor costs more.
If we build a big reactor (r=20m) it would produce net energy output. It would NOT be commersially usable.
The ITER or Not-ITER discussion is about whether a large expensive test reactor would be worth its investment, or if the money rather should be used for base reasearch and computer simualtions.
There are two fundamentally different fusion reactors, the "tokamak", and the "stellarator" (IIRC). You want a magnetic field inside the reactor that keeps the plasma away from the walls. In the conseptually easier tokamak, that magnetic field is caused by letting a large (Mega Amp) current flow through the plasma. This current is produced in the plasma using the same concept as a AC voltage-transformer (the plasma is considered one of the spools). However, this means that the current in the "other" spool needs to increase linearly in order to maintain constant plasma current. In reality, this limits the time the reactor can operate to a few seconds (then you lose the plasma and need to restart).
A stellarator uses a very complex set of spools around the reactor to create constant magnetic field inside the reactor. "Very complex" means "not yet practically solved". Actually, its primarily a computational task.
Ok, I read both referenced articles...and even looked around for some others. Frankly the AP article and the others that I found were frankly just light on details of the delay and hyping up the Japan site.
While the BBC article was detailed on what they think is really going on (admittedly, it's probably what's going on, but I put that disclaimer in there just in case) with the delay.
And you know what? I think I have a little more faith in the BBC article than I do in the AP article...it's almost a certainty that it's a political issue and not just a 'which site is better' issue.
Grei
but apparantly, the U.S. is opposing a french site because France opposed the war in Iraq
Could it possibly be because France tends to sell all of their nuclear capability to the highest bidder (i.e. Iraq!). Who do you think provided Iraq with the reactor that the Israelis bombed? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...the US sold Iraq weapons too. How about a graph to show you the truth. The US sold Iraq 1% of its weapons and France sold them 13% of all of their weapons. Oh course, Russia was Iraq's #1 supplier. No wonder Russia and France were so adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq (I'm not saying the war was a Good Thing, BTW). Russia and France wanted to get paid by Iraq and they were afraid a war an ensuing chaos would cause them to have to forgive Iraq's debt. The war wasn't a good thing -- I hate it. However, we must realize that France's and Russia's opposition to it was not an act of kindness, either -- it was about money. The only possible good guy in all of this was Germany, although Iraq also owes German firms a LOT of money for work done there (mostly civil engineering, public works, etc).
1) EO < EF + EI
2) EO < EF
1) means that we have a net energy output (assuming 100% efficiency)
2) means that we have a "lit", self sustataining reactor
The AP story doesn't prominently mention the us objection to France because of their object to the war in Iraq. Conversly, the BBC story makes ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of what the "us objections" actually are. I have not been able to find any credible mention of who and what the actual objections are. Is this just a quote from someone with an axe to grind?
The technical aspects of this are much more interesting than the political ones.
Technology will always devolve to the least common denominator. Polictics will always devolve to the marginalized just bitching.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine 'success'
Yes, the "fusion power will be workable in N years" mantra that's been heard from many sources for the past 40 years is frustrating, and considering that here it is 2003 and we still havent even reached ignition in any laboratory reactor is dissapointing to say the least. However, it is important to note that during this time fusion research hase come a VERY long way. I don't see how this progress can continue forever with no results.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
But basically, the UK has approved the building of three offshore wind farms that will each provide the same power as a nuclear reactor (Sizewell B was the one named in terms of power output).
Wind's as unlimited a resource as deuterium, right? And a hell of a sight easier to draw power from.
Now, normally I'm all for fusion plants and cool high-tech stuff, but this just seems like another international money-sink. The fact the US is objecting to it being in France rather than Japan suggests A: petty, childish vendettas over the fact that France *dared* to defy the US over Iraq, and must now pay the price, or B: massive pork-barrel funding for American interests in the Japanese fusion industry, or C: both.
I don't even *like* the French, but really, fuck Bush. The sooner the world is rid of him and all his energy industry cronies fucking everybody else over for a dollar, the better. This is a man who is one step away from literally standing on a ledge pissing over people and telling them it's raining... and they're believing him! What's next? "That's not a human turd you just watched me shit out onto a plate, it's prime Texan beef! Now eat it up, yum! 'Cause if you don't, you're supporting TERRORISTS!" Christ...
You must think in Russian.
the U.S. is opposing a french site because France opposed the war in Iraq.
U.S.A. - The most powerful country in the world.
For God sake - I hope the Fusion reactor will not come to Europe at all for security reasons!
For the politicial assault in the teaser of the article against France - here we go:
There is not much difference between 'Old Europe' and the US till the end 199x. And for am I was born in Eastern Germany behind the wall there were a lot of reason to thank the US for standing and thus save whole Europe (otherwise there had been no hold for the russian divisions at all).
But since the neoconservative Bush junta has taken over the power in the US all our picture of you has changed as dramatically as it could. Maybe we are driven apart before, but maybe all Europeans loved Clinton too much to see it. As where we stand now for me I can say: I see really two USA and they are as different as they could be. It's like you are a other land after the change from Clinton to Bush.
As where we now stand I would suggest you in the US to read 'After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order' by Emmanuel Todd - despite it will hurt you should get a lot of truth from it.
One of the main conclusions in this book is the change of the habbit of the US empire after the beginning of the 1990's from a good saving empire to a aggressive imperalistic empire.
Here are some main differences between the US and Old Europe as good as I get it together. Hopefully we do not see here a other clash of civilisation Huntington may have left in his book.
1)
We do not believe that your President has been legitimated in a fair democratic election at all.
(In no land in Europe this whould be able to happen - to have diffences in voting machines between 2-10% - and not count all votes via hand or arrange a new ellection.)
2)
Dead Penalty is not human and is showing a low state of civilisation.
3)
The agenda of Kyoto has to be ratified by the US as the biggest destroyer of our enviroment.
4)
The international curt in the Haag is the only authority for war crimes. Nobody here is seeing where you will have the right to think you would be out of this!
5)
You have no right to begin assault wars without legitimation of the UN security counsal - there will be no world order without the rule of law.
6)
There is also a big thinking of standing out of the law as empire. You have no right to deal like you do in Guantanamo! This is the tradition of Stalin and Hitler.
So we see a fall of democracity in the US swapped against nationalism.
I would also add that France and Japan are both allies of the US. Given recent events, which is a "better" ally?
Does no one else remember Pearl Harbor? Or is it just short attention spans? Yeah, that was a long time ago, but I don't recally France ever actually attacking the US at all.
Frankly, I think this whole thing is stupid. What bad would come of a French fusion reactor? It's not like they're going to steal it and use it to power Iraq or something.
Just tell Bush that if the reactor explodes, this way it would kill French people instead of Japanese... maybe that would change his mind.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
I don't consider 72% in favor of a "slim majority"...
here it is 2003 and we still havent even reached ignition Sorry but ignition has been reached ad fusion sustained for minutes.
There plenty of policits to go around. The European Union wants the site to be in France (I wonder why?).
Meanwhile, "Canada, China, Russia, South Korea, the United States and Tokyo itself are reported to be favouring Japan".
It seems like its the EU against the world on this one.
Excuse me but what statistics have you read? The war was probably about a 50/50 split in the US. Where did this slim minority BS come from?
Ok, so where are your stats.
Yes the many other Islamic countries were against the war. Islam has taken over 100 countries in the world now. If they feel threatened by anyone dealing with another Islamic country, then that's life.
There are a few interesting things I'd like to point out here. First, your use of 'taken over' in reference to Islam. How many countries has Christianity 'taken over'? Why do you think the country has been captured by a religion? And which hundred countries do you suppose this has happened to? I bet you can't name a dozen.
As far as France, Russia and Germany, yes they also didn't want the war. They were supplying Saddam and were owed billions. They still are. People forget that France was making the planes that Iraq used to gas its own people. That is why there was so much pressure against it. Those countries stood to lose money they were owed if the US invaded. You people are so easily swayed by propaganda instead of looking at facts that you really piss me off.
Ah, yes. It pisses me off too, which is why I'm replying to your bad information.
France, Russia, China, the USA, and Germany have all provided military equipment to Iraq. The USA has additionally outfitted Iran and several neighbours. The Russians, Germans, and French are owed money largely for infrastructure, electrical generators, sanitation equipment, and the like. But get this straight - no one is innocent in this, and the USA is certainly, far and away, the worst offender.
The helicopters - not planes - that Saddam used to gas the Kurds were from Bell Helicopter Textron and Hughes, which are both US companies. Any planes Saddam had have been grounded (and indeed, literally buried) since the No-Fly Zone was established after Gulf War 1.
So go check out that link and educate yourself, before the next time you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.
Fuck France
Oh, you don't want to get into that. France has much more effective curses to hurl back at you.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Why doesn't the US just build one for itself?
If they build an international fusion reactor, there will be endless squabbling about every little detail.
The US should just build one for itself, and leave the others to their own ideas. Why should our scientists, resources, and military, and production benefit other countries? It's a bad deal for us because we never seem to charge for our services.
What's the point of being a sovereign nation these days...
I urge slashdotters to read some european history
If it doesn't involve nonsense like orcs, mithril armor and little twerps playing 'witch' games, then no Slashdotter will read it.
I suggest Keegan's "The First World War" to dispell any Merikin foolishness about how cowardly the French are in wars. The US showed up in the Great War well after the shit went down. Also, according to cca 1941 GOP policy, WWII was "Roosevelt's War." Godless unpatriotic queers!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Sorry but ignition has been reached ad fusion sustained for minutes.
I don't think so. If you clicked on the link you would see that ignition in this context refers to the point at which the energy derived from the fusion reactions is enough to maintain the necessary plasma temperature to continue the reaction. Correct me if I'm wrong, but current reactors haven't even reached a breakeven. The energy output from the fusion reactions is less than the energy needed to heat the plasma.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Sorry but you must be on a different planet with more advanced fusion technology than ours. Ignition has NEVER been achieved, certainly not for minutes. The definition of ignition is a plasma undergoing fusion at a rate sufficient that the alpha particles alone are enough to heat and continually sustain the reaction. You are confusing this with the sate of breakeven, where more energy is given out by the fusion reaction than is put in, and even then stable modes are only sustained for a few seconds at most.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
How all the people I've ever come across that think the French people aren't on the level have never been to France. I mean, it's one thing to say "Well, All the French people I've met have been arrogant pricks, but I've never been to France," but quite another to generalize a country based on the actions of a: it's leaders or b: the damn few transplants you've seen in your hometown/area. I apologize to all the armchair bigots for going to France a few years ago, but When I asked for directions to, say La Defense (pardon the spelling if it's wrong) or the Champs-Elysees, or the palace of Versailles, (heck, even the nearest place to eat) I was given them, and given them very cordially and they even asked for my map and traced out the route. Shame I can't get the same service here in America. I live in Florida and there are a lot of New Yorkers in my area. All the ones I've come across have been arrogant pricks, but last time I visited NYC, even the Brooklynites were happy to tell me which lines went back to my hotel (Manhattan) and even recommended ones for cleanliness/safety/speed. I recommend actually visiting before making your umbrella statements about a given society.
Now watch this drive.
I vividly recall a physics professor of mine, about 25 years ago, who worked on fusion, saying: "It will be almost impossible. The neutron flux for efficient, continous power generation is so intense that no known materials could sustain the exposure". He talked about materials getting brittle- the materials in closest contact with the fusion core would fail (in weeks, months) and there was no cost effective way to deal with that for long term, stable, low-cost power generation.
Well, if you look at the topics of a conference (11th International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials) in Japan just a few weeks ago, that problem has not gone away yet.
But i am probably a bit eurocentric.r s-hybrides.html).
I think the french spot is good because it is in europe with some quite strong economies that has been affected as badly by the US recession.
It is also quite close(4:00 hours by tgv ) to the high energy physics research center of CERN(http://www.cern.ch) and the nano tech in Grenoble(the reactor group http://isnwww.in2p3.fr/reacteurs-hybrides/reacteu
Really? Care to provide any evidence for that? Searching on Google, I found no articles among the top 20 that suggested any linkage between the decision for Spain to drop out and Spain's support of the Iraq war. Several of them said things like:
In fact, even if Spain's position on Iraq played a role, European diplomats would be less likely to do something as foolish as publicly stating it as a reason.
If you don't like the injection of politics into matters of science, I'm sure you'll rebuke the EU for what they did to Spain.
Here, I'll state it: any nation that determines the location of an unrelated scientific research facility based on whether a war they started was supported by other nations is behaving in a childish manner. Furthermore, if the diplomats and research establishment of that nation publicly give lack of support for the war as the reason for their decision on the location of the research facility, those diplomats are incompetent.
I don't see exactly how the EU could have done what the US did, given that the EU has not started any wars recently, but if they have and if they make such a foolish decision, then, yes, I fully condemn their actions.
Would one of the people on this thread who opposed the war come out and say that "If we had not invaded iraq would be better off ten years from now with saddam still in charge and the sanctions in place"? If you can make that assertion with a straight face i will stop bathing, start listening to phish and be high 24/7 like the rest of the pansies who don't understand politics or international relations.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
The French have a reputation of being as petty, pissy and obnoixious as the U.S. That's probably part of the source of the animosity between the two cultures. We're too much alike and won't admit it.
As an American, I'd rather see the reactor built in Japan. There's a laundry list of reasons (the French seem to handle internation opinion & criticism about as well as we do), but if it makes you Euro's feel warm, fuzzy, and supieror, then fine;
"I don't want them thar frechies building nuthin' cause they didn't support the war. Damn Frogs. God Bless America! Power of Pride! Never Forget!"
Have I reinforced the stereotypes enough? Or should I post a link to pictures of my pickup truck?
The U.S. could get the whole planet laid, and they'd still complain. If we supported the French Project we'd be unjustly shutting out Japan of an economic opportunity.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
The choice on where to build the reactor currently stands between Japan and France [,,,]
They should build it in Greenland, Iceland, or Siberia. Then they could achieve cold fusion.
B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
... In the beautiful south of France or in the Japanese countryside 200km from anywhere?
The sum total of US military sales to Iraq over the last 30 years was $150,000. That's one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. China, Russia, France, and South Africa far surpassed the US in military sales to Iraq.
Germany and France were the primary suppliers of Iraq's WMD program, not the United States.
The only country to have used helicopters to spray chemical weapons so far has been Iraq. The helicopters in question that Bell sold to Iraq were civilian model helicopters. While they could easily be outfitted with weapons, there were far more effective gunship platforms available (ie, Russian ones) for a cheaper price. And Iraq fitting them with chemical weapons was probably not an anticipated result.
People who get pissed over that might as well get pissed at Toyota for selling their trucks to the Taliban.
Compare that with German assistance in pointing out how a pesticide factory could be switched over to chemical weapons relatively easy.
...show backbone when we say, "Uh.. Ok, but then don't come back with your hand out later." Which is of course what they've done.
Let's not forget our good friends the French who, AGAINST WORLD OPINION decided to do a bit of above ground nuclear testing off of New Zealand back in '95-'96. They essentially told everyone else to fuck off and mind their own business when they did what they pleased. In the process, they ended up spewing even more radioactive waste across the planet. Yes, what peace lovers the French are, yes?
Thanks to that thoughtless move, Pakistan and India thought the time was ripe, after all, if one of the primary signatories of the test ban treaty can break it, why shouldn't they?
So let's cut the hypocrisy here. It wasn't even that France decided that THEY didn't want to go to Iraq. That would have been acceptable to the U.S. No, they went one step further, going around the world and trying and convince OTHER nations to bury the U.S. in the U.N. as well. All for their oil contracts in Iraq. That's not simplistic neutrality - that's fucking HOSTILITY!
France pissed the U.S. off - perfectly within their rights - but they shouldn't reasonably expect everything to be business as usual afterwards.
And as to minimizing our contributions in WWII, I have to just say, Fuck You. There are members on my Dad's side I never got to meet because of that war. You might be confusing WWI with WWII - which is understandable - both wars were created first in Europe and our contributions were not as great in WWI (not to minimize our role there either).
As with Bosnia, the U.S. was there to clean up the mess in Europe's own backyard.
Go ahead, mod me down for being an American about this, but I think many forget the price of blood and sacrifice and put it all down to numbers.
At least I'm not being an Anonymous pussy in my reply. My karma and your self respect is at your mercy...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
... build the fusion reactor in Iraq.
That way everyone will have an interest in seeing Iraq rebuilt and made safe and Iraq will also be able to better repay its debts...As apparently its oil is not enough.....
It's nice to see that the decision is being made on a solely technical basis, lord knows we wouldn't want this to turn into a political shitfight.
"Germany and France were the primary suppliers of Iraq's WMD program, not the United States." Yeah , Right.
One can argue that the US did put Saddam Hussein in place anyway, so let us only see at the source of all our problem and who put dictator in place in the last 20 years in soith america, Africa and east. Frankly I do not think you wouldlike the blame game that much.The reason is simple the US as having more power militaristcaly simply had its hands in more dirty things. It is simply a Question of financial. I do not think the other country are more innocent and they would probably have done the same with the same money at disposition. Just do not start the blame game now because you aren't in position for that.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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I still say that ignition has been reached and sustained for several minutes. Of course you're producing (gamma radiation+neutrons)-> heat and heat is termodinamically not very efficient to be converted in electricity.
So, what has not yet been reached is the energetic breakeven point inclusive of all the energy losses.
I mean, besides that whole concept of "liberty" and stuff... oh, and they:
*aided us with ships and arms in our most important time in removing King George from the colonies
*provided money for the expansion of our navy to defend our trade to the Barbary Coast
*became our number one trade partner when no king's nation was buying American goods
*admired and respected us that they acted in same manner to start a revolution for their people
*loved us so much that they gave us the Statue of Liberty, and we loved them so much all of our fashions and opinions came from France
*is our oldest national friend, and the first place that really recognized our sovereignity
opened our cultural gates to Europe when we needed help
*has been our staunch ally on the security council, believed with us that the spread of communism in Vietnam was so important that they got involved first, almost religiously backed our initiatives until we freaked out and launched a war unprovoked
*generally put up with our crap, and we them, for generations, out of FRIENDSHIP
*And most importantly, they would LISTEN TO US AND WE THEM WHEN WE DISAGREED
Besides that, what has France ever done for us. And by saying "done for us" I mean the LAST TWENTY MINUTES. After all, America is not good on remembering the truth about France and America, who were, at one time, the only two democracies backed into a corner in the world, struggling for the freedoms of their citizens.
NEVER FORGET THAT.
Take that you anti-France bastards. We're old friends, it is about time you honored the contract, and listened to your friends, you petulant children.
By the way, we had larger influences in Iraq than you think. Read a little.