U.S. Cancels Fusion Program

Chuck1318 writes "The US is halting its national nuclear fusion energy project, FIRE, and pinning its hopes on the internation fusion research program ITER. However, ITER is stalled over a dispute on where to locate the facility. The dream of fusion power is getting no closer..."

Comments

Put it on the Moon.

[torpor]

That way, we get two programs in one.

Oh, and also, if it goes out of control and creates a small black hole that slowly starts consuming everything, we'll have time to use the bits of the moon that are left to shove the whole mess off into the Sun.

Or something ...

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[Icarus1919]

The fusion reactor isn't what we need to worry about, it's the particle colliding experiments that could cause the whole planet to change into a different form of matter, strange matter. Whether this will give us superpowers or not is yet to be determined.

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[BabyDave]

Oh, and also, if it goes out of control and creates a small black hole that slowly starts consuming everything, we'll have time to use the bits of the moon that are left to shove the whole mess off into the Sun.

Yes, 'cause if there's one place we should dump an all-consuming singularity, it's in the middle of our most important source of heat, light and food (via photosynthesis). At least we'll have a backup source, namely ... er, the fusion research station we just fired into the sun. Fuck.

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[tomhudson]

Nah, if you read the article, it states:

is stalled over a dispute on where to locate the facility.

... because they can't decide which middle east/third world country deserves to be ground zeroH^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe test site

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[ch-chuck]

The Union Aerospace Corporation could probably handle a moon research facility with no problem.

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[meringuoid]

Nah. We blow up the Moon, we just have to put up with it. Earth will become a total backwater, of course, what with all the impacts, but that would certainly accelerate the settlement of the solar system.

With a network of jump gates, and the terraforming of most of the larger satellites of Jupiter and Saturn (heat source: to be determined), we could put together quite a nice culture.

Note: be sure to switch off all artificially intelligent laser-armed spy satellites before leaving planet. Who knows what they'll take into their minds over a hundred years or so...

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[Paradigm Lost]

Well, it seems to me that having a black hole eat the moon wouldn't be *so* bad.

But the evenings would be much less romantic. And what about the poor Werewolves? WON'T SOMEONE *PLEASE* THINK OF THE WEREWOLVES?!!

Re:Put it on the Moon.

[WhiteWolf666]

It's not that hard.

You throw things at it.

Other than the whole nothing able to leave the event horizon thing, it's just an object, with momentum, mass, etc . . .

If you have a 1000Gg singularity (yes, thats absolutely tiny, but it might be what we would create in a laboratory), you could 'hit' it with objects, and they would 'push' it.

That's assuming it's not so small as to simply pass through anything.

The idea of a teeny-weeny laboratory singularity is not, actually, totally crazy.

Just mostly crazy. Extremely high desity != high mass.

Remember, density = mass/volume. You get a blackhole when you smash something hard enough to overcome the positive neutron pressure.

Which is pretty high, high enough that I'm not certain we'll get there anytime soon, but definetely within the realm of possiblity.

After all, if we made a blackhole (singularity), it's not probable we'll manufacture it with a mountain's worth of material, or a planet's worth.

More likely, it would just be a few errant particles we smashed together.

Kind of a neat thought, eh?

Good news in a way

[pt99par]

I think that this may get fusion closer becouse now the US can put more money into the international project instead of its own. One good project instead of two half good projects.

Re:Good news in a way

[Dr. Hok]

Maybe they found out that it wouldn't be good for national security if the US were in control?

Re:Good news in a way

[ecklesweb]

Put the $2 million/year annual budget for FIRE towards ITER? And ITER wants to build a $5 billion plant? That'll work. We'll have that baby paid off in 2500 years flat!

If that $2 million figure really is the budget for FIRE, it probably costs that much just to send delegates across the pond to argue about where they're not going to build the reactor.

Jay

Re:Good news in a way

[Daniel Dvorkin]

We could easily fund FIRE, our share of ITER, and a couple of other programs as well. Which is what we should be doing, because there's no guarantee that any one approach is the right one. Why do people always think there's going to be one magic bullet?

They're talking about $5 billion, total, to build ITER. That's miniscule money compared to what we're throwing away on fighting in a certain country known for its oil ...

Re:Good news in a way

[IronicCheese]

Parent is right. For comparison:
We're blowing about $4 billion a MONTH in Iraq.

The cost of war is high.
The opportunity cost is staggering.

Re:Good news in a way

[jspaleta]

I really have trouble believing that any sort of fusion project, especially one funded by the states, has a measly budget of 2 million a year.


Projects are done in stages. 2 million a year on a project still in essentially a design stage, before it reaches the engineer stage where actually prototypes of important physical systems are built and tested, isn't so far-fetched.

You have to take a look at hard far down the road FIRE is to put the cost in perspective. FIRE was just beginning to assess the cost of contruction of things like the magnetic field coils. If FIRE was still a priority, there are several rounds of additional funding that would have gone into the project as it met specific review criteria. These project don't get budgetted for the full project at the beginning. There are multiple phases, with reviews, that if successful mean more money when its needed to actually build things. You don't get the money to even build prototype of critical systems till there is a significant review process of the physics and engineering concerns.

-jef

Russia

[NETHED]

Unfortunatly, many brilliant plasma physists are now out of work and have no income in Russia. Here is a link to one of the institutes that previously was funded laviously by the Soviet Union, but since its dissolvement, it now is a shadow of its former self.

A shame.

Possible ITER sites

[BubbaThePirate]

Four possible candidates were:
Clarington,Canada; Vandellòs, Spain; Cadarache, France; and Rokkasho-mura, Japan.
Clarington and Vandellòs were withdrawn. But by the rate they're going, Japan and France might be blown off as well.

More info from ITER's site.

Petty

[RU_Areo]

The fact that they are having one giant argument about where to put this thing, to the extent that it halted the process, is pathetic and shows how petty the countries involved are. It is obvious that they are not interested in the science and simply want to be able to say "look what we have".

Re:Petty

[Atzanteol]

In the back rooms of every country are the generals and paranoid politicians - nobody wants to see other countries acquire something as militarily useful as fusion, when it could be used against them.

Thermonuclear weapons already use fusion, and we had *thousands* of them. The soviets detonated a ~50 megaton bomb at one point (57Mton I think). What could *possibly* lead to bigger/better weapons from this research?

AFAIK making a 'bomb' is much easier than making fusion into a viable energy source.

No closer

[Junior J. Junior III]

Fusion has been "15-20 years away" for something like 30 years now, hasn't it? If it's not something, it's something else. Meanwhile, we have a massive fusion plant in the center of the solar system that's been operating maintenance free for eons and we're barely even exploiting it.

Re:No closer

[StrawberryFrog]

Meanwhile, we have a massive fusion plant in the center of the solar system that's been operating maintenance free for eons and we're barely even exploiting it.

Yeah, but safety standards have since been raised, and you couldn't get that design built today. It may not be nearby, but it is completely unshielded, and prolonged exposure to it's radiation is known to cause cancer.

Vested Interests

[tiled_rainbows]

It seems to me that fusion research in the US is never going to get decent levels of funding all the time that the Whitehouse is full of people with millions of dollars invested in oil companies.

And furthermore, it seems to me that fusion research in the EU is never going to get decent levels of funding all the time that people here instinctively equate all nuclear power with dangerous, radioactive evil.

Which is a great shame, because it seems that fusion is the best long-term bet to avoid either:

a) the major cities of the world being swamped in a series of catastrophic floods as the icecaps break up
and/or
b) the world running out of fuels before finding adequate replacement and reverting to a state of pre-industrial, Mad-Max-style savagery.

So, in conclusion, I reckon that if our respective governments aren't willing to fund proper fusion research, then they should at least get working on the Thunderdome.

Re:Vested Interests

[sql*kitten]

It seems to me that fusion research in the US is never going to get decent levels of funding all the time that the Whitehouse is full of people with millions of dollars invested in oil companies.

You might be right, but remember there's really no such thing as an oil company. There are only energy companies. The smart ones recognize that, the dumb ones think it's all about oil. No-one wants oil. What they want is motive power.

Also remember that not much oil goes into power stations - mostly they're natural gas, coal nuclear, hydro, etc. Oil ends up in automobiles of one sort or another. Pitch it to Bush that Texas can provide all the oil the US needs and fusion will supply the rest and he can get the US out of the Middle East for good (barring support for Israel of course), and he'll jump at the chance, I reckon.

Re:Vested Interests

[EinarH]

The big oil companies, those that really operate on a global basis, are "energy companies" per se but in reallity they are still mainly oil companies..

Remember that they have invested _billions_ each year in their oil business. They have paid (or the state has paid for them) insane amounts of money for all the production capasity, transportation, knowledge, contracts, refineries and all the other infrastructure. They know the oil business, the other people in the oil business and the customers in the oil business.
Most likly they conclude that with a status quo, they will continue to literarily print money.

The incentives for them to change the energy situation are few and elusive. In a world based more on renewable energy and distributed harvesting of the energy they are not guaranteed success. Such a situation would increase competition and make it harder for them to compete at what they are good at.

And you are incorrect about most of the oil ends up in automobiles etc. IIRC, USA uses about 40% of the oil for automobiles/transportation, 20% for power/heating/electro and 40% for industry/chem/stupid plastic toys.

Re:Vested Interests

[Jodka]

It seems to me that fusion research in the US is never going to get decent levels of funding all the time that the Whitehouse is full of people with millions of dollars invested in oil companies.

Vice President Dick Cheney, head of the presidential task force studying our energy needs, favors building new nuclear power plants..

So much for your theory that cutting back on fusion research is part of a secret righ-wing plot to protect oil profits.

It took me 12 seconds (I timed it) to google that up. New tab, "Bush Nuclear Power", first link, first sentence, here.

Is is too much to ask that moderators spend 12 seconds before modding up crackpot propaganda such as the parent post? Of course it is. It's an election year, so you need to use your moderation points to advance your political prejudice that George Bush is public enemy number one. That's justified, because we have the proof: If he backs nuclear power, then that is proof that he is environmentally reckless. If he does not back nuclear power, then that is proof that he is conspiring to protect oil profits.

This is actually a very good option

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Tokamak based fusion plants will almost certainly not be commercially viable in the near future ITER seems like a waste of money, wasting time talking is a very good alternative to actually building the thing IMO. As they say, they basically have the science needed to build it. It is just about engineering and acquiring knowhow, not fundamental research.

Personally I find spending that much money to acquire the knowhow to build something you wouldnt want to build commercially a waste of good money. Give more money to La Sandia instead for their pulsed fusion research (yeah yeah, I know it hasnt produced anything worthwhile either ... but it is comparitively cheap at least, it will be interesting to see how MTF turns out).

answer is obvious

[fakeplasticusername]

Both camps (Japan and France) have offered to take up half the costs to build in their locale. Answer is obvious. Take the original planned investment, and give half to each camp, and build 2. We'd probably learn alot more from having them both, and we could explore different options in the building process. And we could finally get to work and start seeing news on slashdot about the progess instead of the squabbling

Re:answer is obvious

[dykofone]

But then what country would want to foot half the bill for something that another country has anyway? The only reason either country is offering that half is to be the exclusive site of international fusion research.

You're idea makes perfect sense, from a "let's get the job done and learn some science" point of view. But that really doesn't seem to be the point here. As many have pointed out, it looks like just another ISS.

I'm kind of interested in who would own the technology once it's completed. Sure, governments subsidize and control energy technologies, but they still have to hire private companies to build and design many of the parts. Most nuclear reactors in this country have turbines built be either GE or Westinghouse, and in EU it's Siemens.

Would it be simpler in natural vacuum?

[Morgaine]

Put it on the Moon.

It's worth examining this proposition at face value for pros and cons, rather than immediately discounting it.

The first question that comes to mind is, does plasma research benefit from being carried out in a natural vacuum environment rather than needing apparatus to create one artificially? How does the degree of evacuation inside a fusion containment vessel compare with that in LEO, far orbit, or on the Moon? Is there any benefit to be gained from ever-better vacuums, such as freedom from plasma contamination?

Questions like those are probably more likely to be of interest than any handwaving about danger from black holes.

Solar power is still vastly underutilized

[MarkEst1973]

I was recently reading about hybrid cars that would be able to sell their excess electricity back to the power grid. Likewise for solar panels on homes. The energy generated would be used to heat water and whatnot, then the rest feeds back into the grid, causing the power meter to run backwards a bit and reduce your bill.

Like distributed computing, I think distributed power generation would work amazingly well. If there were millions and millions of homes generating power alongside our power plants (nukes, not dirty fossil fuel plants), we could achieve energy independence from foreign nations, reduce fossil fuel dependence, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil/coal buring powerplants.

The challenges are difficult to overcome, however.

The big oil and gas companies, of course, would lobby against any distributed power generation. I'm sure they don't want millions of solar powered homes. There is no money in it for them.

Solar panels are, I think, relatively inefficient and expensive. Their efficacy would need to be boosted and the price would have to go down.

I can see a day, though, when everyone is generating everyone's power through distributed generation. It's cheaper, greener, and it just makes sense... which is probably why it will never happen.

Re:Solar power is still vastly underutilized

[sql*kitten]

No doubt they've bought other technologies to slow development.

I've heard this asserted many times. But, the patent database is online, Slashdot refers to it all the time. I've very curious to know if you can post a patent number for an oil-alternative that is currently owned by an "oil" company for the purpose of suppressing its development.

Re:This might be an unpopular opinion here ...

[jabberjaw]

There is a reason that your opinion is unpopular. It is wrong.

It produces even more radioctive waste than fission, because you have to transform the all the neutreons and other radiation coming out from the reaction, to heat.

I strongly suggest that you read more about nuclear fusion.

The number one problem of humanity is that we are consuming too much natural resources. The availability of a power-source like fusion would increase our consumption even more instead of reducing it.

Why would it not reduce our consumption of resources? When fusion is realised, less coal, oil and natural gas would be required to produce power.

Please everybody stop dreaming of fusion and use your resources (intellectual and monetary) on techonlogies like solar power, ....

I put my intellectual and monetary backing behind nuclear fusion, solar power does not spark my interest as I find that too much energy is reflected. This is a personal opinion of my own.

Re:Fusion = Waste of Money, Time, etc

[k98sven]

Projects that have proven future potential such as Zero Point Energy should be pursued far more vigorously,

Proven how? Zero-point energy as an energy source is pure psuedoscientific bullshit.
And that's a fact. They have yet to produce any reproducible experiment proving their bogus hypotheses, or any valid theory to give reason to believe any of this stuff.

and railroaded past those hopeless 'scientists' who still think such things aren't possible.

Being everyone who actually knows something about these matters.

Dismiss this as lunacy and mod-me down? - just remember this as an 'I told you so' when it turns out to be valid all along...

Sure, it's lunacy. I don't believe in education through moderation though.

A bit of clarification...

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) RTFA: FIRE is one of many fusion research projects in the U.S. This article gives the impression that we just 'gave up' on this whole crazy fusion thing. This is far from true...

2.) Fusion is NOT LIKE IN SPIDERMAN 2. Go read this: Fusion Basics at PPPL

3.) ITER is the next step towards a steady state or 'burning' plasma. This is (obviously) a critical part of building a production-class fusion reactor.

- Justin

Re:How much more energy do we need?

[FlyingOrca]

Excellent point, and one that is often overlooked. I would add that the most effective way to manage energy demand, environmental impact, and resource sharing on a global scale is to reduce the "demand side". In other words, reduce our population by an order of magnitude.

Sure, it's a political nightmare, and it would require measures that would make China's look Utopian. In the long run, though, I believe it is the only way to achieve sustainability as long as we are constrained to this planet. After all, it's axiomatic: If we don't manage our population, natural forces will manage it for us. :-/

The sad state of American science

[yog]

The U.S. was once the mecca of science in the world. Students flocked here from many other countries to learn from the best teachers and to work in the best facilities. Great experiments were conducted into the nature of matter at places like the Berkeley physics lab, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. Pioneering visionaries planned, funded, and executed great projects like the manned landings on the Moon. Nuclear energy was exploited, with all its pros and cons.

Today, the U.S. has retreated from its leadership role and now tries to participate in science on the cheap, by roping in questionable allies such as France and China to help pay for experiments such as ITER that once would have been a purely American sandbox. The already meagre space budget has been sapped by an irrelevant and compromised space station and the oversold space shuttle. The president has barred the funding of promising biological research using embryonic stem cells, thus driving stem cell researchers to other countries to continue their work, and communities across the country are forcing schools to teach "creationism" in biology courses. School kids avoid hard subjects like science and foreign graduate students in the sciences are now the majority--and will they want to stay after they graduate?

In my opinion, the U.S. should turn its attention to science once again and realize that it is in a race with Europe and east Asia to regain and retain the critical lead in science and technological development. The nationstates and alliances of nations which stay focused on scientific achievement will be the economic leaders of the 21st century, while the lazy others will fall behind and become irrelevant.

the ironry? president's support?

[RevAaron]

on the page it reads:
The President has made achieving commercial fusion power the highest long-term energy priority for our Nation.
DOE Office of Science Strategic Plan February, 2004

Heh. Any one else amused by that? That 2 mil/year really shows how important the program is. And cancelling the program is even better.

Princeton

[Sam Nitzberg]

There is a hot fusion research facility in Princeton, NJ. My understanding is that the facility has done good work since its inception.

I would hate to see such efforts scrubbed. Whatever happens with fusion research, I would like to see such teams and facilities continue to advance their work and contribute towards their research.

Sam Nitzberg

Re:They should build it in...

[sql*kitten]

That way if it goes boom, not as many people need to translocate.

Fusion reactors don't explode. The fusion reaction itself is extremely delicate. If anything goes wrong, it simply stops. Sure you now have some hot plasma/gas, but not very much, and it'll cool by itself if left alone. Remember that your reactor is wrapped in cooling systems anyway, since that's how you get the power out of it (at least until we recover sufficient He3 that the power can be extracted magnetically).

Re:Exploiting the sun

[danharan]

OK, I call BS.

Efficiency doesn't need to go up to make solar cost-effective. The most efficient PV modules are insanely expensive to build; give me 10% efficiency for a dirt cheap thin-film that I can put on my roof and I'll be happy. The sector is growing some 30% a year, and each doubling in production brings prices down. Modules are now around $4/watt, and the Japanese, with their solar roof program, have taken a leadership position and created a huge market. With that comes more incentive to find break-throughs in thin-film technology.

We likely won't have massive farms of the stuff any time soon. Building-integrated photo voltaics (BIPV if you want to google for more info) is one of the more promising avenues. Solar energy and consumption is distributed, as should be its conversion to electricity.

In a distributed generation system, local variations even out on a larger scale so you won't get massive drops as clouds pass over. Even in overcast days you can get 70% of the energy of a bright day, so the energy produced is not going to suddenly drop anywhere. In places where energy use is highly correlated to air conditionning, this is a very useful addition to the power mix.

Solar is a fascinating field, if much smaller than wind. I wish /.'ers would stop it with the over-the-top FUD, and get a bit better informed on the topic.

It is stalled because of the US

[johannesg]

They disagreed with France as the location because of Frances opposition to the Iraq war. Of course now Europe has dug its heels into the sand and won't agree to any choice the US finds acceptable.

I just love to see the only _really good_ energy source that is in our future being delayed and delayed because of petty politics.

FIRE is not the US's sole fusion program

[daveschroeder]

Huge misconceptions seem to abound here. FIRE does not represent the whole of US fusion research. There are dozens of other projects and laboratories around the country, most in academia and the national labs.

$2M/year is just for this ONE project.

The summary is extremely poorly written, and apparently the submitter thinks that the US is "canceling" all of its fusion programs, when in reality, ONE project of many is being canceled. The whole reason FIRE came about is because the US pulled out of ITER. Now we're back in, and FIRE could serve as a backup project potentially, but ITER is the focus in this particular line of research. But there are still many, many federally funded fusion research programs, projects, and laboratories around the US! We've spent $5 billion on projects like the National Ignition Facility (NIF) alone (only to be crucified by the Left...I guess you can't win).

Jeez. Wake the fuck up, or at least learn something.

Re:Shut up liberal.

[meadowsp]

The people of Iraq declared war on you on September 11th 2001?

References please.

Re:Shut up liberal.

[WhiteWolf666]

Don't be so dense.

Iraq != Taliban, or Al-Qaeda.

I agree with the war in Iraq, however, for entire different reasons.

Get your shit straight, and then it will make more sense.

U.S. has maintained a virtual occupation (containment) of Iraq since Desert Storm 1. We had no exit strategy.

We could have either a) left the area, pulled out our planes, and let Saddam did as he wanted, b) invaded, and force regime change, or c) maintain the SQ, shooting SAM sites, and occasionally have a plane shot down by Saddam's troops.

My opinion, B) was the best idea.

Unfortunately, we didn't consult the international community, we decided to pin it on WMD, we didn't bother to try and force Saddam out of power, and we still maintain that regime change was a fiction necessitated by WMD.

Saddam was a complete asshole, but our diplomatic efforts surrounding his removal were beyond terrible.

Anyways, these people (Iraqs) did not declare war on us. Infact, they never declared war on anyways.

Their autocratic fascist dictator declared war on Kuwait, and we only just now decided to end his rule.

A Comedy of Errors.