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France Will Be Home To Fusion Plant
ScentCone writes "After years of politicking, France has won the right to be the location for a $12 billion fusion research facility. The plant will use deuterium-from-seawater and a huge electromagnetic ring to produce the 100-million-C conditions in which researchers hope to produce viable fusion. The debate over whether this is even possible continues to rage. The ITER project started in 1985, and there has been a running fight over money and location since. France indicated that if Japan (one of the holdouts) didn't see it their way, they'd build a coalition of the willing and do it anyway. With financing and contracting agreements in place, the 10-year construction can begin." Coverage also available at MSNBC, the NYTimes, CNN, and the BBC.
I'm sure Greenpeace is gonna Love this!!
Specifically, Greenpeace (real quote), said: " At a time when it is universally recognized that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Greenpeace considers it ridiculous to use resources and billions of euros on this project"
You know, because it would be horrible to have this as an emmissions-free source of energy. Incredible.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
For those of you who don't know what fusion is exactly, read at Wikipedia:
Fusion Power
Some interesting quotes:
"The natural product of the fusion reaction is a small amount of helium, which is completely harmless to life and does not contribute to global warming. "
"The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tend to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Furthermore, there are fewer different species, and they tend to be non-volatile and biologically less active. As opposed to nuclear fission, where there is hardly any possibility to influence the spectrum of fission products, the problems can be further reduced by careful choice of the materials used."
"Although fusion power uses nuclear technology, the overlap with nuclear weapons technology is small. "
Bullshit. This stupid thing spread around way too damn much, hell it wouldn't be too hard to write something up like this for any country.
Ever wonder why there are so many words of French origin in the English language? Familiar with that time period when France de facto dominated England, and all people of culture/nobility in England spoke French? Did you know, in fact, that the origin of swear words (such as "shit") were that they were used by the lower classes (and are more authentic english) while classier ways of saying these things (such as "manure") were used by the upper classes (and are thus French).
France, like every other country in Europe, has won, lost, invaded, and been invaded countless times. So stop with this nonsense already.
IANAP (I am not a physicist), but here's how I understand it. Nature loves middle-weight neuclei. Extremely light neuclei (e.g. Hydrogen) and extremely heavy ones (e.g. Plutonium) are less stable.
In both cases, you release energy by moving towards middle-weight elements. If I recall correctly, Iron has the most stable neucleus of all. The raw materials for fission, such as Uranium and Plutonium, are much heavier than Iron. By breaking up the neuclei into lighter elements, you move closer to the ideal middle-weight stable elements, thus releasing energy. Likewise, the raw materials for fission, such as Hydrogen, are much lighter than Iron. By fusing their nuclei, into heavier elements, you move closer to the ideal middle-weight elements, so you release energy.
There's no perpetual motion involved. You can't get energy back by reversing either type of reaction. For example, you'd have to put energy IN, if you wanted to fission Helium back into Hydrogen, because you'd be moving further away from the ideal middle-weigh neuclei.
So, if someone asks you to invest in their iron-fuelled nuclear power plant, your money is probably best invested elsewhere!
Nitpick: The longer the half-life, the fewer decays per unit time. Stuff that's dangerous for a couple of days is far, far more dangerous than the basically stable elements you mentioned.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
To be fair, Bush sided on Japan's side for the sole purpose of blocking Europe from being the host site, that was seen back then (2003), as a retaliation, mainly against France, for not supporting the war. It's true that France, through Chirac, said they would support an extra financial burden to by-pass the US support and get moving with this project. Like it or not, France showed some leadership, got this project involving top science moving, while the US stepped back and did nothing.