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International Fusion Reactor Project Moves Forward
mjgp2 writes to mention a BBC article about an agreement which will begin construction on the second most expensive scientific collaboration, after the ISS : the world's first large-scale fusion reactor. From the article: "The seven-party consortium, which includes the European Union, the US, Japan, China, Russia and others, agreed last year to build Iter in Cadarache, in the southern French region of Provence ... He said that the participants would aim to ratify their agreement before the end of the year so construction on the facility could start in 2007. Officials said the experimental reactor would take about eight years to build. The EU is to foot about 50% of the cost to build the experimental reactor. If all goes well with the experimental reactor, officials hope to set up a demonstration power plant at Cadarache by 2040. "
"If all goes well with the experimental reactor, officials hope to set up a demonstration power plant at Cadarache by 2040"
Guess the traditional "40 years away" is now 36 years?
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
We are these little intelligent creatures that live on an insignificant planet revolving around an insignificant yellow star in one of billions of solar systems among billions of galaxies in this universe.
It's amazing to me that we should be able to probe the laws of the universe with our limited energy reserves and stunted perspective.
Will we really be able to create the conditions that led to the creation of the universe in an Earth-based laboratory?
It's really fucking amazing.
Just like there is room for improvement in battery technology, is there any chance we can come up with a way to transport electricity over long distances without it diminishing in power as fast as it does now? Or do physics tell us otherwise? That's the one thing holding us back from making super-duper large nuclear plants in the middle of nowhere...
The Japanese are the contractors, they are pretty well renowned for their efficiency. So I think building time may be reduced.
More work needs to be done on the spherical Tokamaks such as START and MAST. Which are showing increasingly promising results. I know from an inside source that more attention is being given to the spherical Tokamak. Especially now that in nearly all the participating countries there is at least a single toroidal tokamak.
From TFA:
"However, environmental groups have criticised the project, saying there was no guarantee that the billions of euros would result in a commercially viable energy source."
This baffles me, just whose side are the environmentalists on again? It doesn't matter that there is no gaurantee. The likelyhood of it being a comercially viable energy source is very high.
Also, bear in mind that everybody knows that fusion will be "along in 20 years" and has been this way for the past 60. However, most countries in the world are producing larger plasma departments at universities and there is a much greater influx of fusion scientists. Many hands make light work. And it has already been mentioned that there are many tokamaks in the world, Russia, China, Japan and America have multiple. The UK has the current largest, Jet, and it also has the spherical tokamaks as stated.
Peace out, baby.
"Instead of $300B spent in Iraq we should have spent it here on fusion reactor research!!!
Thats what happens when politicians are un-educated rubes."
That's really funny coming from a poster that thinks progress in fusion research is directly proportional to how much money is thrown at it.
I bet you also subscribe to the "if only we spent the space program money on solving poverty/homelessness/starving people in Africa!" line of thought.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Hmm, let's see.. I'm 28 now, 34 more years means... yep, I'll probably have lived a full life by then. Sure, go ahead, build your thingy, you kids knock yourelves out. :-D
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Perfect date to power those Intel Core 6 Octo CPUs running Windows Vista !
8 years to build a test reactor? When I was a lad I had to build three in a single weekend, in the snow, and it was uphill both ways! Once I only managed two and I was beaten with a leather belt. Quite right too! You kids these days...
No, they're putting it in France in case it blows up.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Actually, progress does increase with economic resources thrown at it.
It's a derivative of Moore's law.
The more money spent on more scientists (hiring, training), the better chance of coming up with original ideas. The constant flow of money spent each year on semiconductor R&D results in chip costs going down.
Spend $10bn/month on fusion research. Or $10bn/month on a public rail transportation infrastructure, instead of roads for cars. It'll be worth it.
Sure beats killing people.
In case you don't already know here's the advantage of Fusion power over fision: The waste product.
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D-T fuel cycle Fusion produces Helium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
Fission power produces low radioactive waste which can be buried
and also high radioactive waste (cesium-137 and strontium-90) which is too radioactive to be buried (they give off enough heat to boil ground water into steam. Steam could corrode the containers or break up surrounding rock, raising uncertainty about secure burial.)
The cesium and strontium has to be kept in a storage pool that circulates cooling water for 150 years, before they cool down enough to be able to be buried.
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx
Both fission and fusion produce neutrons as well, which makes the reaction chamber radioactive and means that the power plant has to be buried after it's decommisioned
Actually, as someone who works in the fusion community, it would help if there was more money to go around. ONE of the reasons fusion is always 20-40 years away is that the funding isn't where it needs to be in order for that to happen.
It's a tough nut to crack and more money for more projects and more jobs would help a good deal.
Actually, progress does increase with economic resources thrown at it. It's a derivative of Moore's law.
I am interested in your ideas and would like to subscribe to your brochure.
Please explain more fully how you get "progress increases with economic resources thrown at it" from "the complexity of integrated circuits, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every 24 months".
Perhaps you didn't mean "derivative", but there's no way to make sense of that statement that I can see.
You are especially being disingenuous by using Moore's law as your implied cost/benefit curve, as nothing other than electronic circuits has experienced an exponential curve for so many decades. You have to consider the cost/benefits when doling out money. Fusion is on anything but an exponential curve; in fact it's damn near on a constant curve, making almost zero progress over time, as evidenced by how it's been "40-50 years in the future" for 40-50 years now.
A weakened version of your claim, that all else being equal more dollars will progress more than less dollars, is trivially true but useless, because that progress could very well be very minimal even for a gigantic investment, and perhaps ironically given your argument, fusion is almost certainly the canonical example of that case.
ITER is not the demonstration power plant. ITER is an experimental research fusion reactor that (hopefully) will lead the way to building real fusion power plants.
So eight years to build ITER, then a couple of decades of research, running tests, tweaking stuff to find out what works out the best. Then when that is done, the demonstration power plant can be start to be built using the knowledge learned by the couple of decades of tinkering with ITER. And by the time the demonstration reactor is done, we are at year 2040 or thereabouts.
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
I bet there are a couple hundred smart engineers/physicists out there that would make this happen.
****
"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
... in case it goes KADARASH !
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
And if it ends up melting down and blowing a large chunk off of the Earth, all we'll lose is France.
Godspeed!
It's BS.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Thorium reactors have more promise. They are safer, simpler, and cheaper.
We already have a huge Fusion reactor in the sky blasting us with masses of free energy. Spending billions on an experimental Fusion reactor is all well and good but it might just be a good idea to spend similar amounts of money working out ways to cheaply produce highly efficient solar cells.
How does government funding for photovoltaics compare to funding for Fusion research? Does anyone have the figures? I've never heard of any grand government push to make dirt cheap 50% efficient solar cells. Imagine if you could buy a 1m square 50% efficient solar cell for $10. That sort of technology could change the balance of power in the world.