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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. "
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...
And maybe the traditional 36 years is now 34 years.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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
And if it ends up melting down and blowing a large chunk off of the Earth, all we'll lose is France.
Godspeed!