Green Light For ITER Fusion Project

brian0918 writes, "A seven-member international consortium has signed a formal agreement to build the $12.8 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). From the article: 'Representatives from China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States signed the pact, sealing a decade of negotiations. The project aims to research a clean and limitless alternative to dwindling fossil fuel reserves, although nuclear fusion remains an unproven technology.' ITER will be built 'in Cadarache, southern France, over the course of a decade, starting in 2008.'" If ITER is successful, a commercial reactor could be built by 2040. Funny, I seem to remember fusion researchers from Livermore in the 70s say that commercial power was 20 years away...

Comments

Re: Green Light

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I seem to remember fusion researchers from Livermore in the 70s say that commercial power was 20 years away...

Well, it was hard for them to proceed with all of your SMUG emissions.

Which will arrive first?

[ENOENT]

1. Commercial fusion power.
2. True AI
3. Duke Nukem Forever

???

Re:Which will arrive first?

[stoolpigeon]

2 did and when it is done with 1 you wont need 3 - you'll be living it.

Re:Cool!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Who needs big science? Hell, I bet some teenager could do fusion in his parents basement.

Re:Israel to produce synthetic oil

[ENOENT]

If your car runs on synthetic oil, you should really consider having the engine overhauled.

Re:Cool!

[AKAImBatman]

I bet some teenager could do fusion in his parents basement.

Yawn. That's so 1960's.

You ever played Civ before?

[dlenmn]

Why is the Western world not rushing the project.

Dude, you can't rush wonders... even if you could, it's a large project and would probably cost the lives of 4 citizens....

Re:You ever played Civ before?

[meringuoid]

Dude, you can't rush wonders...

Dude, we should have been stockpiling Caravans throughout the 1990s for just this eventuality.

Now we know.... we had it in 1920

[Baldrson]

starting in 2008.'" If ITER is successful, a commercial reactor could be built by 2040.

Funny, I seem to remember fusion researchers from Livermore in the 70s say that commercial power was 20 years away...

Through the miracle of arithmetic we see can extrapolate this trend to see that commercial fusion power was available in 1920 when it was undoubtedly captured by a Henry Ford and with assistance from proto-Nazis, kept it secret from the rest of the world in a Peruvian cave where they run their UFO base to this day.

With Y being the years from now the geniuses predict commercial fusion energy and X being the year of the prediction:

deltaY=((2040-2008)-20)=12
deltaX=(2008-1975)=33
slope=12/33=0.363636
Y=20+slope*(X-1975)
X-1975=(Y-20)/slope
X=(Y-20)/slope+1975
Setting Y=0
X=(0-20)/0.363636+1975
X=1920

So we see that commercial fusion power was available about the time spherical electrostatic confinement was first conceived of by Irving Langmuir, Katherine B. Blodgett: Physics Review, 23, pp49-59, 1924; "Currents limited by space charge between concentric spheres", which was the last time there was any leak about the existence of commercial fusion power once Henry Ford and the proto-Nazis impounded the technology.