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ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisis
deglr6328 writes "The long beleaguered experimental magnetic confinement fusion reactor ITER is currently in what some are calling the worst crisis of its 25 year history. Still existing only on the paper of thousands of proposed design documents, the latest cost estimates for the superconducting behemoth are soaring to nearly 20 billion USD — roughly twice the estimates from as recently as a few years ago. Anti-nuclear environmentalist organizations have seized upon the moment as an opportunity to use the current global economic crisis as a means to push for permanently killing the project. If ITER is not built, the prospect of magnetic confinement fusion as a technique to reach thermonuclear breakeven and ignition in the laboratory would be in serious question. Meanwhile, the largest laser-driven inertial confinement fusion project, the National Ignition Facility, has demonstrated the ability to use self-generated plasma optical gratings to control capsule implosion symmetry with high finesse, and is on schedule to achieve ignition and potentially high gain before the end of the year."
That sounds terrifying. Then I read that it is just going to go unfunded. Not quite as interesting. Well played, headline writer, well played.
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All progress must stop so we can, um, stay in the financial crisis forever?
ITER, Europe -- Physicists at the ITER Fusion Reactor announce new physics particle, known as the Existention. Previously only observed being emitted by cats placed in trap boxes filled with deadly acid, the creation of synthetic Existentions will open up a whole new line of research in quantum bogodynamics. An anonymous source close to the research team said it happened when the tight jeans worn by one of the research assistants distracted the operator of the reactor, causing what she loosely termed a "man event".
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Let me just say that fusion power is aweful; we should be using solar power instead.
I'll just wait for the irony to sink in. Yeah.
Gulf of Mexico oil spill units?
it makes me want to kill myself over and over. It really does. also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded also the caps limit thing is retarded
I heard that every bird struck by a windmill trickles down into the earth as another barrel of oil.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I dont think you read the whole post up there, nuclear fission would not stop until the uranium or plutonium or whathaveyou has completely run its course. Fusion on the other hand would stop if there was a pressure failure, or a heating failure. Thats why we make fission bombs, and cannot possibly ever make a fusion bomb(it just doesnt work that way)
Or, of more immediate concern, how we're going to survive as a civilization when we run out of drinkable water.
Huh. Where I live the stuff falls from the sky, quite regularly.
Wait for hurricane season. I hear oil's going to fall from the sky pretty impressively.