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."

Comments

Re:ITER is too big

[0123456]

I'm sure those "top scientists" have given a lot of thought to the size of ITER and its budget -- as they plan their retirements around it.

Indeed: some of these people are going to retire having spent their entire careers not building working fusion reactors. So I'd rather trust the thoughts of some random Slashdot poster than a 'top scientist' who's achieved nothing of substance after spending decades and billions of dollars in research.

Re:Come on now

[bill_mcgonigle]

do not have the political power to do anything but make a mostly ignored noise as they complain

The US hasn't built a new nuclear reactor in 30 years. The 'smelly hippies' won.

Then they (Clinton, Kerry, Gore) got into power and killed our research into the safe kind of reactor that cleans up our nuclear waste.

Now they rake in untold fortunes promoting 'green energy' which doesn't seem to actually make any mathematical sense. But they've finally figured out the secret to alchemy: CO2 + government = gold.