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French ITER Fusion Project To Take At Least 6 Years Longer Than Planned (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: The multibillion dollar ITER fusion project under construction in France will take at least an additional 6 years to complete, compared with the current schedule, a meeting of the governing council was told this week. ITER management has also asked the seven international partners which are backing the project for additional funding to finish the job. Under recent estimates, ITER was expected to cost some $13 billion and not begin operations until 2019. The new start date would be 2025.
.. of ignorant "Fusion power is only 30 years away, and has been for the past half century!" comments in 3, 2, 1...
Hello from Sputnik 2. I am receiving you.
Anti-gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is more promising. Why would we need so much energy if it will be possible to move all over the universe in ultralight vehicles.
I really hope one of the other fusion projects succeeds before then. The earlier we get it, the better.
Lockheed claim they might have a prototype by 2019 and a commercial unit by 2024.
Then you have the likes of the Focus Fusion thing, shooting for the big prize, proton-boron fusion (less neutrons, no need to breed tritium, efficient solid-state energy conversion), that has made more progress (in terms of particle energy * confinement time) in the last 5 years on a few million bucks than ITER has in 8 with billions.
Both approaches are a lot smaller than the aircraft-carrier sized reactor (no, not sized for an aircraft carrier, as big as an aircraft carrier) that tokamak designs predict will be useful ; a bunch of small, municipal reactors the size of shipping containers will make for a more robust, more democratic, less monopolistic and corrupt energy generation system.
There is an interesting talk on TED by the guy who started general fusion. Basically he shows a graph of the progress towards over unity production from commercial reactor designs since the 1950s. The progress has actually been surprisingly good, but the trouble is it has had to come from a long way back. If you consider that there is no fundamental law that makes the over-unity line special, it does seem like we are very close to crossing it now.
I think the biggest question though is whether these reactors will ever make commercial sense. The big benefit of fusion is that it has basically zero fuel costs and the potential to provide endless amounts of energy. But this is basically the same as renewables for all intents and purposes*. In the end it will really be a competition of capital costs, and given how simple something like a solar panel is, it may require an even bigger breakthrough beyond just getting a commercial reactor going to make fusion viable. Of course if they can get the size of the reactor down then that will open up huge opportunities as a high density power source (ships, aircraft, spacecraft), but again, that is going to need big breakthroughs beyond just achieving over-unity.
*while fusion has the potential to provide more energy than harvestable insolation, this would represent a massive injection of heat into the biosphere and I doubt that would have good implications for climate change. It is also hard to imagine what we could possibly do with that much energy without causing serious issues.
I don't understand why they can't fund the project more lavishly and try to get results from this thing sooner. It seems like the potential rewards would be worth the risk.
This is water on the mills of the tocamak critics. ... I always thought they *do* have a point or two.
Net energy with magnetic cages required to keep super-hot plasma controlable is a very difficult thing, even *if* we manage to achieve stable prolonged tocamak fusion.
They've spent 16 billion or so already. I'd thoroughly review their plans and perhaps cap the entire project at 25 billion or so. If they max that out, put the money into solar and space exploration. It's better off there for now I'd say. Even cold fusion research would make more sense than this money-sinkhole imho.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If not, we should bring them in. They have a record of getting things done.
I think fusion is coming a bit sooner than the ITER roadmap seems to imply....I hope. It doesn't really look like large scale tokamaks are the way to go, practically all the inner area (where the plasma meets the wall) needs to be replaced after every single run (millisecond runs at that). Canada's general fusion has a novel design using a braided design to naturally let the plasma confinement work, but I haven't heard much about it lately. There is also the laser focus pellet reactor designs, but I think the issue with that automating the pellet placement.
To me lockheed has the right approach, a smaller modular design also scales well. Rather than having to build giant nuclear plant like facilities.
Even if fusion does take another 30 years, we have plenty of good fission options, salt reactors are my personal favorite.
It is only french when it is failing. When things are looking good, then it becomes international.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Time had a cover story on a half dozen private fusion projects costly less than billion dollars apiece. Some are based on clever unconventional physics ideas. Its a lot like private space travel. They is a possibility the little guys could have breakthrough.
I'm going to post this blogroll again:
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/why-fusion-will-never-happen/
They are working on the wrong problem. The non-nuclear portion of the system costs more than a wind turbine of the same rating. You can improve the reactor all you want, but unless you make it negative dollars, you're still losing out to existing technologies.
With all that energy we could just run load of fridges with the doors open. Do I have to do all the thinking around here?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Cows do run on solar energy. So do steak and milk eaters by running on cows. Mmmm! Mmmm! Cows are edible solar energy stores. Mmmmmm!
There are forces in the nuclear equation that are greater than simple megawatts. These are economic forces. Throughout the energy industry are forces and counter forces trying to determine where our energy will come from. The players include governments and lobbyists from the oil, gas, coal, nuclear, solar and wind industries. You and I don't have a lobbyist. So what will be financed is what will be profitable for the most powerful lobbyist. (Assuming 'free' market conditions.)
The utility companies have an interest too. You and I might like a microwave oven sized fusion generator in our basement or our automobile, but the utility company can't profit from that and the government can't tax our consumption. As a result, only huge fusion generators will be built permitting a continuing monopoly in the energy industry.
...omphaloskepsis often...
For those reasons, it wouldn't surprise me if a country like China just puts one together themselves in 5 years or so from start of project, and winds up putting out all the research results ITER was supposed to yield before it ever gets turned on.