ITER is a multi-decade PHD and engineering make work project with the cover story of trying to solve nuclear fusion power generation.
Ghostbuster Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve WORKED in the private sector. They expect *results*.
ITER is not the private sector.
Steven Krivit at New Energy Times describes how it will fall short of its power generation goals. The $22 billion project will then likely fail in its purpose of proving net power gain for Tokomaks at near utility scale.
This is similar to the prior article where we found that the over budget and delayed and failing California high speed rail will now need to spend about $10 billion more and take a few more years to build a 13.5 mile tunnel if it were to ever achieve its purpose.
The ITER project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations. The ITER fusion reactor has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power for around twenty minutes while needing 50 megawatts to operate. Thereby the machine aims to demonstrate the principle of producing more energy from the fusion process than is used to initiate it, something that has not yet been achieved in any fusion reactor.
Krivit indicates that it will produce 200 megawatts or less.
Construction of the ITER Tokamak complex started in 2013 and the building costs are now over US$14 billion as of June 2015. The facility is expected to finish its construction phase in 2021 and will start commissioning the reactor that same year and initiate plasma experiments in 2025 with full deuterium–tritium fusion experiments starting in 2035. If ITER becomes operational, it will become the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment in use with a plasma volume of 840 cubic meters, surpassing the Joint European Torus by almost a factor of 10. The first commercial demonstration fusion power station, named DEMO, is proposed to follow on from the ITER project.
This translate to – we want 3 to 4 generations of tens of thousands of physicists and engineers to have jobs.
They hope for vastly improved superconducting magnets to make the designs ten times smaller and more efficient. But 30-60 tesla magnets make all kinds of other nuclear fusion designs viable.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Hot fusion unity is likely to be impossible. You can asymptotically approach it, but never quite achieve it. The brute force approach is simply wrong. Hot fusion attempts are doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Making something bigger and throwing more money at it almost always fails. The current hot fusion approach needs to be discarded and recognized for what it is – a failure. Hot fusion is gobbling up enormous resources – resources that would be much more wisely spent on other more novel and ingenious approaches. We are stupidly putting all of our eggs in one basket.
I don’t blame Dr. Stantz for his opinion. I firmly believe ther is a lot of truth in it.
Of course after spending such a lot of money I would like them to succeed. But the E in ITER stands for experimental. We all know that experiments do not necessarily produce the desired outcomes. Could it be that (controlled) fusion is always going to be 30 years in the future?
About thermonuclear controlled reactor.
SandustanBrasov –Kronstadt 2. A.Einstein through the his relativity to REVERSED the reality of the our terresterial world. He remove the ETHER from physics and give materiality the space and the time. But the SPACE limit the place where it can unfolding material actions and the TIME mark the period of unfolding to some material actions. The space and the time are only ABSTRACT notions, absolute and colateral which show where and when it unfolding certain material actions.?
SandustanBrasov 4. But the ETHER is a physical reality constituted from a very small matter, invisible for human eye, and is formed from atoms more small with 7…8 order of dimension than the atoms of the chemical elements. The matter of the ether penetrate in all the visible bodies and is the physical matter which fills both the interplanetary space and the interatomic space. The ether is a matter with mass and weigth, being subdued and she the action of the universal attraction law.?
SandustanBrasov 5. The PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL MATTER is the visible matter with free eye and is constituted from atoms of the chemical elements. The PHYSICAL-ETHEREAL MATTER is a matter with atoms more small with 7..8 order of dimension than the atoms of chemical elements, and the bodies formed from this matter are invisible for the human eye. The ETHEREAL PHYSICS it occupy with the study of the ethereal matters, but which was abandoned in the XX century, because in 1905 A.Einstein excludes the ether?
SandustanBrasov 6. The ELECTRON is not an exclusive electrical load, but an elementary particle from the composition of any atom, and is only a particle with intermediate role in the unfolding of the electrical phenomenons. The REAL ELECTRICAL LOAD is a particle of electrical ether more nore small than the electron, has and she a personal and rapid rotation, producing a personal magnetic field, which it gear with the magnetic field from the round of one electrical conductor.?
SandustanBrasov 7. The ELECTRICAL FIELD is a field of particles of electrical ether, free and it move approximate in right line.The MAGNETIC FIELD from the round of one conductor is constituted forever from particles of the electrical ether, but magnetic coupled head at head and it move on a curve forming concentric circles in round to one conductor.The ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD is a combination of particles of electrical field anf of curls of magnetic field, having property of the evolve in space.?
SandustanBrasov 8. The ELECTRICAL CURRENT consist in circulation in the round and in lengthways to one electrical conductor to the particles of electrical ether guided on the magnetic field from the round the conductor; magnetic field formed all from particles of electrical ether coupled head at head and expelled in concentric circles in the round the conductor.If it interrupt the electrical current, then it decompose and this magnetic field in particles of electrical ether and it drain in circuit
SandustanBrasov 9. The ACTUAL ELECTRICAL GENERATORS : galvanic elements and electrical accumulators; dynamos and alternators; thermoelements and photoelectric cell – transform nothing, but they only gather the electrical energy= the particles of the electrical ether which exist in metals, in the environing medium, in the thermic radiation or in the ray of light!?
SandustanBrasov 13. The information by satellites and terrestrial observations say-us near all about the Sun activity. Along a cycle of 11 years, the places of solar spots appearance change slowly from plus minus 50 degrees latitude at the beginning of the activity’s cycle, to ecuator near by latitudes at the end of the cycle. SandustanBrasov 14. The appearance of a spot is preceded by the appearance of a magnetic field of 5000 gauss, but which disappears after spots disappearance, betraying the whirligig’s inner move of matter from solar mass, whirligig tube that pass through the solar mass by one hemisphere in another.
SandustanBrasov 15. After a minimum spot’s period, the Sun begins the formation whirl’s tubes from plus minus 50 degrees latitude to equator’s zone, realizing in the central zone a space with higher temperature and concentration, which can assure the beginning thermonuclear reaction, of which pressure will push whirl’s tubes towards the equatorial area and will reduce the differential movement in the Sun internal coatings.
SandustanBrasov 16. Thus in the case of the Sun are two sort of magnetic fields: 1.- The principal magnetic field of the solar magnetosphere which dress the solar mass, and 2.- the secondary magnetic fields which pass through the whirligig tubes by one hemisphere in another, and at whom ends it found the symetrcal solar spots. The lines of the secondary magnetic fields dress and they the outside of solar mass from one hemisphere at another.
SandustanBrasov 17. Because the rotation of the solar mass the lines of the secondary magnetic fields are not parallel with the lines of the principal magnetic field, but are adjacent and thus it form at the surface of the Sun a texture of magnetic lines, as a magnetic resultant wall, which permit not the solar incandescent mass let be scattered in space.
SandustanBrasov 18. This magnetic resultant wall form the REAL SOLAR MAGNETIC TRAP(and not gravitational pressure) which press the solar mass and realize the conditions for the beginning, respectively, the unfolding of the thermonuclear reaction. The mobile magnetic walls result through weaving of adjacent magnetic fields. The lines of one magnetic field it bind with the lines the other magnetic field obtaining a resultant magnetic field as a solid stratum with thickness.
SandustanBrasov 21. The electrical ether- for example- proceed from magnetic field from atoms, eliminated in following combination of the deuterium with tritium in helium.The eliminated magnetic field it decompose in particles of electrical ether in chamber of thermonuclear reaction.Any chemical combination eliminate this electrical ether.But at the chemical combination the chemical elements which participate at reaction can not to be magnetic isolated because they it combine before to be ionized.?
SandustanBrasov 25. The conditions of thermonuclear controlled fusion: temperature, concentration, confinement and duration – can not obtained never in a tokamak installation, because the her incapacity of the magnetic trap, which can not dress and sourround whole the thermonuclear plasma. The plasma can not be restrained, can not be maintained and thus can not be heating. Till now 2015 – was confined not the plasma on the tokamak installations.?
SandustanBrasov 26. Now the ITER can not be a makerstars, because the his specialists know not how work the Sun with his principal components. In outside of incandescent solar mass exist: principal magnetic field(solar magnetospher with magnetic trap); secondary magnetic fields(made by whirl’s tubes); radiations belt; the “butterfly” diagram(with solar spots position in the ends of the whirl’s tubes, which pass through the solar mass); whirl’s pressure; magnetic pressure by principal magnetic field
SandustanBrasov -Kronstadt 28. The texture of toroidal, poloidal or stellarator magnetic field is too rare for to form a magnetic trap. The magnetic trap must let be one electromagnetic stratified wall with weaved at entrance and with disweaved at emengence. The electromagnetic wall of the magnetic trap is a wall with formation and continuous displacement.
SandustanBrasov 29. In the magnetic trap of the tokamak installation it produce only magnetic field which it maintain in the round of the coil without to fulfil the role of magnetic trap. The electromagnetic field can evolve(go) in space and in the interior of one spherical chamber, can be weaved in order to form a stratified network, which let hold the particles of the thermonuclear plasma.
SandustanBrasov 30. Feeding a superconductive coil with an electrical current it obtain in the her round only a magnetic field. But disposing in the round of the superconductive coil a certain magnetic and dielectric pieces, it obtain the variation of the electrical permitivity and of the magnetic permeability, which will transform the magnetic field of the superconductive coil in electromagnetic field, which can evolve(go) more faraway in space, without to close immediately the curl.
SandustanBrasov 31. I turn the globe of plasma for to realize the magnetohydrodynamic principle of directly extraction of the particles of current(electrical ether). The atoms of helium after formation can pass through the texture of the magnetic trap as residue. The electromagnetic field of the magnetic trap must let enter with power for to space out, to press, and turn with 800 m/s the globe of plasma and afterwards fastly let go outside.
SandustanBrasov 32. Thus, with a sure magnetic trap, without switchs of heat and with the direct extraction to the electrical energy=to the particles of electrical ether, it can pass direct at the final phase of obtaining to the commercial controlled thermonuclear reactor. I consider that the price of research and realization in this case, can be of at least 10 times more small than the actual ITER project, and separated can be realized of many countries.
SandustanBrasov 33. This reactor has spherical combustion chamber, with inner magnetic trap, with the electromagnetic field realized outside and introduced inside the sphere with electromagnetic field and fuel introduction device, and direct colected possibilitys of electrcal energy, with semispherical collectors. The device of introduction is composed from: 1).-two high-speed motors with plasmatron in its central zone; 2).-two magnetic circuits for leading the electromagnetic field flux.
SandustanBrasov 34. The spherical thermonuclear combustion chamber is formed from two joined semispherical parts. The feeding with fuel and electromagnetic filed flux it make through the oriffices from the central part of the semispheres, and the emergence in outside to the electromagnetic field flux it make through the maximum zone, where is joined the semispheres. The two high-speed motors are rotated in the same sense for to establishes a direct electric field between collectors.
SandustanBrasov 35. The test for nuclear fusion realisation on Tokamak’s installations and with LASER cannot bring anything new for the energetics’ future. I bind the thermonuclear controlled reactor schedule by the Sun model , by the reactive electromagnetic motor schedule from Palenque stone’s tombe. You see the my project for thermonuclear controlled reactor. My e-mail: [email protected] You see and You Tube: sandustanBrasov’s Channel with sites.google,com/site/ httpwwwreactor2013com/
SandustanBrasov 38. The model of thermonuclear controlled reactor proposed of myself- reproduces entirely the conditions from Sun. Viz: 1).produce a globe of plasma and turned it with 800m/s; 2).ensure a magnetic trap with two electromagnetic crossed fields which dress and turn the globe of plasma; 3).supply continuously with hydrogen in state of plasma and ensure the its confination. Moreover, makes possibly the direct gathering of the electrical current
SandustanBrasov 39 The tokamak installation has nothing in common with the Sun and with the thermonuclear controlled fusion. Viz: 1).can not concentrate and confine the plasma; 2).can not isolate plasma face of internal walls of the toroidal chamber because they it will smelt at 5…10% from temperature of fusion; 3).the switchs of heat can not will be used because can not it extract heat from the toroidal chamber.
SandustanBrasov 40. The introduction in whirlpool through plasmatron to the fuel: deuterium and tritium under shape of plasma and in the magnetic turning field will go at the arrangement for the lateral union of the protons and neutrons in alpha particles. Thus, from the electrical particles of the plasma together with neutrons, through union in alpha particles, respective in atoms of normal helium(4 /2He), become neutral from electrical viewpoint and they will can go out through the magnetic trap.
SandustanBrasov 41. In the tokamak installation the plasma’s components(= protons, neutrons and electrons), it can not arrange in lateral union as let form alpha particles, respective atoms of normal helium(4/2He). Viz, it can not confine the plasmas’s components and it can not realize the starting of the thermonuclear reaction of fusion.
SandustanBrasov 42. Through the whirlpool of the magnetic trap are turned and the neutrons. This is the mode of unfolding of the thermonuclear reaction from Sun. The waiting as the collision of fusion let it make accidental or aleatory is not a solution for a commercial installation. Thus after the lateral coupling proton-neutron-proton-neutron in alpha particle, this will attract and will fix rigid and two electrons forming the normal atom of helium(4/2He).
SandustanBrasov 51. In the case of the thermonuclear explosion it produce suddenly – in a few fractions of second, a big quantity of particles of the electrical ether, which in the them entirely produce the electromagnetic impulse accompanyed immediately of the wave of shock, especially an ethereal wave of shock, what shake the ethereal mass from the round of the explosion and the ethereal mass from the bodies meeted in one’s way, destroy them on a ray of many kilometres.
SandustanBrasov 52. The electromagnetic impulse which act about the electrical installations, is, in reality, an electromagnetic radiation – is the real electrical load, constituted from particles of the electrical ether, which can circulate through the circuits of the our electrical installations. These particles proceed from the reaction of the thermonuclear explosion, and are the flaw of mass, of the reaction. These must let capture us, direct without to utilize none switch of heat.
About thermonuclear controlled reactor.
SandustanBrasov –Kronstadt 2. A.Einstein through the his relativity to REVERSED the reality of the our terresterial world. He remove the ETHER from physics and give materiality the space and the time. But the SPACE limit the place where it can unfolding material actions and the TIME mark the period of unfolding to some material actions. The space and the time are only ABSTRACT notions, absolute and colateral which show where and when it unfolding certain material actions.?
SandustanBrasov 4. But the ETHER is a physical reality constituted from a very small matter, invisible for human eye, and is formed from atoms more small with 7…8 order of dimension than the atoms of the chemical elements. The matter of the ether penetrate in all the visible bodies and is the physical matter which fills both the interplanetary space and the interatomic space. The ether is a matter with mass and weigth, being subdued and she the action of the universal attraction law.?
SandustanBrasov 5. The PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL MATTER is the visible matter with free eye and is constituted from atoms of the chemical elements. The PHYSICAL-ETHEREAL MATTER is a matter with atoms more small with 7..8 order of dimension than the atoms of chemical elements, and the bodies formed from this matter are invisible for the human eye. The ETHEREAL PHYSICS it occupy with the study of the ethereal matters, but which was abandoned in the XX century, because in 1905 A.Einstein excludes the ether?
SandustanBrasov 6. The ELECTRON is not an exclusive electrical load, but an elementary particle from the composition of any atom, and is only a particle with intermediate role in the unfolding of the electrical phenomenons. The REAL ELECTRICAL LOAD is a particle of electrical ether more nore small than the electron, has and she a personal and rapid rotation, producing a personal magnetic field, which it gear with the magnetic field from the round of one electrical conductor.?
SandustanBrasov 7. The ELECTRICAL FIELD is a field of particles of electrical ether, free and it move approximate in right line.The MAGNETIC FIELD from the round of one conductor is constituted forever from particles of the electrical ether, but magnetic coupled head at head and it move on a curve forming concentric circles in round to one conductor.The ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD is a combination of particles of electrical field anf of curls of magnetic field, having property of the evolve in space.?
SandustanBrasov 8. The ELECTRICAL CURRENT consist in circulation in the round and in lengthways to one electrical conductor to the particles of electrical ether guided on the magnetic field from the round the conductor; magnetic field formed all from particles of electrical ether coupled head at head and expelled in concentric circles in the round the conductor.If it interrupt the electrical current, then it decompose and this magnetic field in particles of electrical ether and it drain in circuit
SandustanBrasov 9. The ACTUAL ELECTRICAL GENERATORS : galvanic elements and electrical accumulators; dynamos and alternators; thermoelements and photoelectric cell – transform nothing, but they only gather the electrical energy= the particles of the electrical ether which exist in metals, in the environing medium, in the thermic radiation or in the ray of light!?
SandustanBrasov 13. The information by satellites and terrestrial observations say-us near all about the Sun activity. Along a cycle of 11 years, the places of solar spots appearance change slowly from plus minus 50 degrees latitude at the beginning of the activity’s cycle, to ecuator near by latitudes at the end of the cycle. SandustanBrasov 14. The appearance of a spot is preceded by the appearance of a magnetic field of 5000 gauss, but which disappears after spots disappearance, betraying the whirligig’s inner move of matter from solar mass, whirligig tube that pass through the solar mass by one hemisphere in another.
SandustanBrasov 15. After a minimum spot’s period, the Sun begins the formation whirl’s tubes from plus minus 50 degrees latitude to equator’s zone, realizing in the central zone a space with higher temperature and concentration, which can assure the beginning thermonuclear reaction, of which pressure will push whirl’s tubes towards the equatorial area and will reduce the differential movement in the Sun internal coatings.
SandustanBrasov 16. Thus in the case of the Sun are two sort of magnetic fields: 1.- The principal magnetic field of the solar magnetosphere which dress the solar mass, and 2.- the secondary magnetic fields which pass through the whirligig tubes by one hemisphere in another, and at whom ends it found the symetrcal solar spots. The lines of the secondary magnetic fields dress and they the outside of solar mass from one hemisphere at another.
SandustanBrasov 17. Because the rotation of the solar mass the lines of the secondary magnetic fields are not parallel with the lines of the principal magnetic field, but are adjacent and thus it form at the surface of the Sun a texture of magnetic lines, as a magnetic resultant wall, which permit not the solar incandescent mass let be scattered in space.
SandustanBrasov 18. This magnetic resultant wall form the REAL SOLAR MAGNETIC TRAP(and not gravitational pressure) which press the solar mass and realize the conditions for the beginning, respectively, the unfolding of the thermonuclear reaction. The mobile magnetic walls result through weaving of adjacent magnetic fields. The lines of one magnetic field it bind with the lines the other magnetic field obtaining a resultant magnetic field as a solid stratum with thickness.
SandustanBrasov 21. The electrical ether- for example- proceed from magnetic field from atoms, eliminated in following combination of the deuterium with tritium in helium.The eliminated magnetic field it decompose in particles of electrical ether in chamber of thermonuclear reaction.Any chemical combination eliminate this electrical ether.But at the chemical combination the chemical elements which participate at reaction can not to be magnetic isolated because they it combine before to be ionized.?
SandustanBrasov 25. The conditions of thermonuclear controlled fusion: temperature, concentration, confinement and duration – can not obtained never in a tokamak installation, because the her incapacity of the magnetic trap, which can not dress and sourround whole the thermonuclear plasma. The plasma can not be restrained, can not be maintained and thus can not be heating. Till now 2015 – was confined not the plasma on the tokamak installations.?
SandustanBrasov 26. Now the ITER can not be a makerstars, because the his specialists know not how work the Sun with his principal components. In outside of incandescent solar mass exist: principal magnetic field(solar magnetospher with magnetic trap); secondary magnetic fields(made by whirl’s tubes); radiations belt; the “butterfly” diagram(with solar spots position in the ends of the whirl’s tubes, which pass through the solar mass); whirl’s pressure; magnetic pressure by principal magnetic field
Who would have guessed solving this problem wouldn’t happen on budget?! Everyone. Who cares if it does as long as it does? No one.
“Poorly written article”… Well the author is quite realistic. Physicists, scientists did not invent anything important since the late 1980’s. They aren’t even capable of sending astronauts to the Moon yet, and the landing on Mars is even technologically, economically more distant as it was in the 1960’s! Not to mention the Concorde project, it died… So where are scientists (physicists) like existed in each single century; from Kepler, Gallileo, James Watt, Ampere, Maxwell, Tesla, Einstein, Schroedinger?? It seems as the Russian (sci fi) project called Tokamak (fusion project) died too. They are indeed light years away from producing efficient electricity out of nuclear fusions… WTF happened with the school curriculum? We are still living in the industrial (fossil) 19-20th century, where the most important source of energy are oil, gas and coal.
Hum… ITER is a tokamak.
Yup. This is Establishment Science everywhere. The Global Warming Fraud grant scam is their current Sale of Indulgences gig, too.
Time to abolish the NSF. Time to cut funding for establishment science by at least 90%. Go back to the old system where private patrons financed science…and expected results, too.
You could always move to Kansas or Saudi Arabia, similar proclivities in this area.
The only thing more wasteful than most government projects are multinational government projects. ITER & SLS will share a common fate – both will be superseded by private efforts before they succeed.
There’s a big difference between looking bad and being bad. Like it or not fusion is hard, and any honest disclosure of costs and time-frame is going to be disappointing. You can always go to a private company living on investor money, without financial disclosures and promising fusion by tomorrow, that will look good but won’t get you anywhere.
Same goes for spaceflight, but I digress
It’s not fusion that’s hard, as such. It’s steady state fusion that’s hard. If you want your fuel pellet consumed in a millisecond or less, the tech is well established. Just with bigger fuel pellets than people like.
The basic problem with fusion is that we don’t need it. If we *needed* it, we’d just go ahead with building a power plant based on small hydrogen bombs. You could design one by the end of the year, and be producing power inside of a couple years.
But we don’t, because we don’t need fusion. We can get by just fine without it. We could power the whole planet’s economy on fission until the Sun goes off the main sequence, without ever fusing any atoms. So instead of building the fusion plants we know how to build, we keep chasing fusion the way it *doesn’t* want to work.
Let’s have knowledgeable writers from the projects write the articles instead of talking heads!
More nonsense comments by another talking head.
That all that we have is news talking head writers.
Let’s have qualified individuals write the news articles instead.
Persons from the project!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This article is nonsense.
Who wrote this article – an eighth grader?
QUANTUM THEORY WOULD BENEFIT THIS PROJECT CUPCAKES!
As useless as a newborn baby. Best to heave it all in the trash and get a mule instead. Much more useful than a fusion reactor, or any baby you can name. Right??
“as of June 2015”?! Please folks at NextBigFuture, so some actual research and get current data.
nextbigfuture is in dire need of some adult supervision. (Are they owned by Yahoo, or what?) ITER is not intended to produce any power, really, though it is to have a net energy gain, and quite a large one. It’s for research purposes; nothing is going to the grid. As for the supposed power shortfall, it’s probably from confusing thermal power with electrical power. The thermal power is supposed to be 500 MW. If it were converted to electrical, could expect about 200 MW, but since there is no intention to generate electricity, what does that have to do with anything? I doubt if ITER even has any generator equipment. Why would it? IAC there is not even a proposed reason why there would be a shortfall.
Jehan,
I think the LENR component here is being researched by individual lab rats and private corporations, (Toyota, Mitsubishi Corp), using
0$ of public funds.
Whereas ITER is viewed as a bottomless sinkhole of financial waste
@Roseland67, there are no private corporations doing real LENR research. There have been a few companies that did some small lab tests, but the vast majority of those were quickly abandoned when the facts didn’t turn out to be true. Trust me, if LENR worked the way many supporters claim it does, there would be hundreds if not thousands of peer reviewed papers published about it already and the ITER would probably be abandoned by now.
ITER popularized in details and scientifically debunked by a French plasma physicist. English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi_uurHZY-g&list=PLfdj8oy5zeoEyEgTusYRznnwptG_n-OVo
What the fusion community don’t mention is the whole stainless steel building will become a radio active and it is in a controlled melt so millions need to be spend in upgrades to keep it going. I laughed when I heard a ASME presentation by the Princeton fusion about 40 years ago. Just a waste of Tax dollars. Wind, solar and biofuels way to go and you can store energy easily.
@Craigthinks, the part about it becoming radioactive is incorrect, the problem is that the steel does wear down and has to be replaced every 5-10 years. Now I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but steel is very very cheap to make.
The real problem isn’t materials. It is by the time the DEMO reactor is built (2050?) the world will have already converted to renewable energy sources. DEMO would just be the *first* operational fusion reactor. To be useful, you need many of them. We’re talking end of the century time frame. Meanwhile, solar and wind get cheaper every year and their installation rate is already 130 GW/year (~40GW average output)
The headline of your article seems to I plythat you have a negative opinion of Fusion produced energy.
From my knowledge, the ITER project is a bad idea, but considering the amount of scientific effort applied on it, I think there is little doubt it will indeed work. Some sources say that it might even surpass the 500MW goal and achieve the so dreamed Ignition, where external injection of power is not required.
But the ITER project and a lot of the other projects around it doen’t represent a viable path to commercial fusion power.
Maybe new technologies and knowledge about plasma physics might solve that.
Sounds like new energy times is confused. To save costs, ITER is doing ohmic studies first, then ramping up auxiliary heating over time. So 200w output sounds like a consequence of running at reduced heating powers not fundamental constraints.
This article is factually incorrect. ITER was never intended to be full scale power production, DEMO was always projected to be larger.
ITERs job was to produce plasma conditions equivalent to that: as hot, as dense etc. so the physics of the plasma could be understood well enough to design demo.
This is like confusing the LHC creating conditions “like” the early universe to study the early universe with LHC actually creating a big bang.
This article makes little sense. Are you saying the reactor is supposed to operate for a total of 20 minutes? That is what the article seems to say, and I think that is ridiculous.
It’s intended to run 20minute long pulses.
All these articles on this site suck!!!!!
You obviously can do better.
So why don’t you give us the link to your site, so we all can enjoy your enlightened views.
Just because we can determine that an article is poorly written and is not based on any factual information to the point of sourcing a gee-whiz-technobabble hit piece, doesn’t mean #Golestan1 can write or has any inclination to write. We are suffering way too much fake and provocative emotional hit pieces lately, described as “news.”
Editorial examination and discrimination by REAL tech and science experts is almost non-existent in these blogs.
Dude, the source for this drivel is New Energy Times. The author. Steven Krivits doesn’t even have a science degree. While he claims the ITER science is bad, he is out there promoting LENR which has zero proof of working. If you think the ITER tokamak design sucks what about LENR?? LENR idiots have been making claims of excess energy for decades without one independent proof or generator built. They keep claiming the oil companies are suppressing their work yet none of them have published a design or gotten bumped off by Exxon.
Sir ,
I can tell you THAT you are wrong about L.E.N.R TECHNOLOGY ….. Because the company that I represent
from Europe have MASTERED that type of technology and we ARE ABLE TO SAY TODAY THAT WE HAVE A WORKING PROTOTYPE for the last past 6 months ….!! And yes are at 1 kw x 9 kw GAIN …!!!
So , Soon we will have LENR TECH in many industrial sectors …!
DI, proof or its not real. Show us some independently verified numbers that prove what you’re saying. Oh that’s right, you can’t and you won’t. If LENR actually worked with a 9 times increase in power output over power input, there would be hundreds of papers that prove it and show the experimental data from your imaginary reactor.
This is real ! I have a cold fusion reactor working in my basement but I can’t reveal it because the “men in black” (who work for the oil companies) will kill myself and the family to keep it away for the public.
Now, where did I put those meds…..
People will kill the planet in 5 years. Oceans will be dead. No fish no food. This is ridiculous. You need it work right now today to safe the planet. 2035 to start working ….huh that’s too late…. Of course gasoline mafia pay them not to work ..LOL I hope Lockheed Martin Skunk Works team will make this ITER obsolete. They build much more smaller reactor and much more effective and design. Or maybe Germans with their new fusion technology called Stellarator can make a progress.
Wow! No food without fusion in 5 years! Man, that’s serious stuff!
No oceans in five years without fusion? How ironic considering that fusion is hoping to use oceans as fuel.
I repeat my call for some on-line site where we can make small bets on questions like this. I’ve got $20 that says I will be able to buy fish at the local supermarket in 2022.
You really think the planet will be dead in 5 years? I had people in High school telling me the very same thing in the 70’s and other people telling me that in college in the 80’s. Somehow, I’m still here.
I agree with your general outlook, except that it is already going on. Check out for stuff that could work long term, IF we did it!
http://www.ela-iet.com/EMD/BeijingCriswell5745100813.pdf
Wow is this article poorly written.
Yes, but this is a click bate site. I think is better than average. Lots of teasing headlines and articles quickly written hoping someone clicks on an add for money.
Brian trying to vilify the public sector yet again for no discernible reason. I have one word for you ‘Andrea Rossi’ or ‘Randy Mills’.
Nonsense
The Apollo Project was also not in the private sector
The ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet not
Many advancements of science happened this way
I can smell the bacon, time to send in the butcher. I really wanted this to succeed but this has gotten ridiculous. Put the money into Wendelstein 7-X instead.
Wendelstein 7-X is actually part of the ITER project and as far as I know the only part which has had any success by confining plasma at fusion temperature.
Stellearators like Wendelstein-7 is just a tokamak with fancier looking configuration. It’s still based on magnetically confined plasma in a torus, with difference being the design twists particle flow to cancel out some sources of instability and making it easier to maintain confinement. Drawback is magnets required to produce the twisted particle path are extreme difficulty to build, hence why it wasn’t built for 50 years after invention, and like all things difficult to build, it’s also extremely expensive. You can think of it as replacing regular tokamak’s software control with physical hardware control.
In either case, aside from confinement benefits, Stellearators share all the same thermal and material issue as standard tokamak designs. Result from W-7 research will add to our understanding of magnetic confinement, but nobody in the field expect it to replace standard tokamaks anytime soon, if just because of the astronomical cost.
They are both toroidal magnetic confinement devices but they are also both different.
Tokamaks induce the poloidal field by inducing a current in the plasma (normally by induction through a coil in the centre rod).
Stelerators have purely external coils, , leading to much more complex topology and coil shapes.
I say that having worked on both.
They are different things.
Projects designed by bureaucrats cost twice as much and rarely work as planned. If they took 1/3 of that money in 5 years they could start different prototype molten salt reactors like LFTR and WAMSR They could be cranked out like jumbo jets on an assembly line. The only reason they are not funding something that can succeed is the oil companies and the military industrial complex owns the government and would start a revolution before it happens.
Unless you have been blind the Global Warming has gone exponential. 2C is no longer possible and IMO 5-8C is most likely. Our children will suffer while the rich jerks and the corporate sociopaths live is the last habitable places on the planet.
Oil? When will you conspiracy people work it out? Oil isn’t threatened by fusion. Coal is threatened by fusion.
At least make your James Bond stories slightly believable.
Oil and natural gas, same industry, are threatened by cheap electricity. The largest users will be the electric cars displacing gasoline. With cheap abundant electricity gas powered cars can be retired. Heating oil and natural gas will be replaced with electricity. EXXON has spent tens of millions denying the existence of Global Warming so that funding alternatives will be slowed and they can pump every last barrel in the ground.
The oil industry is one of the top three contributors to congress with 4 to 1 for the Republicans. Republicans have opposed support for any alternatives at both a state and federal level. They deny global warming and any efforts to slow it down. They oppose efficiency standards for cars and even for light bulbs. Those are facts not some James Bond conspiracy theory.
Coal & natural gas are both used for electricity generation, so anything that might generate electricity more cheaply is a threat to companies selling either fuel. Oil is seldom used for electricity generation, but natural gas is usually found with Oil so the Oil companies want to sell natural gas.
@Ralph the military yes, oil companies, no.
This is what you get when results and shame (but not money/wishful thinking) are divorced from any project. In this case, pathological science.
The smallish fusion projects surviving with meager budgets that have sprouted at ITER’s feet have much greater chances of success.
And they themselves have had and still have a long road ahead.
You assess them as having greater chance of success based on what?
To me, having done lit reviews on early fusion research they look less promising than tokamaks and Stelerators (which is why RFCs and pinches were abandoned then). They only look better now because they are failing to update the naive scaling laws and transport mechanisms discovered in tokamaks and Stelerators (hint: the underlying mechanisms are fundamental Physics not machine specific).
And you are indeed starting to see that these grassroots initiatives underperform their initial scalings.
Lockheed’s gone from “on a truck” to “in a smallish building” – bearing in mind that’s pretty much the size of optimised superconducting spherical tokamak. DPF – similar story – no longer scaling as I^4 or whatever. Similar as I see it for pollywells.
Some of the biggest free loaders I have ever met work on the ITER site. Millions wasted on a daily basis feeding the beast.