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Published online 27 May 2009 |
Nature
459,
488-489
(2009)
| doi:10.1038/459488a
Corrected online: 28 May 2009
News
Fusion dreams delayed
International partners are likely to scale back the first version of the ITER reactor.
St Paul-lez-Durance, France
ITER — a multi-billion-euro international experiment boldly aiming to prove atomic fusion as a power source — will initially be far less ambitious than physicists had hoped, Nature has learned.
Faced with ballooning costs and growing delays, ITER's seven partners are likely to build only a skeletal version of the device at first.
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I think the best way out of this difficulty that has been tied to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor for decades, is to simply let other interested developing countries to join and put the maximum technical and financial support they could provide. Developed countries have already contributed significantly to this peaceful technology over the past century. The fusion technology is widely agreed to be declassified, and needs to be shared by all nations for the benefit of humankind.
Nature must be congratulated on covering in this article the chaos in the ITER programme, and in its editorial raising serious questions on fusion energy, particularly whether fusion can deliver affordable electricity on a germane timescale. If there are cost difficulties with the ITER programme, what would be the projected costs of the DEMO next step, and in turn a full reactor? On this question the claim, for example on the JET website, that fusion energy will be comparable with fission energy is nonsense. Presumably they are relying on the figures in the 2005 European Fusion Development Agency report (see ), but as I pointed out in Nature 454, July 2008, p397, these were ?adjusted? to be reduced by almost a factor of three. But perhaps it is more important to point out the real difficulties with building a power producing reactor. The first is whether one can build a reactor without ever testing the materials involved, since the only realistic source of the required 14 MeV neutrons is a fusion reactor itself - a classic Catch-22 situation. Secondly, is cannot be sensible to spend huge sums on a reactor which might be destroyed by one plasma disruption, and where any maintenance of the highly radioactive structure would be impossible. Finally, there will be huge problems in obtaining the tritium (several months starting supply) and lithium (a continuous supply for breeding tritium) needed to fuel a reactor. It is not fashionable to be negative about anything but what is needed urgently is for someone influential enough within the fusion community (and courageous enough) to say that the difficulties and cost of bringing fusion power to the market place are simply too great. Rather than waste more money on ITER, it would be far more productive to see the money transferred to a programme to develop fast breeder reactors.
Looks like the old adage holds true...workable fusion power is always a few billion dollars and 15-20 years away. I wonder if the US would consider shifting a tiny amount of funding to other fusion projects such as Bussards IEC. The last I'd heard, they were looking for a paltry few million dollars to construct a 7th generation machine to prove out many of the equations generated with previous models. A few million seems like a tiny sum by comparison. Besides, there are countless billions stars in the universe all doing nuclear fusion - not one of them is shaped like a doughnut.
If large parts of the machine are going to be made radioactive, doesn't this make the whole concept not worth doing? There is plenty of uranium if they just allow breeder reactors. With Pakistan, NKorea, and soon Iran already nuclear powers, who is left to be worried about?
What contribution, if any, will the National Ignition Facility, a laser implosion ignition device, make that could of value to ITER?
I agree with the reader above who brought up the work of Dr. Robert Bussard. It must be clear by now after forty years of work with Tokamaks that there has to be a better approach. The program has evolved into a self-perpetuating big science by committee disaster. Scientists who keep promising results to government leaders and the public taxpayers are fundamentally dishonest. The article compares ITER to the International Space Station but at least the Space Station is flying. The proposed ITER is not even being designed to actually work as anything more than a test and certainly never as a prototype working reactor. Let's end this program now and find a better approach.
Desde mi punto de vista coincido plenamente con lo expresado por el Dr. Steven Cowley respecto donde debe ir el desarrollo del proyecto. Creo que en meollo de este problema no es realmente económico sino filosófico. Para mi perspectiva es claro que no se entienden, aunque no lo crean nunca es tarde para acudir a la hermenéutica histórica y cultural de los pueblos. Este desarrollo será un impresionante paso para la humanidad -será como descubrir la rueda-, sin contar con las ganancias o los ahorros que generará, incluso en otras áreas. No dejen de consultar al INVAP ?de Argentina-, que seguramente les aportará soluciones. Hay que seguir adelante con este proceso!!! I coincide fully with that expressed by the Dr. Steven Cowley concerning where the development of the project should go. I believe that in kernel of this problem it is not really economic but philosophical. For my perspective it is clear that they don't understand each other, although they don't believe it?s never late to go to the historical and cultural hermeneutics of the towns. This development will be an impressive step for the humanity - it will be as discovering the wheel -, without even having the earnings or the savings that it will generate, in other areas. Don't stop the INVAP to consult-of Argentina - that will surely contribute them solutions. Be to continue ahead with this process!!!
The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor That is what nuclear power could have been. But in the 50's they wanted to build weapons and this type of reactor would not produce that. Never mind the fact that the fuel is very plentiful and very safe in comparison. Check out Google videos and find that video.It says its what fusion could have been.