Image: Sculpture by Sachiko Akinaga, Photograph by Hironobu Maeda
In Brief
- The ITER fusion reactor promises to be a landmark step on the road toward unlimited clean energy. Once running, the machine will produce 10 times the amount of energy needed to power it.
- Yet for all its promise, the ITER project is in trouble. Billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, the reactor will not start power-production experiments until 2026 at the earliest.
- The complex reasons behind the troubles include unforeseen engineering difficulties and the baroque bureaucratic squabbles of a global partnership of seven major stakeholders.
- Critics contend that ITER has become a pie-in-the-sky boondoggle whose only purpose is to suck money away from productive clean-energy research projects like wind and solar energy.
More In This Article
Geneva was cold and gray when air force one touched down in November 1985. President Ronald Reagan had come to meet Mikhail Gorbachev, the newly appointed leader of the Soviet Union. Reagan was convinced that the risk of catastrophic nuclear war was high, and he wanted to reduce the two superpowers’ swollen arsenals. Gorbachev also recognized that the arms race was strangling the Soviet economy.
Yet the tête-à-tête quickly degenerated. Reagan lectured Gorbachev on the history of Soviet aggression. Gorbachev attacked Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, an ambitious plan to knock incoming nuclear weapons out of the sky. Negotiations nearly broke down. At five in the morning, the two sides agreed to a joint statement with no firm commitments. At the bottom—almost as a footnote—Reagan and Gorbachev inserted a gauzy pledge to develop a new source of energy “for the benefit of all mankind.”
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27 Comments
Add CommentA badly conceived project based on old ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe future of nuclear fusion, if any, is in LIFE
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Mar/NR-12-03-02.html
IMO, the critical component required to sustain nuclear fusion is the mass of the Sun...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurious how SCIAM comes up with these anti-fusion infomercials for their patrons at Shell Oil every year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrumfiel claims: "...contend that ITER has become a pie-in-the-sky boondoggle whose only purpose is to suck money away from productive clean-energy research projects like wind and solar energy..."
It is true that ITER is an international political boondoggle, much like the anti-technology Guru, Bill Clinton's International Space Station, both organized in a way to waste as much money as possible, do as little as possible, be as slow as possible. For the $175B spent on the ISS boondoggle Elon Musk & Bigelow would have a colony on Mars by now. The ITER politicians, and super-bureaucrats spent 5 yrs arguing about where to build the damn thing. With nothing-but-the-best in Hotels and Restaurants.
So yes, International mismanaged Boondoggle but NOT AS BAD as the completely worthless Wind & Solar Mega-Boondoggle. So $2B over-spent per yr on ITER, which at least will develop good plasma physics vs ~$200B spent every yr now on the Wind & Solar scam which is a TOTAL waste of money.
And of course ZIP to NIL in funding for Fast-Trak fusion projects, one of the best contenders is Robert Bussard's IEC/Polywell, which has received a few $million/yr in funding from the US Navy, just enough for them to impose a Gag Order on all results and on Bussard for most of the 18 yrs. Money the Wind & Solar Wall St. Scam Artists call pocket change or coffee money. Bussard himself started the ITER research and like others who originated it DO NOT feel it is the fastest, best or cheapest path to Fusion Energy. But Big Carbon doesn't want any real competition for their products, so NIL TO ZIP for funding on realistic Fusion or Fission, but 100's of $billions on Nutty SCAMS like CCS, Hydrogen Economy, Solar & Wind Energy, Agro-fuels. Bussard explained in a most-unwelcome letter to Congress on how to achieve Fast-Trak fusion (he was of course censured for the letter with a Gag Order imposed):
www.askmar.com/Robert%20Bussard/1995-6-6%20Letter%20to%20Congress.pdf
IEC fusion:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/03/extensions-and-modifications-of-emc2.html
nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/new-pictures-and-updated-goals-for-emc2.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU&feature=related
As for the DOE's NIF Laser, that is funded for military purposes ONLY. The facility gives science on Nuclear Weapons R&D mostly for the purpose of Pure Fusion Weapons development.
www.tfd.chalmers.se/~valeri/Mars/nukes.html
www.ieer.org/reports/fusion/fusn-toc.html
Robert Bussard, an original proponent of the Tokomak, explains why it is a poor choice for fusion R&D:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisforums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58665#27
".. We told the DoD from the beginning that the real program would cost about 150-200M..since the DoD has no charter to do such work, the political realities were that a big DoD program would attract the ire and power of the DoE to kill it, it was never funded beyond about 1/8 the level required.
So we did what we could and finally DID prove the physics and associated engineering physics constraints, scaling laws.. at 1/8-1/10 scale..same 200 M we have quoted to the DoD since the beginning.."
"..Yes, we would like to build the demo plant, and yes, it will cost about 150 (DD) to 200 M (pB11), and who knows if any investor singly or a group can or will come up with the money. One of the biggest obstacle is the world-wide tokamak lobby, which perpetuates the fraud that Hirsch, Trivelpiece and I foisted on the country in the 1970's when we started the big tokamak ball rolling.
Magnetic confinement fusion is a misnomer, as magnetic fields can NOT confine a plasma, only constrain its motion towards walls. The entire history of the MagConf program has been to reduce transport to neo-classical (not turbulent or instability-driven) losses. And THEN the machines are all inherently and inevitably huge and cost too much and make too much power to ever be economically useful --- as the utilities have been telling the AEC/DoE for 30 years. No matter, the global tokamak program provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of people in many countries, and is a safe place to put political pork funding, simply because it IS NO THREAT TO OIL - it won't ever work, but it sounds good to the untutored public.. "
"..As for energy companies "stampeding" to support us - It is clear that a view like this is ignorant of the reality of energy companies. There is only one thing the oil companies want, and that is to sell oil, and more oil. So long as the fields pump, the oil companies will squeeze. They have NO, absolutely NO interest in anything new, ins spite of all their foolish ads in magazines for wind mills and solar-PV roofs. It is all just show and tell. I know these guys, and there is no way they would support anything that might get in the way of oil. The only way to stop oil, from their view, is when it does run out. And then they''ll go for deeper drilling, new fields, Gulf geopressure gas, LNG, etc, etc, and keep raising the price, until finally foolish solar and windmills become competitive.."
dwbd...nice summary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still think funding the ITER internation project is a good idea...Its better than trying it on our own...and who knows, they may be able to produce something useable...at least they have milestones...
Fusion energy won't be commercially viable until we burn all the oil first. As long as there is a buck to be made of cheap thrills, research for fusion energy will remain on the back burner.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismost primitive organisms make methane, what can we learn from Life? There is nothing better than a weak power with high efficiency for domestic use and nearly balanced to Zero, biologically speaking! As oil is drained huge fields would cause water shortage, pollution and heavy earthquakes - carbon rules through light!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is only one way the people of the world will have a true clean, green, safe, and modular source of energy.
And that program has been started by Gary Wright here:
The Open Source LENR Project®
http://www.opensourcelenr.com/
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Neat idea, if they can avoid SCAMs & Hype like Rossi's. Wish they would do that for the IEC Polywell, but the US Navy has that locked up tight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps those who call wind and solar "scams" don't realize that the former now supplies 2.5% of world electric generation, and the latter is expected to reach production cost of $0.50-0.70/peak watt this year. Solar still has work to do on installation and inverters, but the panels themselves are already competitive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the topic of the article, alternate paths to fusion are promising, and are being pursued at a cost of millions instead of billions of dollars, but none of them has reached significant power levels yet. Worth keeping an eye on, along with alternate fission devices like Thorium-based ones.
2.5% sounds high for Wind, 2010 was 1.6% of Electricity after about $600B in expenditure. And that is a gross simplification, like one Wind Kwh replaces one Fossil Fuel kwh - it doesn't. Most studies looking at actual utility production data show Wind HAS NOT displaced any fossil fuel generation, Zero Cost savings, Zero emission savings - confirmed in Texas, Colorado, Ireland, Holland and Ontario. Right in Ontario with only 1.9GW of Wind installed of the 10GW planned, Wind is causing Hydro to be spilled and Nuclear Dumped at ZERO cost savings and ZERO emissions savings. Most Wind production is entirely reliant on exports, that's what Denmark, Germany, Ontario and NW USA does, exports at a huge loss. What happens if these export areas install their own Wind and can't accept any imports?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWind is already near its limit of effective utilization, and that at an extraordinary and ridiculous cost. At least double Nuclear, before you consider the high Grid Costs of Wind and the impracticality of an intermittent, unreliable generator. Yes A TOTAL SCAM.
As for Solar prices have dropped due to a huge glut on the market caused by the Recession, and a sudden drop in demand. And notice Obama slapping a 31% duty on Chinese Solar imports, and indeed claiming (correctly) that China is selling Solar at below cost. Current cost of Solar installations in the USA according to the NREL is $7 per watt at a optimistic avg 15% CF or $47/kwavg output vs Nuclear at $1.7 to $8 per kwavg. Nuclear being reliable 60-100 yr energy source not an intermittent unreliable, daytime only 25yr power source. Yep, Solar is another TOTAL SCAM.
So yes alternative paths for fusion are getting $millions in almost entirely private funding while $200B/yr of public funding is being thrown down the Wind & Solar Rathole.
I believe fusion will be the energy of the future, along with renewables. The problem with ITER is there are too many cooks in the kitchen. The lawyers and politicians of the member countries are running the show instead of scientists and engineers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think if this is a fusion technology race between countries with commercial patents as the prize. A working fusion reactor can be built cheaper, faster, smaller and simpler.
They made ITER that way deliberately in order to slow progress to a crawl. It would have been much more efficient to have private teams, publicly financed, with big bonus awards like financed the first-private-space-launch competitions. Each of several important goals could earn a big prize and FAR, FAR smaller public finance of each highly, motivated, totally non-political, totally non-bureaucratic team. That's pretty much what Robert Bussard recommended to Congress, and of course it was ignored, politicians are experts in payolla, porkbarrels, boondoggles and spin (i.e. Wind & Solar energy).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcuse me. What are you talking about? What is that ITER Fusion Reactor? Is that science fission? I think I should make a serious search of the worlds’ scientific literature. Or I click the wrong Web site? Is this Scientific American? I think you understand me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is another approach to fusion that has none of these problems. Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion (BSF) combines ideas from laser Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), sonofusion, and piezoelectric energy harvesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://home.centurytel.net/bubbles/bubbles.htm
Fusion reactors have been built for a long time. High school students have build Farnsworth fusors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisiecfusiontech.blogspot.ca/2008/06/students-achieve-fusion.html
And many types of Fusion generators have been built. Getting past break even is the trick. A few have come close. The Joint European Torus, from Wikipedia:
"..in 1997, another world record was achieved at JET: 16 mega watts of fusion power were produced from a total input power of 24 mega watts – a 65 % ratio.."
The JT-60 in Japan:
"..In fusion terminology JT-60 achieved conditions which in D–T would have provided Q = 1.25, where Q is the ratio of fusion power to input power. A self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction would need a value of Q that is greater than 5.."
Other Fusion Methods:
Focus Fusion:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVif4hUAJ8c
nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/lawrenceville-plasma-physics-progress.html
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1518007279479871760&q=Google+tech+talks+lerner&pr=goog-sl
Super Marx Deuterium & Laser Fusion-Fission Hybrid:
nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/winterberg-compares-super-marx.html
Reversed Field Pinch Fusion:
www.sciencecodex.com/upping_the_power_triggers_an_ordered_helical_plasma
DARPA's Handheld Nuclear Fusion Reactor:
www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/darpas-handheld-nuclear-fusion-reactor/
Muon Catalyzed Fusion:
newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/10/05/the-new-cold-fusion/
Tri-Alpha Energy's Aneutronic Colliding Beam Fusion:
nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/tri-alpha-energy-nuclear-fusion-patent.html
Similar to Tri-Alpha, Helion Energy:
www.helionenergy.com/
The Crossfire Magnetic & Electrostatic Aneutronic Fusion Reactor:
www.crossfirefusor.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html
Magneto-Inertial-Fusion (MIF):
nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/magneto-inertial-fusion.html
General Fusion's Magnetized Target fusion:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/05/general-fusion-targets-prototype-by.html
LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions), a lot of SCAMs in that, but it appears there is some truth to the effect, Brillouin Energy claims:
pesn.com/2012/04/19/9602078_Brillouin--Understanding_How_LENR_Works_Will_Enable_Us_to_Be_First/Brillouin_PPT_Technical_3-27-12.pdf
Mitsubishi on LENR:
indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=5&materialId=slides&confId=177379
A load of Fusion related info:
nextbigfuture.com/search/label/fusion
Farnsworth fusor is not nuclear fusion. It's a plasma generator and confinement device. Cold fusion is science fiction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope it is fusion, you get neutrons dude, that's fusion. Probably not practical as an energy device but is a practical source of neutrons and available commercially for that purpose:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth_fusor
Also you can create fusion with piezo-electric devices:
traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Piezo-nuclear_fusion
large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/abuzaid2/
Maybe you should watch this video on CBS if you think LENR/Cold Fusion is science fiction:
www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4955212n
I'm still sitting on the fence with the regard to LENR, I'm certain Rossi & others are just another Blacklight Power, EEStor type SCAM but there does seem to be significant evidence that something is going on there, at the reputable research facilities, and it may be a type of fusion or something else, I would keep an open mind about it, but it would be idiotic to bet the bank on it.
The so-called cold fusion is a misnomer as deuterium fusion occurs at temp. 45 million K representing the energy required to fuse the atoms. The science fiction part is you can get more energy output than input in cold fusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear physics states that Coulomb interactions are thousands of times more likely to occur than fusion reactions. Hence it is statistically improbable to generate more energy output. This is not the case in hot fusion. That's why this is the focus of serious fusion energy research.
You are referring to thermonuclear fusion, high temperature means a high avg kinetic energy of the vibrating nucleons, sufficient to overcome the coulomb barrier and get captured by the strong force of another nucleus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith electrostatic fusion you simply accelerate protons or ions under an electric field to smash into the nucleus of Hydrogen, Deuterium, Tritium, Helium or Lithium or Boron. Bussard's IEC fusion works at 12.5 kv applied voltage, combined with magnetic confinement, achieved 1e09 fusions per second, whereas the Farnsworth Fusor achieved 5e09 fusions per second with a 120kv applied voltage.
Bussard's calculations indicate that that a 10X larger Polywell machine would produce net fusion energy:
www.fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_announce&key=1143684406
As for so-called cold fusion or LENR some are denying that it is actually properly called fusion:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/04/brillouin-had-los-alamos-and-sri.html
"...Robert says that "cold fusion" definitely is not an accurate name for it, and neither is LENR. It does not involved conventional nuclear fission or hot nuclear fusion processes. He has renamed the process Controlled Electron Capture Reactions or CECR, or "phonon-moderated hydrogen reactions."..."
A good summary or LENR research here:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/02/celani-piantelli-geneva-lenr.html
I'm not talking about Coulomb barrier. Coulomb interactions occur more frequently than fusion reactions in cold fusion. It is predicted by theory. It is not an engineering or design problem. Fusion reactions do occur in these table-top devices but they will not produce more energy output. To breakeven, you need 10^12 fusion reactions per second for every one volt energy input.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet another story of energy and how to make it ...read "The Prize". It's a book about how power was/is made, who makes it, decisions of who controls it and the persuit entire countries have made in the name of energy security... Get back to me on that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike the crusades of history we find our embattled scientists hamstrung by politics of greed ...much like the church and state of history pushing their people into wars.
I can find no solace in anyone holding back better technology or information which may benifit my fellow humans around the world for the sake of a fist full of dollars. Why would anyone use products from outdated energy sources? Why, would I use a car that gets 20 mpg when the one beside it gets 58 mpg, for example? I guess that means I wish to hold them accountable for the loss of human life and benifit.
Therefore IMHO it will take a unique person/ group of people to overcome these human shortfalls.
I'm confused. Do we really know what we are doing. The surprises do not look so complicated that they should not have been expected. I have a couple of questions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.0 How do you combine a proton and an electron? Not orbital.
2.0 Would this release energy or absorb energy?
3.0 Can we do the reverse? Same question.
4.0 Can a neutron be added to any nucleus?
5.0 How?
6.0 Can a proton be added to any nucleus?
7.0 If you can't answer these questions, or know how, how can you build a fusion reactor?
7.0 Does a neutron have a Di-pole, up close?
All that time and money...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe alternative for the willfully ignorant:
http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/11916-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-edisonian-approach-.html
A self-sustaining fusion reactor, more energy out than in, can only be possible with electrostatic acceleration. Electrostatic fusion machine is that will power mankind’s future energy needs with safe and clean aneutronic fusion fuels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro5-QYqqxzM
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTypical of Ronnie (the Arsehole) Reagan. He always struck me as being a guy who was acting President, rather than trying to be President. And he had the hide for putting down Jimmy Carter about it. I always thought it was an insult to the intelligence of the rest of the world that, and to the eternal shame of the hundreds of millions of people in the world's most powerful country, he was their best choice? It seems unfair that when you go for an interview for a low-level public service job you undergo a higher standard of selection than this head of government. If he did manage to do anything right it was either by accident or by the actions of his puppet-masters. But, as a minor actor in Hollywood told me decades ago, it is not what you know, but who you know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA colony on Mars is the next boondoggle, just sayin in case you miss it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this