Despite the tight schedule, both Haange and Apollonatos say that they will not ask for more time at next month's ITER council meeting in Cadarache, France. "We remain committed to delivering on all fronts and in line with the ITER schedule," Apollonatos says. Haange says that Osamu Motojima, director-general of the ITER Organization, is already looking at "simplified assembly", a further stripping-down of the already bare-bones first version of the machine, to keep the project on track. "We will ask for more time only if it is absolutely necessary," Haange says.
But holding onto the date for start-up may delay the first power-producing experiments, now scheduled for late 2027 or early 2028. Those experiments require a radioactive isotope of hydrogen called tritium to be produced on site. The necessary tritium plant may have to be delayed to keep to the current budget and schedule, Haange says. That delay may be politically unacceptable, he says. "We will have to find ways of recovering potential time delays."
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on October 26, 2012.
See what we're tweeting about
31 Comments
Add CommentAnd yet hardly a dime is available for the already tested and working Molten Salt Reactor - far cheaper with the same zero environmental cost as the fusion, with a production model in operation in two years at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle "David LeBlanc - Molten Salt Reactor Designs, Options & Outlook"
Amazing how Big Oil spends its money using its corrupt media and politicians to screw up nuclear with the fake promise of giant fusion, while dissing its potent nuclear fission enemy.
"ITER is a massive project designed to show the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a power source" - not really - it is designed to test the feasibility of the tokomak-style fusion reactor. There are other designs for fusion power, which tend to get starved of funds by ITER's massive expense, e.g. the Focus Fusion device which is only perhaps $2M dollars and two years away from giving a positive result - see http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisor http://focusfusion.org/
A measly 2 years and 2 million dollars? That's a small time investment considering the trillions of dollars the technology would be worth in a few years time if you're right. Either every private investor on the planet has been sleeping or Focus Fusion is simply another crackpot idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still believe in E- Cat. If it is real , I am sure the NAZI's will suppress it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd NASA is in the process of confirming that LENR or cold fusion works. So why is so much money being wasted when fusion is available for a few thousands of dollars instead of BILLIONS? Because people don't stand to make a lot of money with LENR. Greed and self interested closed interests are to blame for the waste of time, investment and ENERGY.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2 years and 2 million dollars is NOT what it will take. They are making good progress and 2 years and 2 million might take them to break even, still a long way from a practical fusion power plant. And it certainly IS NOT a crackpot idea. The physics is sound, and it is a PROVEN fusion power generator. But there is a lot of R&D to turn that into a commercial power reactor. And without question is a VASTLY more cost effective route to clean energy than throwing $trillions down the sewer on nutty Wind & Solar Scams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnextbigfuture.com/2012/06/lawrenceville-plasma-physics-makes.html
If the E-Cat was real IT would have been suppressed at least a couple of years ago by our friends at Big Oil. But since it is NOT real, they love it, more great bait-and-switch energy scams like Carbon Capture, Hydrogen Economy, ITER, Solar & Wind Energy, Agro-Fuels, Ethanol that gives the gullible public something to believe and sleazy politicians something to promote while maintaining the same old status quo, i.e. burn-baby-burn. Wouldn't want any funding for something rational like Nuclear Energy, especially Small Modular Reactors and Molten Salt Reactors and Fast-Trak fusion energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe e-Cat is a fraud:
scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/
There may be something to LENR but so far it is a long way from demonstrating a source for commercial power generation. Worth R&D but that is about it.
My reply to all believers in cold fusion and focus fusion is "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, What power have you produced so far? Watts, milliwatts?" Come-on guys, tokamaks have already proven their worth way back in 1997 when JET produced 16MW of fusion power in the "breakeven" experiment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes there are delays in ITER, but that is mainly because of the technical complexities involved. Believe me, ITER is the most challenging and complex scientific and technology project ever undertaken by human beings. Despite a few years delays, ITER will achieve 500MW Q=10 operations to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power.
History has shown that first experiments always cost more, but by the time they become commercial, costs become affordable. Fusion energy costs will be far less expensive than any solar cell gives in terms of $/Watts. As for the delays, ITER partners should make all efforts to reduce them which they are probably doing, but big complex projects like ITER do have delays due to the technical and management challenges involved. Do you know how many years the beautiful CERN LHC experiments were delayed?
I am a supporter of the tokamak, it has produced good fusion science, which will be valuable to future Fusion Energy. Possibly, the tokamak will be a viable future energy source, although I doubt it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main issue with the ITER program is the whole operation is about the WORST way to develop the project. Another Bill Clinton special, modeled after his International Space Station "international cooperation" boondoggle. Bigelow aerospace and SpaceX could have done 10X what the ISS has done at 1/10th the cost. A high portion of ITERs budget is blown on massive bureaucracy, expensive international meetings at the most luxurious locations. Pure boondoggle. They spent five years arguing over where to build the damn thing.
They would have done far better to contract out the project to an efficient, no-nonsense hi-tech company or entrepreneur, like Elon Musk or Paul Allen. And if you want international cooperation the best way to do it is divide different big Energy R&D between nations. i.e. USA does Tokamak, France does LFTR, Germany does ADS fission, Spain does Polywell, etc. I would say the ITER project was specifically designed to DELAY fusion energy as long as possible.
Robert Bussard, who along with Robert Hirsch founded the Tokamak program in the USA, became disillusioned with it, and instead supported smaller, faster programs:
"..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 hudreds 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.."
He also explained, in a most unwelcome letter to Congress how Fast-Trak fusion could be achieved:
www.askmar.com/Robert%20Bussard/1995-6-6%20Letter%20to%20Congress.pdf
Of course, as a response to the letter, the Navy imposed a gag order on his research, being funded by them.
The problem of lifetime waste storage is still the same big $$$$$'s.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe simple fact is that fusion, in any form, is the most expensive fuel on earth.
The total cost of fusion energy, is so high, that it can't be estimated. Why would any smart person support anything, that has so much radioactive wastes all over the planet, that we don't know what to do with, or where to store it safely?
Why don't you "Go-Nukers" get the whole cost thing together, then say how cheap it is. No...no one ever comments, maybe they can't count that many dollars.
I wonder how many times more, over the world debt, that "Go-Nukers" really cost us in tax dollars each year. Nukes debt is so high, that it draws silence, and instant subject changing.
There was a good article, I read somewhere, that explained why smart people think weird things...as it turns out, most of the time, we don't think the problem all the way out to the end. It's so much easier to stop thinking when we like the spot.
If we don't think about the whole problem, then, how does the problem get solved?
Don't we have enough toxic waste hanging around that should be good for something?
The grandiose love to pollute, force tax money to clean-up the mess, for the addictive search...quick dirty money shareholder style, at the expense of the hard working middle class. Nice Guys.
@Bops You need to review your understanding of Fission and Fusion - fission produces the nuclear waste problem, fusion (essentially) does not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn New England, the leaves are still on most of the trees. With the storm coming, that could bring snow, winds, who knows what, I would rather have some small form of power, for the refrigerator, fish tank filter and a light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe all could use small amounts of clean, emergency power for home use.
Gas generators are toxic, smell and make too mush noise.
Something worth thinking about.
Congratulations, but at the same time, condolences to all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis shows admirable courage, but, from the point of view of the arms race, for, if it were nuclear fusion for peace and conquest of the universe, why is not investing anything, even to post worldwide, our discovery "OCEANOGENIC POWER", it is today: cold fusion, enough power, scalable, cheap, renewable and clean?
OH, the problem is that I am of the third world, the battlefield of fanaticism.
And who would think to contradict the geniuses who think that building a pipeline from the friendly country, Canada, to solve a small part of the energy independence that USA wants for create jobs, it is better that carry from small, but anyway, old friend country, Panama, all the energy it needs USA today and in 100 or more years?
Congratulations, but at the same time, condolences to all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis shows admirable courage, but, from the point of view of the arms race, for, if it were nuclear fusion for peace and conquest of the universe, why is not investing anything, even to post worldwide, our discovery "OCEANOGENIC POWER", it is today: cold fusion, enough power, scalable, cheap, renewable and clean?
OH, the problem is that I am of the third world, the battlefield of fanaticism.
And who would think to contradict the geniuses who think that building a pipeline from the friendly country, Canada, to solve a small part of the energy independence that USA wants for create jobs, it is better that carry from small, but anyway, old friend country, Panama, all the energy it needs USA today and in 100 or more years?
Sorry, there was a blackout at the time I sent the comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShow the cost effect numbers to support your idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, my mistake, I'm embarrassed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know the difference and have made the same mistake before.
I misread the word and need to be more careful.
Thank you for correcting me, I don't think I would have noticed my mistake...even with the new eyeglasses.
The cheapest is: NOT DO ANYTHING.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll studies and human efforts, is to find the most profitable, cost what it may.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B650oxtezmd9Y2EwNGZmMzEtZTkyNC00ZWUyLWE0YjUtYjdiNTE5MTIwZjJl/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1#:0.page.12
ITER will cost billions upon billions to become perhaps someday commercially available. It can be a big waste of money, because it is conceptually flawed, a giant “magnetic pressure cooker” without an escape mechanism, which leads to unsolvable plasma instabilities, neutral plasma under pressure tends to recombine and hits the walls. Money could be better spent on newer and well-designed fusion concepts such as the magnetic-electrostatic fusion machine, relatively few millions instead of countless billions. The magnetic-electrostatic fusion machine is an example of much better design; it can be a practical energy source soon in a near future because it does not require vast resources and technical capital, it is within our technological capabilities. http://youtu.be/ro5-QYqqxzM
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFusion 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.."
Fast-Track to Fusion options that get NIL Gov't funding:
Bussard’s IEC Fusion:
nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/new-pictures-and-updated-goals-for-emc2.html
Note the Navy, which is funding IEC fusion (by a trivial $2M/yr) has slapped a Gag Order on all publication of results. Wind & Solar industry consider $2M in subsidies coffee money.
Other Fusion Methods:
Focus Fusion:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVif4hUAJ8c
nextbigfuture.com/2011/08/lawrenceville-plasma-physics-focus.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/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
A load of Fusion related info:
nextbigfuture.com/search/label/fusion
Robert Bussard tells the story on IEC Fusion, an excellent prospect, but gets a meager $2M/yr funding - from the US Navy which refuses to release results on the program in spite of the incredible value to humanity & the environment. Instead they throw $billions away on nutty $50/gal biofuels. And Fast-Trak fusion funding is currently at a level Big Oil or their subsidiary Big Green (Wind & Solar) call pocket change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisforums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58665#27
".. We told the DoD from the beginning that the real program would cost about 150-200M..since the DoD has no charter to do such work, the political realities were that a big DoD program would attract the ire and power of the DoE to kill it, it was never funded beyond about 1/8 the level required.
So we did what we could and finally DID prove the physics and associated engineering physics constraints, scaling laws.. at 1/8-1/10 scale..same 200 M we have quoted to the DoD since the beginning.."
"..As for energy companies "stampeding" to support us - It is clear that a view like this is ignorant of the reality of energy companies. There is only one thing the oil companies want, and that is to sell oil, and more oil. So long as the fields pump, the oil companies will squeeze. They have NO, absolutely NO interest in anything new, ins spite of all their foolish ads in magazines for wind mills and solar-PV roofs. It is all just show and tell. I know these guys, and there is no way they would support anything that might get in the way of oil. The only way to stop oil, from their view, is when it does run out. And then they'll go for deeper drilling, new fields, Gulf geopressure gas, LNG, etc, etc, and keep raising the price, until finally foolish solar and windmills become competitive.."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU&feature=related
As for the DOE's multi-$Billion 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
Why defend, clean energy for peace, against the dirty energy for war?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause evidence of historical truth, shows that a naked man in peace, which seems to have wanted to be known without the Internet, beat fanaticism of those who bet on the war, which show being under the effect of lying, at the ridiculously regarded as very brave, when they are armed to the teeth against unborn children and women.
Oceanogenic Power is hydropower, enough, that effectively eliminated the use of carbon and nuclear fission for energy: screen of respective weapons.
OK: It also gives time so that ITER achieve its goals, but to conquer the universe, not to monopolize the Earth for a few fanatics.
@ochar You may consider that nuclear FISSION is "dirty energy" because it produces nuclear waste and material for bombs; but FUSION does neither, and because it also does not produce carbon dioxide, and reduces competition for oil, is most definitely in the "clean energy for peace" category.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm no expert. And if I wanted, in Panama, would not happen, like Syria and Korea?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAround nuclear energy there are too many secrets, military precisely, of which we are learning when they explode: Chernobyl, Fukushima and some plants in USA.
Of these facilities, we assumed what you say: no risk. And then?
There are risks that, if we are wrong, it is not possible a second attempt, and for me, any solution with nuclear fission would be already second attempt.
If there were no alternative maybe, but there is an: my discovery and wait to ITER.
Is very economical arrange where to meet, worldwide launch the idea, and convince our leaders. But a priori, powerful fanatics are refusing.
No one holding purse strings? Can anyone say ridiculous. Typical project run by politicians and it is European, probably 5 times more expensive for that reason alone. At least anytime I am involved in labs over there, they seem to think nothing is real or good unless it costs 5 million for every million spent. No efficiency at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave to agree with you. Bill Clinton was big on these international cooperation boondoggles. You end up paying 10X more for the "international cooperation" part. Better off a go it alone strategy, but striving for a cost effective, efficient, well managed, non-government operation. Put a no-nonsense entrepreneur like Elon Musk or Paul Allen in charge and get the job done in 1/4 the time at 1/4 the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRef. 21. dwbd - nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/magneto-inertial-fusion.html as well as Magneto-Inertial-Fusion (MIF):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscomes with a close correspondence on the header, but Technicaly a different Design, let's focus on the Empirically tested observation's,undertaken over FIFTY YEARS back( 1955-1965 ),very much ahead of its Time .
Magneto-Graviton-Inertia-Phonon's Inter-Galactic propulsion System's, if there is Inertia Dravity ,utilsad in any Engineering design then the use of Graviton charge's is mandatory.
Ref .the above cont. ,apologise for the spelling errors-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMagneto-Graviton-Inertia-Phonon's Inter-Galactic propulsion System's, if there is Inertia Gravity ,utilsed in any Engineering design, then the use of Graviton charge's is mandatory.
Interestingly, the vicious cycle on which puts us lies, when these have gained market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven we consider it, word of god, when they return to us, their own manufacturers.
The fanatics of the first world, need again, the global economic crisis, and once again, for a world war, and the proof is that, with so much intelligence, his best excuse is that they can not forgive themselves his own debt.
This sounds like the same stupidities of previous wars, do not you think?
Speaking of money to do or not to do what needs to be done, goes in the same direction.
But AllanRBrewer, about what you said (23), seeing it in a simple way: yes, we agree.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen reading about the delays and cost increases in the construction of the ITER, should we remember the case of Charles Babbage, that spend his money paying watchmakers and blacksmiths to make the gears and other parts of the mechanical computer he designed, just to see they were day after day requesting money, but producing very few parts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this