“To make fusion available on Earth you need the largest size plant… the size is absolutely critical,” so no single country can afford to construct this equipment alone on a reasonable time scale, explains ITER’s Director General Bernard Bigot.
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Not exactly right. Size was required and decided upon also based on the field strength of the magnetic bottle that could be created at the time of design.
Exactly, it’s an old design, like the shuttle.
Sensationalist crap. A tremendous public money drive project. When it’s successful, it will be a “huge bonus”, ok, but for who? As it will be handed to private corporations to explode and capitalise on at expense of public money (who by the way, would get further subsidies out of public money). Plus it won’t be scalable at the current energy consumption needs of the planet.
Public money is better diverted into renewables, which is a free source of energy, not subject to corporations. And which is scalable to current consumption needs, and any future consumption requirement, no matter how high it gets.
ITER project should be handed to space exploration agencies, or others, where it might be more relevalt on a future, instead of energy agencies.
I’m not sure how renewables are “not subject to corporations” because someone has to build them, and for the forseeable future, renewables will still largely be owned and operated by corporations. Sure, some people might be able to own their own renewables (I myself have a large solar array) but most people are unable or unwilling to take the plunge unless there are considerable savings to be had. In that case, power companies will invest in renewables themselves to cut costs, and will eventually drop prices when they start to lose too many customers to privately-owned renewables.
While ITER might not be a means of cost-effective power generation, further design improvements and larger-scale production will probably improve cost-effectiveness substantially. If this can even just match the cost of solar power, I see it as a huge win: you have much more dense power generation which can be set up anywhere regardless of
And at the end of the day, this does not cost “a tremendous amount of money”. Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that the US alone was going to bankroll this. $14 billion, ~325 million citizens, that’s like $43 apiece. $172, or 50 cents a day, for a house of 4 people. That’s what, as much as a bowl of cereal? And of course it’s not primarily financed by the US (Americans will pay like $4 per person). The country with the highest amount per citizen is South Korea, at ~$25 per person. Especially for something which is not an annual cost, this does not strike me as particularly expensive.
You are joking, right?
This is an experimental reactor. When plans for ITER were made, one of the interested sides was USSR. USSR was least likely to be interested in private corporations and money, right?. ITER is one of the most spectacular international scientific projects on plasma dynamics and fusion, something like LHC. I don’t think it will get us close to start commercializing on fusion technology during its whole lifecycle. It’s not what it’s made for at all.
Both ways need to be funded.
The French have always been hopeless romantics. God bless their overly optimistic souls.
I’m french and I think Iter is a crap idea for the price.
Gui Pasc I’m french too, and I think ITER is our future. And at least I will give some reason not like the person on top of me. First of all, it is the most concrete project, you can say what you want by renewable is not a concrete solution, it takes too much time to replace fossil and traditional nuclear Energy. In France to replace only the half of our global energy consomation ( mainly provided by fission ) it would need 26 000 offshore wind turbine.
Plus the fact that renewable energy have a deep impact on the environment, for exemple wind turbine need a lot of neodymium which is used on their generator. Neodymium extraction have a huge cost for the environment.
@Gui Pasc This project is for all mankind, not just France/Europe. ITER is an unprecedented experiment,one of a kind, with billions of dollars riding on it’s success. This has to work. The world’s best minds are investing in this endeavor. This is the type of energy that will get us to other planets or,possibly, solar systems. Fusion is the real wave of the future when it comes to energy. The power of stars!
Bernard “Bigot” what an unfortunate name xD
This man knows de wey
You mean “Ziss man knos ze wey”
Really? Sure, fusion is easy for stars with all that mass and gravity. Fusion will be twenty years away for at least another 100 yrs
So what? We need to try.
Well I believe you know exactly what you are building. If you build it they will come👿🔫-😇- there’s nothing new Under the Sun.
Imagine how much waste they are creating when they inevitably tear this monstrosity down? The sheer size and the tons of contaminated concrete…