Classical Values :: ITER Fusion

June 18, 2009

ITER Fusion - 100 Years Away

The BBC reports that tokamak fusion may be 100 years off.

The Iter project was set up three years ago to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in the south of France.

But construction costs alone have more than doubled and some scientists now argue that the development of fusion as a commercial power source is still at least 100 years away.

The ITER guys have a well paid flack you can watch at the BBC link extolling the virtues of ITER. He calls it the world's biggest science experiment.

Compare that to the applied research on the Polywell WB-8 Fusion Reactor test which is now gearing up. And with the experiments already completed and contemplated We Will Know In Two Years if the design can produce limitless fusion energy. Or if it is just another interesting science experiment. And the answer won't cost $20 billion either.

You can learn the basics of fusion energy by reading Principles of Fusion Energy: An Introduction to Fusion Energy for Students of Science and Engineering

Polywell is a little more complicated. You can learn more about Polywell and its potential at: Bussard's IEC Fusion Technology (Polywell Fusion) Explained

The American Thinker has a good article up with the basics.

Why hasn't Polywell Fusion been fully funded by the Obama administration?

H/T rn via e-mail

Cross Posted at Power and Control

posted by Simon on 06.18.09 at 04:51 PM

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Comments

After reading all these nothing posts on polywell fusion for about a year now, the real question is:

If it's so damn hot, where is private industry?

Why do you need government funding. The tokomaks, I understand - they're not small, nor cheap to run those electromagnets.

But for all this noise you bring, I see nothing but possible somethings, if the government will just fund it.

Fund it yourself, if you believe in it.

Bill Johnson · June 18, 2009 04:57 PM

Bill,

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We do know the Navy is putting up some money for research. What we know nothing about is any private funds that may be stretching the US Navy's dollars.

In any case the Navy has been funding the work for about 20 years. Why would they give up when they are on the verge of success? Why wouldn't they want to be the first fusion powered Navy if that had a chance?

In any case, from the looks of things the Navy has doubled down. That is usually a sign of declining risk.

M. Simon · June 18, 2009 05:35 PM

I think it is a little disingenuous to say ITER is three years old. Construction was approved about three years ago but the ITER organization is over twenty years old.

And the ITER complex approved in 2006 has been in various design phases for about a decade.

It will be a decade before even begin to find out if this machine will work. As I understand it the physics will work but materials with the needed properties may prove impossible to create.

I tend to trust the scientists to eventually make ITER type fusion work. But these timetable and costs have almost no meaning.

Polywell has received extremely limited and intermittent funding for about twenty years. I don't know if it will work but over all that time there have been no clear setbacks. And within three years the definitive tests should be made.

K · June 19, 2009 12:16 AM