The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) did not melt down from an excess of energy production. It is melting due to budget excesses.
It has been billed as the solution to tomorrow's energy crunch, but ITER, a massive fusion experiment by seven international partners, is under serious threat from a present-day problem: the financial crisis.
In a meeting on 26 May, the cash-strapped member states of the European Union (EU) were unable to agree on how to find the additional billions needed to finance construction of the giant reactor, which is sited near St-Paul-les-Durance, France. The EU is set to contribute 45% of the construction costs for ITER, which some estimates now put at €15 billion (US$19 billion) -- three times the 2006 cost estimate (see 'The ITER rollercoaster').
Left unresolved, the impasse in Europe will, at best, delay the project further. At worst, it could cause ITER to unravel entirely.
All the while Polywell Fusion and other small fusion programs are getting along on budgets 1/100th the size and are actually making progress towards answers.
It has been known since the 1970s (see Science 1978 or so) that tokamak machines have no future in energy generation. The main problem is economics. Any conceivable tokamak machines would be at least an order of magnitude larger in cost and very much larger in size than an equivalent fission plant. Tokamaks will have no possible commercial or military use, even if they can be made to work, which is unlikely in the extreme.
ITER is one of the best examples of egregious scientific and criminal fraud, even better than AGW. For forty years the elite physicists who promote and lead tokamak projects have lived elegant jet set lifestyles at government expense and have wasted the scientific careers of thousands of junior physicists.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
It has been known since the 1970s (see Science 1978 or so) that tokamak machines have no future in energy generation. The main problem is economics. Any conceivable tokamak machines would be at least an order of magnitude larger in cost and very much larger in size than an equivalent fission plant. Tokamaks will have no possible commercial or military use, even if they can be made to work, which is unlikely in the extreme.
ITER is one of the best examples of egregious scientific and criminal fraud, even better than AGW. For forty years the elite physicists who promote and lead tokamak projects have lived elegant jet set lifestyles at government expense and have wasted the scientific careers of thousands of junior physicists.