{"id":337517,"date":"2024-07-25T15:11:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T13:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337517"},"modified":"2024-07-25T15:11:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T13:11:13","slug":"nuclear-fusion-more-government-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=337517","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Fusion: More Government Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Kennedy Maize<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe fusion propaganda machine has produced a wave of mostly offbeat projects, more than 40 since 2018 by one estimate. The likelihood that any of these fusion pipedreams will produce anything other than red ink is less than slim.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Harsh reality is again clashing with the fanciful hype of the past several years regarding fusion energy. The only credible attempt to harness the physics of the sun, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, has again pushed back the date when it will attempt a sustained fusion reaction toward practical energy production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the second time in two years, the 35-nation project has announced a snag in the project, although it has reported some better news. At a July 3 press conference<\/a> at ITER headquarters in France, Director-General Pietro Barabaschi said the new goal is to be able to run the toroidal magnets in the donut-shaped tokomak briefly at full power in 2036. The deuterium-tritium operation phase, where the fusion rubber really begins to meet the road, won\u2019t occur before 2039.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new timeline will add some $5 billion to the current approximately $20 billion+ cost estimate for the pilot project. Exact costs are difficult to calculate as much of the support comes from in-kind contributions from the 35 member countries: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea<\/a> and the United States<\/a>. The United Kingdom participates through EU<\/a>\u2018s Fusion for Energy (F4E), Switzerland participates through Euratom<\/a> and F4E, and the project has cooperation agreements with Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan and Thailand. Europe provides about 45% of the ITER funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean in terms of the many promises of fusion energy? In surprising candor, Barabaschi said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cFusion cannot arrive in time to solve the problems our planet faces today, and investment in other technologies, known and unknown, is absolutely needed. But I expect fusion will make a difference when it arrives, and let\u2019s not forget that there is not just the problem of solving global warming \u2026 energy is also needed for life on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Science<\/em> magazine added<\/a> a caveat to that announcement. ITER\u2019s tokomak machine will run in 2039 \u201conly in short bursts, to satisfy safety concerns of the nuclear regulator in France, where ITER is under construction.\u201d Even if ITER is a complete success, that\u2019s only a first, albeit big, step. It will not generate electricity. That requires solving the gigantic problem of building a plant to convert the energy to electric power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barabaschi is far more open than his predecessor, Bernard Bigot, who was fond of fusion enthusiasm and downplayed the problems that have plagued the project throughout its life. Michel Claessens, who was ITER\u2019s communications chief until Bigot fired him upon taking office in 2015, told Science|Business<\/a> this year that too many fusion researchers and officials have become purveyors of what he terms \u201cfusion propaganda.\u201d Claessens said,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We should be clear with the public. We are still in the research and development phase. We\u2019re still far from commercial applications. I\u2019m really upset, and I don\u2019t think it helps, when people say fusion will be the energy of the future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that in April, ITER took delivery of the first of 19 giant toroidal magnets that are the heart of the magnetic confinement tokomak, prompting a July 1 celebration<\/a>. All 19 of the coils (18 for the machine and one spare, 10 from Europe and 9 from Japan) are due to ITER\u2019s southern France headquarters in Saint-Paul-l\u00e8s-Durance<\/a> in three-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barabaschi commented that the 17-meter-tall coils \u201clook like science-fiction.\u201d They are 40-times the mass of the magnets at the European nuclear research laboratory CERN, the largest operating magnets in the world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Look Back<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ITER had its beginning in 1978 as a modest proposal for an international program to develop a Tokomak fusion project. The project moved forward with little attention beyond technical circles, until it burst upon the public scene during the 1985 Geneva summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Geneva, the two major world leaders agreed to cooperate on fusion R&D, issuing a statement that \u201cthe potential importance of the work aimed at utilizing controlled thermonuclear fusion for peaceful purposes and, in this connection, advocated the widest practicable development of international cooperation in obtaining this source of energy, which is essentially inexhaustible, for the benefit of all mankind.\u201d Reagan touted the collaboration in a joint session of the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. then had an on-again, off-again relationship<\/a> with the project as it began to put together what became ITER. The U.S. pulled out of the planning in 1998, complaining that the projected $10 billion cost was excessive. When the planners scaled back to effort to $5 billion in 2002, the U.S. rejoined. The original funding was $6 billion, with a 10-year time frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Hurdles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the major obstacles that practical fusion must overcome? Claessens outlines the most significant: \u201cThe question of economic sustainability is so open today because these machines are very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tritium<\/strong>. This extremely rare hydrogen isotope is crucial. Fusion optimists are counting on \u201ctritium breeding<\/a>\u201d to overcome this fundamental problem. The concept is that the fusion machine will create more tritium than it uses. Claessens comments, \u201cIt is at least a question mark.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economics<\/strong>. The fusion hype artists talk glowingly about \u201cvirtually limitless energy,\u201d as if hydrogen is a free fuel. Even if uranium were free, electricity from nuclear fission plants would still be expensive. Claessens: \u201cThe question of economic sustainability is so open today because these machines are very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Materials<\/strong>. The fusion reaction will involve enormous temperatures, perhaps exceeding those in the sun. Finding materials that can hold these hot plasmas is far from solved. The process will also produce copious neutrons that will irradiate everything in their path. There will be no spent fuel from fusion. There will be plenty of radioactive materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike his predecessors, Barabaschi has not tried to paper over fusion\u2019s problem. ITER communications chief Laban Coblentz, who took over upon the firing of Claessens, has said, \u201cWith Pietro\u2019s arrival at ITER, there\u2019s been a deliberate effort to look at how we communicate about fusion that is factual, avoids overpromising, and tries to address questions that fusion sceptics have in a fair and realistic way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite that, the fusion propaganda machine has produced a wave of mostly offbeat projects, more than 40 since 2018 by one estimate. The likelihood that any of these fusion pipedreams will produce anything other than red ink is less than slim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe fusion propaganda machine has produced a wave of mostly offbeat projects, more than 40 since 2018 by one estimate. The likelihood that any of these fusion pipedreams will produce anything other than red ink is less than slim.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":337519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829839,691826127],"class_list":{"0":"post-337517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-fusion-energy","9":"tag-nuclear-fusion","11":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/0AdobeStock_274957824-1920x1532-1.jpeg?fit=1920%2C1532&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1pNP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":294446,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294446","url_meta":{"origin":337517,"position":0},"title":"Wallace Manheimer: Fusion and Fusion Breeding | Tom Nelson Pod #185","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/10\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Wallace Manheimer is a life fellow of both American Physical Society (APS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). 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