Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

ITER was planned in part through early results from JET in the 90s - but they more recently replaced the inner wall of JET to match what ITER will use, which was a good choice according to models but this gives empirical confirmation that it's possible to sustain the plasma using the new wall material.

All new fusion plants are a risk, that's why they're experimental. I suspect they were reasonably confident they could make ITER work and that's why they started building, but this will give them confirmation that the material choice was a good one and will also show them in advance some of the operational obstacles and possible solutions.

In other words, they knew "where they were going to go" but this gives them more confidence they were correct in deciding the direction, and will speed up their learning curve setting up the machine once built. Even if it is built and something fundamentally doesn't work about the concept, that will still be useful scientific knowledge, even if it is disappointing.

Problem with ITER is it's not 1 country, it's lots, and they all want their piece of the pie instead of doing it efficiently

> If you think they are nonsensical, you do not understand what I am saying.

And I thankyou for clarification :)

> but trade is not the limit of what Brexit changed.

Here in lies the problem that many Brexitiers had with the EU - it wasn't just a trading bloc, the "club" had a lot of baggage that few people understood - and when people don't understand something, they fear/misstrust it. The message around leaving was focused on GDP and whether we would have roaming chargers or not... and this message fell flat with a lot of voters.

I blame the remain side with arrogance and a complete lack of understanding how to deliver a good message.

I voted remain BTW, but feel we had a fair vote and it is what it is.

Ah!!

I actually rewrote it to the form it is now, about 15 seconds after posting it, to try to remove any suggestion it's about the report; it's possible I suppose that some people reacted to it before I did.

I went from "paragraph" (as in, in an article) to "parenthetical" in the colloquial sense. Like, literally every process or discussion about anything going on in the country has to have this sidebar about how much worse it is because of all the changes.

I don't really read it as confusing because I had the "thanks, disaster capitalists" bit, which should be unambiguous, but I haven't had my coffee, so I will note and upvote your point and think about it next time I write stuff :-)

In extension to this news and the press conference, one thing I am super excited about, is the private SPARC project and the MIT-spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). If you don't know about it already, I would highly recommend checking it out (e.g. by searching YouTube for "MIT Sparc Fusion Reactor" for some fairly accessible videos on the theory behind why they should achieve fusion way faster than the current roadmap with ITER and DEMO).

In the press conference just ended, they repeated how exactly the JET reactor worked as predicted by theory. In my layman's understanding, for the exact same reason (seemingly very sound theoretical groundwork), the SPARC reactor should exceed breakeven within the next few years.

From Wiki on CFS:

* Back in September 2021, they built the strongest high-room-temperature superconducting magnet (20 Tesla) suitable for a fusion reactor

* Theory dictates that with stronger magnets, the reactor can be scaled down (with the square/cube, can't remember exactly), and thus cost and time to develop

* Back in November 2021, they raised $1.8 billion from the likes of Bill Gates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems

Boy, do I think it would be crazy cool if they succeed, even taking twice as long as they've planned! :)