ITER is a money hole. It was setup to suck R&D money away from real fusion research.
Why is ITER not real fusion research? And by "set up" do you mean intentionally, to hold back fusion research? If so, by whom, and why?
A Star in a Bottle
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Re: A Star in a Bottle
#12[deleted]
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#13As a child, I read Friday by Robert A Heinlein, which portrayed a future in which energy needs are addressed by energy storage devices called "Shipstones", which are described as a way to pack more kilowatt-hours into a smaller space and a smaller mass than any other engineer had ever dreamed of. To call it an "improved storage battery" (as some early accounts did) is like calling an H-bomb an "improved firecracker."…
There isn't very much fuel in the reactor at a given time, and the reaction only happens in the very center. If the containment fails, the material will just continue in a straight line instead of being redirected to the center, and it will spread out and cool off very quickly. A bigger worry might be that too much fuel is added at once, but heating and ionizing all that fuel is already very difficult for the reactor, so it would probably just quench it.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#14ITER is a money hole. It was setup to suck R&D money away from real fusion research.
While I do think that alternative fusion paths should be better funded, cranks aside, I don't think that it's the fault of ITER that it's the most promising and best developed and so the best funded one. The entire field is ridiculously underfunded for what it can offer and we shouldn't be having to risk it all on one or two projects.
Exactly. This article just makes me mad - they are penny-pinching on quite simply the most important piece of technology that humanity has ever tried to develop. If commercial reactors are switched on by 2040, the planet's CO2 output will have dropped drastically by 2060 - way more than all but the most optimistic estimations linked to climate change.
$10b is nothing compared to what was destroyed in the GFC. It's nothing compared to what the US spent on a largely futile war in Iraq. It is nothing compared to what G8 governments spend every year on defence. FFS, damages from Hurricane Sandy are estimated at twice that figure. It's peanuts.
Somewhere along the line, the message that this is R&D, and not science has been lost. Politicians honestly seem to think that this is another of those toys that scientists are always wanting to build, and not the solution to the world's energy problems. Dear politicians - no, this is not another space telescope. It's not even another LHC. It is nothing more or less than the one technology that can save the planet from the worst ravages of climate change, and they quibble about the cost. Madness.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#15> will stand a hundred feet tall, and it will weigh twenty-three thousand tons—more than twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
This is a strange sentence.
(1) Notice Height of object-A;
(2) Notice Weight of object-A;
(3) Compare Weight of object-A to Weight of object-B
where object-B is known more for its property of
Height than of its Weight.
But what a silly line of reasoning. Is it a common conclusion that taller things should also be heavier things?
Further, this seems to me to be of the same breed as "bigger than the state of Rhode Island"-type of arbitrary comparisons -- only in this instance more confusing!
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#16LHC didn't make me nervous and I laughed somewhat at the people who sued to keep it off for fear it might end the world.
This one however, I dunno. Sounds like things could go wrong with that much energy. When they made the first atomic bomb, they had theories about what might happen but not 100% sure and there were some surprises.
But I'll take death from this over death from fracking.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#17> will stand a hundred feet tall, and it will weigh twenty-three thousand tons—more than twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower. This is a strange sentence. (1) Notice Height of object-A; (2) Notice Weight of object-A; (3) Compare Weight of object-A to Weight of object-B where object-B is known more for its property of Height than of its Weight. The sense here (I think) is that the Eiffel tower is significantly taller…
You are easily confused.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#18LHC didn't make me nervous and I laughed somewhat at the people who sued to keep it off for fear it might end the world. This one however, I dunno. Sounds like things could go wrong with that much energy. When they made the first atomic bomb, they had theories about what might happen but not 100% sure and there were some surprises. But I'll take death from this over death from fracking.
It's actually a lot less energy than it sounds like. The temperatures will hit 10-100 times the temperature of the sun, but the density inside will be very very low. This thing couldn't vaporize a car.
Remember, this is only a 500 megawatt device, and the reaction is so unstable that if it somehow escapes the containment of the device it dies instantly. It can't "run away" like some fission reactions can.
edit: Not actually sure how much energy it takes to "vaporize a car in seconds." In terms of energy this thing is roughly equivalent to any other fairly large power plant.
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#19a cryogenics plant, which will produce liquid helium
Wait, they are manufacturing helium? Thought that wasn't possible?
Or just converting gas to liquid?
Re: A Star in a Bottle
#20a cryogenics plant, which will produce liquid helium Wait, they are manufacturing helium? Thought that wasn't possible? Or just converting gas to liquid?
Yes, it is a fusion plant. Helium is a product of hydrogen fusion.
edit: but they appear to be talking about support infrastructure, not a product of the fusion.