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A Star in a Bottle

newyorker.com

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Re: A Star in a Bottle

#2

Post by benjamta »

My father worked on the ITER project for many years. This article goes some way to express the shear scale of this project, it's absolutely vast.

When I was a lot younger I was taken on a tour of JET (http://www.efda.org/jet/) and was overawed with the size of it. ITER is an order of magnitude bigger.

The machine that follows ITER is where things get really interesting. Called DEMO, it's still in the planning phase - but will provide a template for future commercial fusion power generation. They're talking about possibly putting fusion generated power into the grid by 2040. Truly exciting stuff.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#5

Post by XorNot »

benjamta wrote: post #2

My father worked on the ITER project for many years. This article goes some way to express the shear scale of this project, it's absolutely vast. When I was a lot younger I was taken on a tour of JET ( http://www.efda.org/jet/ ) and was overawed with the size of it. ITER is an order of magnitude bigger. The machine that follows ITER is where things get really interesting. Called DEMO, it's still in the planning phase…

My favorite memory of being in France a half year back was visiting the ITER site. Partly because we misjudged how to get there and trekked 3km up the highway from the bus stop in the middle of nowhere to get to it.

It was still just a hole in the ground then - they were getting ready to put in the seismic dampeners for the base layer of the Tokamak structure. Since then I've had it liked on Facebook so I can see the progress bit by bit.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#7

Post by benjamta »

XorNot wrote: post #5
benjamta wrote: post #2

My father worked on the ITER project for many years. This article goes some way to express the shear scale of this project, it's absolutely vast. When I was a lot younger I was taken on a tour of JET ( http://www.efda.org/jet/ ) and was overawed with the size of it. ITER is an order of magnitude bigger. The machine that follows ITER is where things get really interesting. Called DEMO, it's still in the planning phase…

My favorite memory of being in France a half year back was visiting the ITER site. Partly because we misjudged how to get there and trekked 3km up the highway from the bus stop in the middle of nowhere to get to it. It was still just a hole in the ground then - they were getting ready to put in the seismic dampeners for the base layer of the Tokamak structure. Since then I've had it liked on Facebook so I can see the…

It's fascinating seeing it progress (albeit from afar), true cathedral scale engineering.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#8

Post by tfgg »

transfire wrote: post #3

ITER 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.

Re: A Star in a Bottle

#9

Post by jackgavigan »

As 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."

In the novel, the Shipstone's eponymous inventor realised "that the problem was not a shortage of energy but lay in the transporting of energy. Energy is everywhere—in sunlight, in wind, in mountain streams, in temperature gradients of all sorts wherever found, in coal, in fossil oil, in radioactive ores, in green growing things. Especially in ocean depths and in outer space energy is free for the taking in amounts lavish beyond all human comprehension.

"Those who spoke of "energy scarcity" and of "conserving energy" simply did not understand the situation. The sky was "raining soup"; what was needed was a bucket in which to carry it."

Ever since then, I've been far more interested in new methods of storing and transporting energy than in new methods of generating energy.

Also, what happens if the mechanisms that contain the "Star in a Bottle" fail? Will the French Alps suddenly and catastrophically acquire a new valley?

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