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ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

bbc.co.uk

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Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#321

Post by seangrogg »

wfreeborn wrote: post #315
karxxm wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you suggest that they should dump nearly 2 decades of work because there is something else which seems to be a potential energy source? The ITER project was founded in 2007. From there on hundreds of physicist, chemists, engineers and computer scientists started planning this RESEARCH project in order to better understand this kind of technology. Shouldn't we stick to what we have started (since this is (more than…

That's the very definition of a sunk cost fallacy

Came here to say just this. While I'm glad to see that research is finally culminating in investment and assembly we shouldn't be committing to this project just because people put time and effort into it.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#322

Post by VMG »

admax88q wrote: post #201
valuearb wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My software startup was a huge beneficiary of the SSC cancellation, it freed up a nuclear physicist to write graphics software for us, which became one of our biggest products. I’m in favor of pursuing basic research, but there is always a cost. When you take a group of your smartest people and focus them on non-economic activities, the economy loses something.

Do you think that a nuclear physicist writing graphics software rather than doing nuclear physics was a net win for society in the long term?

yes

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#323

Post by Certhas »

cheerlessbog wrote: post #107
Certhas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methanization is currently expected to be the critical storage component for CO2 neutral energy systems. A major driver of storage need in many places is not renewable fluctuations but seasonal fluctuations: You need more heating in winter/AC in summer. So make Methane and store the gas. Technologically this is all solved.

New opportunities to leak methane and we've seen it's often cheaper to ignore leaks, given the cost of it is incurred by the planet.

If you put the methanation plants next to the gas power plants you don't need leaky gas infrastructure. And methane leaks still seem easier to deal with than nuclear waste.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#324

Post by tarsinge »

arkh wrote: post #129
jpdus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series. This is a very flawed and short-sighted argument. Averages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions. Nobody would be op…

> But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so. Reading this kind of debate from France is a good laugh. If you're interested you can check where our electricity comes from here: https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-production-delectricit... (between 60 and 70 percent of nuclear energy today).

Also see electricitymap.org

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#325

Post by Mvandenbergh »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #304

I'm surprised that we're still chasing moon shots in strong force fusion, while weak fusion, which has actually been demonstrated already, gets little attention. Chemically assisted/low energy nuclear reactions have been proven to produce clean energy and useful transmutation. This process can be used to turn radioactive waste into inert material. For example, technetium-99 is a particularly pernicious by-product of…

You're surprised that they would continue to pursue something that we are now pretty sure will work (though not necessarily cost effectively) instead of some quackery?

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#326

Post by imtringued »

godelski wrote: post #187
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you mention about billionaires paying for it piques me especially. For someone like Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg or any number of other ultra rich individuals, the PR value of simply stating that they will themselves pay for such a collider up to the cost of its proposed budget (maybe so long as some organization or government promises to cover any cost overruns, or overruns beyond a certain percentage) would be eno…

The discussion of billionaires building "CERNs" came out of a discussion I was having with a friend as a way to quantify how rich these people are in terms more understandable. Graphics like pixel wealth[0] just show scale, but doesn't put things in perspective. But a Forbes analysis estimates the cost of finding the Higgs at around $14bn (rounding up)[1]. I also tried using Super Computers, but at around $300m a pie…

Regarding mkorostoff's 1 pixel wealth page. Taking wealth from the richest is very difficult. You'll have to find a way to make them agree with it. If you forcibly take money from people then you're just an angry mob. The only thing that would appear fair is higher taxes and maybe a wealth tax [0] but a 100 billion dollars buys you a lot of lobbying power. The worst case scenario is that the rich just hide their wealth.

[0] One could even make a concession and let the wealthy choose among a list of approved charities/projects to spend the taxed money on.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#327

Post by karxxm »

seangrogg wrote: post #321
wfreeborn wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the very definition of a sunk cost fallacy

Came here to say just this. While I'm glad to see that research is finally culminating in investment and assembly we shouldn't be committing to this project just because people put time and effort into it.

Of cause we should put time and effort into it because it is not proven that it is wasted. There have always been people who said CERN is a waist of money but in the long run, mankind wouldn't be the same as today if we didn't fund it back in the days.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#328

Post by imtringued »

Jugurtha wrote: post #172
landryraccoon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without giving a strong opinion either way on whether this particular project is a good investment or not : Science, as an institution imo undervalues good marketing and good PR. For profit enterprises are under no illusion that they can succeed without good marketing and public perception. If large expensive projects like this are needed to increase public awareness and support for basic scientific research then I a…

> Science, as an institution imo undervalues good marketing and good PR. For profit enterprises are under no illusion that they can succeed without good marketing and public perception. Not to mention, this could be an attraction. Sell tickets for guided tours. I would gladly give money to have a guide walk me through that. Granted, at $100 a ticket, and 10,000 people a year, it'll take 20,000 years to recoup the inv…

They could have a theme park with lots of different reactor designs!

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#329

Post by sgift »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #304

I'm surprised that we're still chasing moon shots in strong force fusion, while weak fusion, which has actually been demonstrated already, gets little attention. Chemically assisted/low energy nuclear reactions have been proven to produce clean energy and useful transmutation. This process can be used to turn radioactive waste into inert material. For example, technetium-99 is a particularly pernicious by-product of…

If we stopped what we worked on every time some nice theory came around which could work "better" (for whatever definition of better) we would never get anything done.

Scientists/companies working in these areas are free to produce results that make ITER obsolete. After they've done that we can discuss about abandoning the - from our current understanding of science - most likely path to (more or less) unlimited energy. So far, they are not further along than let's say fusion experiments in 1960.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#330

Post by maccam94 »

ArtWomb wrote: post #190
godelski wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the main issue and I don't want to make it any more complicated. But I do want to explain something because people hear arguments between fusion scientists. Within the field no one really doubts that ITER is going to work (there's a few, of course, but the majority don't doubt). The thing they are arguing over is if it is needed. The big reason for ITER is not to generate power but to demonstrate that sustain…

>>> small scale reactors I believe this is the DoE position. Leverage AI/ML to design smaller magnetic confinement. With the goal toward commercialized products and partnerships. JET was on track to breakeven. And I think most of the researchers involved believe they would have gotten there if the funding hadn't been cut. I think what they want is simply long term commitments. The sort of thing that is risky in fisca…

You don't need AI, just use stronger magnets[1]. ITER was conceived before high temperature superconducting magnets were discovered, so it has more trouble maintaining plasma stability.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&t=39m0s

MIT-affiliated company building a reactor using these magnets: https://cfs.energy/technology

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