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U.S. physicists rally around ambitious plan to build fusion power plant
Science Magazine ^ | 12/08/2020 | Adrian Cho

Posted on 12/09/2020 8:17:49 AM PST by BenLurkin

A 10-year plan presented last week to the federal Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee... calls for the Department of Energy (DOE), the main sponsor of U.S. fusion research, to prepare to build a prototype power plant in the 2040s that would produce carbon-free electricity by harnessing the nuclear process that powers the Sun.

The plan formalizes a goal set out 2 years ago by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and embraced in a March report from a 15-month-long fusion community planning process. It also represents a subtle but crucial shift from the basic research that officials in DOE’s Office of Science have favored. “The community urgently wants to move forward with fusion on a time scale that can impact climate change,” says Troy Carter, a fusion physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the planning committee. “We have to get started.”

Fusion scientists and DOE officials strived to avoid the sort of meltdown they suffered during their last planning exercise. Six years ago, the fractious community was already reeling from budget cuts that forced DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program to shutter one of three major experiments. Then, the associate director for FES decided to write the plan himself, with limited input. Many researchers rejected the road map.

The plan that emerged does not call for a crash effort to build the prototype power plant. During the next decade, fusion researchers around the world will likely have their hands full completing and running ITER, the international fusion reactor under construction in southern France. ITER, a huge doughnut-shaped device called a tokamak, aims to show in the late 2030s that fusion can produce more energy than goes into heating and squeezing the plasma.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencemag.org ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: fusion; fusionpowerplant; powerplant
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1 posted on 12/09/2020 8:17:49 AM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Money sink.


2 posted on 12/09/2020 8:19:22 AM PST by sauropod (Let them eat kale. I will not comply. Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis.)
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To: BenLurkin

So, between 2030, when we phase out oil, and 2040, when this is rolled out, we’ll just put on a sweater.


3 posted on 12/09/2020 8:19:47 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: BenLurkin

Would you trust a scientist with the power of the atom who believes in “Man-made climate change”? Not me like trusting a doctor who believes bloodletting will cure cancer.


4 posted on 12/09/2020 8:20:31 AM PST by pburgh01
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To: BenLurkin

Have they ever gotten the power in/power out ratio of a Fusion reactor beyond 1.0?


5 posted on 12/09/2020 8:20:55 AM PST by Yo-Yo (is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: BenLurkin

It won’t matter. The greenies, funded by massive energy companies, will never allow cheap clean energy. There could be a Mr. Fusion in every household that turns garbage and sewage in to all the electricity you could ever want and they will find a way to ban it.


6 posted on 12/09/2020 8:23:13 AM PST by Organic Panic (Flinging poo is not a valid argument)
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To: Organic Panic

Ban it for the masses but exempt themselves of course.


7 posted on 12/09/2020 8:25:04 AM PST by wally_bert (I cannot be sure for certain, but in my personal opinion I am certain that I am not sure.)
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To: BenLurkin

Only ten years away!

Since 1955.

And, after $100 billion of R&D.


8 posted on 12/09/2020 8:25:35 AM PST by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen
Only ten years away!

Since 1955.

Not correct.

For most of that period, it was 20 years away.

9 posted on 12/09/2020 8:28:56 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries. )
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To: sauropod

Another government project that is a “10 year away” mirage like “returning to the Moon” and “going to Mars”. Once the money for the programs gets appropriated for new studies it all gets stolen pretty quickly.


10 posted on 12/09/2020 8:29:32 AM PST by Tallguy (Facts be d@mned! The narrative must be protected at all costs!)
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To: marktwain

That’s what I remember.

20 years away....and it always will be.

I hope not, but the potential Biden administration will be a black hole for taxpayer dollars when it comes to “alternative” energy.


11 posted on 12/09/2020 8:32:24 AM PST by jdsteel (Americans are Dreamers too!!!)
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To: BenLurkin

“Six years ago, the fractious community was already reeling from budget cuts that forced DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program to shutter one of three major experiments.”

Please remind me, Greta, and the signers of the Paris Climate accord, who was the president, and for that matter the political party, at that time that claimed that Climate change was the biggest threat to the planet and we only and only had 10 years left before it was irreversible.


12 posted on 12/09/2020 8:35:13 AM PST by shotgun
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To: marktwain
Not correct. For most of that period, it was 20 years away.

Now it really is 20 years away. For sure.

13 posted on 12/09/2020 8:36:38 AM PST by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: BenLurkin
Burning hydrogen is another dream that never comes true.

Breaking apart H2O with solar energy sounds clean, but it requires more energy input than you get from burning the hydrogen after you isolate it.

Not only that, since hydrogen is the least dense element, transporting and storing it also has huge costs.

It either has to be compressed at extreme pressures or liquefied.

Since hydrogen is explosive, that is not great idea, either.

14 posted on 12/09/2020 8:41:02 AM PST by zeestephen
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To: pburgh01

“Hey...who’s the Doctor here?” (Theodoric of York)


15 posted on 12/09/2020 8:59:12 AM PST by rlmorel ("I’d rather enjoy a risky freedom than a safe servitude." Robby Dinero, USMC Veteran, Gym Owner)
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To: BenLurkin
Here's my fusion plant. I use it for outdoor lights and to grow my garden.


16 posted on 12/09/2020 9:09:52 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: zeestephen

If they can bioengineer kelp/seaweed to produce air sacs of hydrogen from sunlight and salt water, we’d be set.


17 posted on 12/09/2020 9:20:06 AM PST by Frohickey
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To: Yo-Yo

“Have they ever gotten the power in/power out ratio of a Fusion reactor beyond 1.0?”

I think so, for a fraction of a second.


18 posted on 12/09/2020 9:28:18 AM PST by cymbeline
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To: DannyTN

“Here’s my fusion plant”

That’s really a good one! We already have lots of fusion power!


19 posted on 12/09/2020 9:30:02 AM PST by cymbeline
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To: BenLurkin

Let me see now... how many programs of DOE from the energy crisis made it to successful application?

DOE to administer a pipe dream running into a trillion or more dollars for a pilot project? Ummmm..... NO.

From my experience DOE couldn’t successfully manage a 13 year-old’s nocturnal dreams, a piss up in a pub or a two car funeral.


20 posted on 12/09/2020 10:08:58 AM PST by Sequoyah101 (I have a burning hatred of anyone who would vote for a demented, pedophile, crook and a commie whore)
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