Posted on 08/01/2004 9:48:34 AM PDT by ckilmer
US to halt nuclear fusion project
17:04 30 July 04
NewScientist.com news service
Amidst a prolonged stalemate over where to build the world's largest nuclear fusion facility, the US is halting work on a homegrown fusion project. The decision caused concern among researchers at a fusion meeting earlier this week.
The US is pinning its hopes on ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which aims to lay the groundwork for using nuclear fusion as an inexhaustible and clean energy source.
But the project has been stalled since December 2003 because its six members - the US, the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia – cannot agree on where to build the facility. The EU, China, and Russia favour the French city of Cadarache, while the US, South Korea, and Japan back the Japanese town of Rokkashomura.
The deadlock has persisted even after both the EU and Japan sweetened their offers in June, each agreeing to pay half of ITER's estimated $5 billion construction costs to host the reactor. And rumours have spread that some parties might splinter off to build the reactor on their own.
Now, the standoff has lasted so long that the US has reached a deadline on another fusion project. The deadline was set in 2002 by a committee advising the US Department of Energy (DOE) to proceed with a smaller project called FIRE (Fusion Ignition Research Experiment) if ITER negotiations had stalled by July 2004.
No backup
Planning for FIRE was actually begun in 1998, when the US Congress directed the DOE to pull out of ITER. Since then about 50 researchers have been working on a "preconceptual" design for FIRE. But the approximately $2 million annual budget for this will come to an end in September.
In 2003, the US rejoined ITER, and now the DOE says FIRE will not serve as an alternative even if ITER falls through.
"We do not have a backup plan," Anne Davies, director of the DOE's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, told New Scientist. "We are focused on making ITER work. If ITER doesn't work, we are going to have a lot of reassessing to do."
Davies said FIRE's use of copper magnets - instead of superconducting ones like ITER - was "dead-end" technology that would not lead as quickly to the goal of a fusion power plant.
She added that Congress would probably balk at building the $1 billion FIRE reactor without international partners, and that such partners might not want to sign onto a project whose plan was already so well established.
Square one
FIRE's design team leader Dale Meade, a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, agrees that ITER should take top priority.
But during public comments at a meeting of the DOE's fusion energy sciences advisory committee near Washington, DC, this week, he urged the government to reconsider its decision to scrap FIRE as a backup.
"I was reminding them we were ready if called upon," he told New Scientist. If ITER negotiations fail, he says, "we might have to take a step back, but we don't want to go all the way back to square one".
Earl Marmar, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has reviewed the FIRE design, says it is a viable alternative to ITER. If FIRE were pursued, he says, it would be best to do it with international participation, but he says ITER has proven how difficult that can be.
"ITER has been technically ready to move forward for at least a couple of years - it's really been a political holdup," he told New Scientist. "We're all hopeful ITER will succeed, but we're also rather impatient."
Maggie McKee
Not to mention that telecommuting and homeschooling via the internet could bring families closer together.
Invest some money in educating our children in technical subjects and they will find the trail to the other mountain top.
I no a lot of physics and I remember that they split a hydrogen attom into one helium attom and one carbon attom.
Agree w/ all of the above.
Fusion power would be if it existed. ITER might be the best idea so far, but why should funding be so restricted that it needs an international project to get built? In the meantime scientists are looking at their retirement packages instead of working on reactor problems as they appear.
...only if Congress, supplies the hot air...problem solved. :))
But as with manned space exploration and stem cells, the lesson for conservatives should be clear by now: let's not sit on our butts waiting for the government to do it! Advanced research is tricky and dangerous, and for these reasons - not because it's expensive - the federosaurus is not going to go adventuring on our behalf. Enterprises like this belong in the private sector, responsible to nothing and no one, engaged in by people who are willing to risk their lives.
This should have been done 20 years ago. Ask your elected representative why this hasn't been done. Watch a confused look flash across his face.
The confused face would just be a put-on though. They know exactly why it hasn't been done. Money needs to be spread about in such a way as to insure reelection. There are maybe a dozen guys between the House and Senate that truly work for the best interests of the country.
Spending money on far sighted R&D and exploration things does NOT insure reelection...
No, the U.S. needs to get serious about new-gen fission reactors. There should be an "X-Prize" for designing a low-CAPEX, failsafe fission powerplant.
China has plans to build as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactors over the next 16 years.
China orders emergency shipments of coal
China to Build More Nuclear Power Plants
hard science ping
please ping the other "usual suspects" - I am drawing a blank on their userIDs. thanks
I no a lot of physics and I remember that they split a hydrogen attom into one helium attom and one carbon attom.
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darn feel bad for the guy who paid you. oh no those were tax dollars weren't they. I suspose a body could get some satisfaction from swindling the government.
That is probably the main factor. Election and reelection puts a very short limit to any planning for development. Any project needs to be over in 2 years.
But as with manned space exploration and stem cells, the lesson for conservatives should be clear by now: let's not sit on our butts waiting for the government to do it! Advanced research is tricky and dangerous, and for these reasons - not because it's expensive - the federosaurus is not going to go adventuring on our behalf. Enterprises like this belong in the private sector, responsible to nothing and no one, engaged in by people who are willing to risk their lives.
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bull hockey. some of the best money the feds spend is on research. most modern technologies have received seed money from fed agencies like DARPA.
You don't no no fisiks, do you?
Ditto that. I talked to some of the Princton guys back then, and they were cock sure their Tokamac thing would work.
> "I no a lot of physics and I remember that they split a hydrogen attom into one helium attom and one carbon attom." <
This is a joke, right?
It's also a good thing we use coal in our thermonuclear warheads. This way we're not dependent on foreign oil to power our joke fusion warheads.
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