Posted on 01/24/2002 3:56:05 AM PST by Arkle
The United States may rejoin Iter, the international consortium to build an experimental fusion reactor. It is just three years since the Americans walked away from the project, complaining about excessive costs and technical issues.
President Bush's science advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Marburger III, says the US is now reviewing its position.
Iter, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, will be built in the next few years. A decision on its site, thought likely to be Canada or Japan, is expected in 2003.
The reactor aims to produce energy in the same way as the Sun, by forcing together atoms at very high temperatures (about 100 million degrees Celsius).
Fusion energy offers many advantages over "conventional" nuclear power, which works by fission, or the splitting of atoms.
Fusion reactors could use seawater as a source of fuel. They would not emit greenhouse gases like fossil fuel power stations and neither would they create the highly radioactive waste found in current nuclear stations.
But exploiting fusion power has not been easy. The initial high expectations of researchers in the 1950s were quickly dampened when they realised how difficult it would be to solve some of the technical problems involved.
These included learning how to control the complex behaviour of an electrically charged gas, or plasma. The plasma, which contains the atomic nuclei to be forced together, is held in place inside the reactor by huge magnets that make the reactor look like a giant doughnut.
It has taken several decades of research, at places like the Jet (Joint European Torus) project in Britain, to get a reactor to produce even a small amount of fusion energy.
Iter could be the final stage before the world sees the first commercial fusion power station.
In 1999, the US balked at Iter's $10bn price tag. Since it left the project, Iter scientists have revised the project and the expected cost now stands at about $4.5bn.
Those involved in the programme are urging the US to make its mind up soon, as the decision on where to build the experimental reactor must be made within a year. Privately they are hoping that the US joins without interfering with the choice between Canada and Japan.
Imagine that...an energy policy
False dichotomy - shame on you. Do you really think that the only two choices are to dump money on this boondoggle or be dependent on foreign oil (btw we're not dependent on foreign oil - we buy it because it's CHEAP.) This only makes sense if it can supply energy CHEAPER than other sources. Burning H3 and H2 gives you something that you don't want - a neutron. Neutrons are very hard to contain, transmute almost everything to radioisotopes and destroy structural integrity. I read estimates published by the IEEE that a fusion reactor using the H3 and H2 reaction would have to be completely scrapped and replaced every three years due to the destructive effects of the neutrons, and further that the entire reactor would become extremely radioactive not quite at the same level as spent fission waste, but high enough to kill anyone who worked on it pretty quickly.
Anyway, I've made the mistake of arguing on your level. The fundamental question is not whether this research is worthy of government funding or not, but rather should the government be funding research at all. My answer is NO. you should read Bastiat's what is seen and not seen
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.