News on ITER

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Ronald fitzsimmons
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News on ITER

Post by Ronald fitzsimmons »

Hi all I stumbled upon this article and thought it may provide a light read I think thay may be a little optimistic looking for 500 megawatts of output ?

https://futurism.com/scientists-start-c ... on-reactor
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Richard Hull
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Re: News on ITER

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More horse hockey added to the already hopeful pile of smelly fertilizer. I know about demo in the 2050's and first hoped commercialization in 2075. It all rests on ITER's ability to go 24-7-365 doing 500 megawatts out from the 50 megawatt coal fired plant needed to run it. Thus, it rests on hopes and dreams just like all the prior failed fusion systems. If they do get 500 megawatts for 2 hours before something goes horribly wrong, it is a wash and demo and commercialization goes into the 2100's, if we are lucky, and if a functioning world wide civilization that can continue to fund and focus in on fusion energy exists in 2100. ITER must perform 24-7-365 or it is a joke well played on the public treasure.

A sputtering, spitting 500 Megawatt multi-billion dollar fusion reactor that operates at full power in only fits and starts and is designed not to produce one watt of usable electricity will be a zero sum game.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: News on ITER

Post by Dennis P Brown »

If they go one hundred seconds without the plasma cutting through the vacuum case, and possibly causing a superconducting (SC) magnet to go back to non-SC, I'd be ammazed (And if the SC magnet does go non-SC, the resulting explosion from the massive stored energy being dumped into the coils will likely destroy a good area of the tokamak - hopefully, does not lead to a domino effect with the other SC magnets.)
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Richard Hull
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Re: News on ITER

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One would hope that for the billions spent, they have covered this, but remember the sandwich or part thereof left in the collider?

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Dennis P Brown
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Real name: Dennis Brown

Re: News on ITER

Post by Dennis P Brown »

I've talked to a Physicist involved with ITER and this was his primary concern; I certainly knew of this issue for tokamaks back in the 90's but was surprised its still an unsolved issue. I'm sure it is minor - the loss of a few tokamaks is well worth the billions sepnt ;)

Speaking of which, remember the new Princeton tokamak program? They built it according to the spec's the physicist in charge gave for the superconducting magnets. The first test of one of the magnets resulted in it being destroyed as it became noramlly conducting thanks to the wrong copper alloy used to remove heat build up. All the magnets (nearly a billion dollars) are junk and being scraped. DoE, of course, is funding new magnets - why would be a question but that, I gues, is obvious. I have zero confidence the physicist running ITER are going to properly fix their killer problem; rather, they'll continue and hope some how it is corrected after building the thing - good luck with that.

At least the German's fixed their magnet issues before building their stellarator - the company that won the project couldn't meet spec's on the magnets and the physicist wisely stopped the project; you can see that very magnet (non-spec.) They display it in front of their stellator building. The physicist then worked with their own engineers and developed a process to make the magnets (delayed the project for almost tens years but they were determined to do it right - not fast.) These new magnets are installed, working and excceed all performance goals to date. That project isn't just on track but succeeding and came in on budget. Also, wisely, the physicist made it a policy that ONLY the engineers and tech's can work on, repair/install equipment or operate the stellator. They understand their limitations.

Interestingly, Princeton also started back in the 90's on a similar stellarator program. They tried to develop the magnets, ran over budget big time, and DoE wisely cut them off and closed the project. One of the few bright spots is, some of the diagnostics they did developed are now being used on the German stellarator.
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