An international plan to build a nuclear fusion reactor is being threatened by rising costs, delays and technical challenges.Emails leaked to the BBC indicate that construction costs for the experimental fusion project called Iter have more than doubled. Some scientists also believe that the technical hurdles to fusion have become more difficult to overcome and that the development of fusion as a commercial power source is still at least 100 years away. At a meeting in Japan on Wednesday, members of the governing Iter council will review the plans and may agree to scale back the project.
An international plan to build a nuclear fusion reactor is being threatened by rising costs, delays and technical challenges.
Emails leaked to the BBC indicate that construction costs for the experimental fusion project called Iter have more than doubled.
Some scientists also believe that the technical hurdles to fusion have become more difficult to overcome and that the development of fusion as a commercial power source is still at least 100 years away.
At a meeting in Japan on Wednesday, members of the governing Iter council will review the plans and may agree to scale back the project.
Meanwhile an awful lot of realisable technology solutions for the energy crisis are beginning to command more attention. Fusion has failed to make it to the market in time and should best be abandoned till we have a better handle on the technological theory keep to the Fen Causeway
the problems of irradiated material waste is being ignored.
Says who?
That doesn't mean others can't do it right.
I wouldn't trust industry estimates on clean up costs remotely, anywhere.
There is no functioning fusion plant and there won't be for at least another 40 years. Whether waste is an issue for fusion, I don't know. There's going to be some waste, but I thought it was supposed to be less than for fission. We'll see.
I do see that we're already getting huge cost overruns on the ITER project, which is logical. The parties can probably only get the funding through by gradually raising the estimated costs. I predict that it will end up costing five to six times more than the 16 billion dollars currently estimated.
In the mean while, there's an old story from the Guardian which already brought this news. It also has some of teh funny:
The flagship project, which absorbs almost half of Britain's energy research budget, will test complex machinery needed to make the world's first operational fusion power plants - a technology widely expected to transform energy generation by providing abundant power with no greenhouse gas emissions and only small amounts of radioactive waste. The Iter fusion reactor was originally costed at €10bn (£9bn), but the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design are likely to see that bill soar, officials confirmed today. The warning came as scientists gathered in Finland to unveil the first component of the reactor, which will effectively act as its exhaust pipe. The reactor is expected to take nearly 10 years to build and is scheduled to be switched on in 2018. It began as a US-Russian project in the 1980s, but has since grown to include the EU, China, India, Japan and South Korea. Britain currently pays around £20m into Iter each year.
The Iter fusion reactor was originally costed at €10bn (£9bn), but the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design are likely to see that bill soar, officials confirmed today.
The warning came as scientists gathered in Finland to unveil the first component of the reactor, which will effectively act as its exhaust pipe. The reactor is expected to take nearly 10 years to build and is scheduled to be switched on in 2018.
It began as a US-Russian project in the 1980s, but has since grown to include the EU, China, India, Japan and South Korea.
Britain currently pays around £20m into Iter each year.
Even if the production costs allow energy too cheap to meter, the maintenance costs may yet still be prohibitive. keep to the Fen Causeway
First, Queen Elizabeth adopted Michelle Obama's urban ag agenda by starting her own kitchen garden on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The Queen and the First Lady have been forging a "special friendship" of their own in recent months, as evidenced by the spontaneous hug Michelle Obama gave the Queen at a reception, to the horror of the protocol police. Who knows, maybe the Queen's growing friendship with our foremost ambassador for fruits and veggies was a factor in her Majesty's decision to authorize a new victory garden. It's been a long time since the Queen last dabbled in edible landscaping, according to the BBC, which noted that "This is the first time vegetables have been grown in the backyard of the monarch's London residence since World War II." The BBC story included a photo, taken in 1940, showing the Queen as a young princess wielding a spade and a rake. This time around, the Queen's delegating the digging to her staff. ... If the First Lady and the Queen's shared desire to promote food gardening and healthy eating seems like an unprecedented pairing, Brits witnessed an even more improbable UK/US alliance this week when Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono--famously blamed for breaking up the Beatles--came together on Monday to announce the launch of Sir Paul's Meat Free Mondays campaign. By coincidence, America's version of the go-veg-once-a-week movement, Meatless Monday, relaunched its website on the very same day, so there's plenty of momentum growing on both sides of the Atlantic for this campaign to start your week off doing something significant to curb your carbon 'foodprint.' Given the role that livestock production plays in producing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting back on our meat consumption just makes sense, and making a habit of doing so one day a week is a win-win, benefiting your own health and the planet's. As Moby, who's as famous these days for his NYC vegan café Teany as for his music, said at the Meat Free Monday launch: 'If I point my finger at someone, saying, "You should be a vegetarian," they're just going to get annoyed...There is definitely a risk [of] alienating people. Maybe one day a week, consider what you are doing. 'We're saying, do this for your personal health and in the process you help animals and you help the environment.' It's heartening to see two of Britain's best known citizens lobbying on behalf of a plant-based diet, or what Michael Pollan--another Meatless Mondays advocate--calls "the resolarization of our food chain." Here comes the sun, indeed.
First, Queen Elizabeth adopted Michelle Obama's urban ag agenda by starting her own kitchen garden on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The Queen and the First Lady have been forging a "special friendship" of their own in recent months, as evidenced by the spontaneous hug Michelle Obama gave the Queen at a reception, to the horror of the protocol police.
Who knows, maybe the Queen's growing friendship with our foremost ambassador for fruits and veggies was a factor in her Majesty's decision to authorize a new victory garden. It's been a long time since the Queen last dabbled in edible landscaping, according to the BBC, which noted that "This is the first time vegetables have been grown in the backyard of the monarch's London residence since World War II."
The BBC story included a photo, taken in 1940, showing the Queen as a young princess wielding a spade and a rake. This time around, the Queen's delegating the digging to her staff.
...
If the First Lady and the Queen's shared desire to promote food gardening and healthy eating seems like an unprecedented pairing, Brits witnessed an even more improbable UK/US alliance this week when Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono--famously blamed for breaking up the Beatles--came together on Monday to announce the launch of Sir Paul's Meat Free Mondays campaign.
By coincidence, America's version of the go-veg-once-a-week movement, Meatless Monday, relaunched its website on the very same day, so there's plenty of momentum growing on both sides of the Atlantic for this campaign to start your week off doing something significant to curb your carbon 'foodprint.'
Given the role that livestock production plays in producing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting back on our meat consumption just makes sense, and making a habit of doing so one day a week is a win-win, benefiting your own health and the planet's. As Moby, who's as famous these days for his NYC vegan café Teany as for his music, said at the Meat Free Monday launch: 'If I point my finger at someone, saying, "You should be a vegetarian," they're just going to get annoyed...There is definitely a risk [of] alienating people. Maybe one day a week, consider what you are doing.
'We're saying, do this for your personal health and in the process you help animals and you help the environment.'
It's heartening to see two of Britain's best known citizens lobbying on behalf of a plant-based diet, or what Michael Pollan--another Meatless Mondays advocate--calls "the resolarization of our food chain." Here comes the sun, indeed.
