Fusion Energy Debate

Why doesn't this article discuss ITER?

ITER is magnetic confinement fusion - the plasma is heated to extreme temperatures but at low density. While theoretically it looks like a much more promising route to a practical fusion reactor, as far as we know there has never been a net-positive magnetically confined fusion reaction in the universe. Plasma physics is incredibly complicated and we've run into a long series of issues with plasma instabilities, we believe that these issues will be overcome but we still can't rule out

Good luck trying to "scale up" (at least in the near future). Tokamaks are only getting to be "scaled up" now, after pretty much decades, and basically only thanks to ITER (factor of ten plasma volume compared to the second largest tokamak). And ITER is a megaproject comparable (both in budget and time) with the SLS program. Maybe even more expensive (depending on if you believe the official number, 22bn EUR, or the unofficial estimate, 40bn EUR) and DEFINITELY more complex

It’s not unlimited power, it’s unlimited fuel.The hype is coming from REBCO tape magnets which aren’t in ITER. Many consider ITER to already be obsolete.This is like how computers used to take up whole rooms in the 50s but later could sit in the corner. Fusion takes up whole buildings (ITER) but the MIT ppl proved a magnet so that it can fit in just a room.As our magnets get stronger the tokamaks can get smaller. Room sized tokamak is manageable for commercialization. Commonwealth Fusio

It's only superconducting magnets and 100M degree plasma, how hard could it be?

It's questionable. ITER's design comes from the late 1990s and early 2000s.Hight Temperature Superconductors (HTS) have changed the game. HTS tape has only been available for about a decade.The cube of magnetic field is proportional to the energy gain in a Tokomak. See this video at at 46 minutes to get the equation, watch more to understand why people are now doing this.https://www.y

There is nothing disappointing in skepticism about the importance or value of this work.1. It is, purely, bomb research dressed up as civilian activity for funding purposes. Everyone working on it has top-secret clearance.2. It has no consequence for any civilian project. The target that produced a couple of MJ cost $10M. (2.4 MJ is <0.7 kWh.) A real plant would need to feed them in at a high rate. Q is not the important measure. Dollars out / dollars in is the right measure, and e

Here's an interesting article that puts this into perspective and provides a lot of history about nuclear research:https://quillette.com/2022/02/21/fusion-power-is-coming/EDIT:The above article talks about some other approaches, such as:> MIT physicist Bruno Coppi proposed achieving fusion in a very small tokamak by the si

It's not really here nor there though - the reality is it's an underdeveloped technology. It is technically very interesting that it works, but the big engineering roadmap is just "okay, how do you even build a power plant out of this?"You can certainly imagine that you simply drop pellets into the chamber continuously, and use a heat absorption medium (because you don't have magnets to keep cool) to smooth out the power curve. But all of that is the sort of developme

Thanks Nokinside! This is a great and easy to follow takedown of the concept on several dimensions (which I've chosen to summarize inline):First, that making the internal device apparatus more complex is counter to the production of energy (you must put stuff in the way of the plasma that has to go fast) and it's also counter to the stability of the device (the plasma that's going fast hits the stuff you put in the way, and the neutrons you produce also hit the stuff you put in