World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly in France

[sl8]

Source: The Guardian


Project aims to show clean fusion power can be generated at commercial scale

Damian Carrington Environment editor
Tue 28 Jul 2020 05.00 EDT | Last modified on Tue 28 Jul 2020 05.46 EDT

The world’s largest nuclear fusion project began its five-year assembly phase on Tuesday in southern France, with the first ultra-hot plasma expected to be generated in late 2025.

The €20bn (£18.2bn) Iter project will replicate the reactions that power the sun and is intended to demonstrate fusion power can be generated on a commercial scale. Nuclear fusion promises clean, unlimited power but, despite 60 years of research, it has yet to overcome the technical challenges of harnessing such extreme amounts of energy.

Millions of components will be used to assemble the giant reactor, which will weigh 23,000 tonnes and the project is the most complex engineering endeavour in history. Almost 3,000 tonnes of superconducting magnets, some heavier than a jumbo jet, will be connected by 200km of superconducting cables, all kept at -269C by the world’s largest cryogenic plant.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/28/worlds-largest-nuclear-fusion-project-under-assembly-in-france

[Laelth]

1. Nifty.

Hope it works. I congratulate France for trying. This represents an enormous investment.

-Laelth

[no_hypocrisy]

2. That surprises me.

I was under the impression that European countries leaned toward nuclear fission, which is supposed to be safer and just as effective.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Nuclear fission gave us Chernobyl and Fukushima

Google ‘nuclear fusion safer.’

[Yavin4]

7. There was no problem at Chernobyl.

You're mistaken.

[Cirque du So-What]

19. ...

[Yavin4]

20. Referring to this:

&t=125s

[Cirque du So-What]

21. Was on my watch list

Never got around to it.

[Yavin4]

22. You must watch it.

Speaks directly to what we're going through.

[lagomorph777]

11. and Three Mile Island

and Hanford

[Coleman]

5. Fusion beats Fission

When a fusion reactor is shut down, there is no radioactivity. The problem to date is that fusion reactors need a very high level of energy input to get the fusion reaction started. Another problem is that they are expensive to build, to start up, and to operate. Maybe this new reactor will turn the tide that makes electricity produced by the reactor affordable.

[mdbl]

9. fusion will be a much safer source of energy

I hope they can pull it off.

[Nitram]

18. Fission, or initiating a nuclear chain reaction by "splitting" the atom produces much less energy

Last edited Tue Jul 28, 2020, 11:36 PM - Edit history (1)

than fusion, which forces two atoms to meld. Same as the difference between the "atom bomb" (fission) and the "hydrogen bomb" (fusion). The sun's energy is based on fusion, which converts two hydrogen atoms to one helium atom, releasing huge amounts of energy in the process. If that power could be harnessed, it would produce huge amounts of energy without the large amounts of radioactive waste left by the fission process. How to contain something that energetic and hot is a major obstacle to harnessing the power of fusion.

[Miguelito Loveless]

4. I prefer the fusion reactor I've been using for the last 5 years

The model is 4.6 billions years old, but still surprisingly reliable. In fact, you can set your clock by it. Every day it ships photons 93 million miles to my roof in only eight minutes, and has produced 67MWh of electricity so far, powering my house and cars.

Proven tech, that gets cheaper every year.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. +1. But fusion power will undoubtedly have uses too. . . . nt

[Miguelito Loveless]

8. Except for the fact that it is still decades away

just like it has been for the last 60 years.

It is hideously expensive, uses a lot of land, and still required centralized grids.

I am not saying give up on it, but right now we have the tech to de-carbonize the grid. Today. Not 10-50 years from now. Given the dire consequences of global warming, the money being spent on this could be reducing CO2 now. Every house converted takes about 10,000lbs of CO2 out of the atmosphere now. More when you scale up to solar/wind farms.

[lagomorph777]

10. It does seem a bit odd not to exploit the reactor we already have.

[Miguelito Loveless]

14. Precisely!

It's weird in that some of the people I talk to seem to think it can't possibly be THAT simple, or refuse to believe the tech will solve the problems. They point out that it can't solve 100% of the problem, therefore it is useless. I would hazard an estimate that wind/solar/battery could solve 50%-70% of our energy needs in the next 5 years, if we just put in the effort and the resources.

Green energy solutions have seen their costs decline steadily year in, and year out. Solar, wind (and hydro) are the only power generating technologies where the fuel comes to you. No exploration, test drilling, well drilling, pipe lines, refineries, tankers, gas pumps, or ongoing pollution required. (Yes, there is pollution in manufacturing components, but it is a one shot deal. Build a solar panel and it generate power for 25-30 years with no emissions. Recycle, re-manufacture, and 25-30 more years of emission free power).

[NEOBuckeye]

12. It's only good for about another 7.59 billion years though

After that, it’s going to make things a little toasty, to put it mildly.

[Miguelito Loveless]

13. Actually, for us,

things are going to get dicey in the next 3-4 billion years as the sun starts to expand. And let me tell you, it keeps me up at night.

[lagomorph777]

15. Sooner than that: more like 0.5 billion years of good times.

But the odds of humans surviving our own behaviors for 0.001 billion more years are actually very low, so the point is kind of moot.

[Miguelito Loveless]

16. Well, I figured we would adapt until the sun expanded enough to engulf us

but you are right, I should not make any plans past November at this point.

[lagomorph777]

17. Before the present 6th Mass Extinction Event,

The average lifetime of a species was about a million years or less. We are unlikely to hit that, because of our own behavior. Unfortunately, we are taking millions of species down with us.