Fusion power gets slammed

[jpak]

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060306/full/060306-13.html

ITER consortium Fusion reactors are an expensive dream that will never provide economical energy.

That's the controversial position of a nuclear physicist who once worked on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bomb. And it makes bleak reading for scientists involved with the ITER project.

ITER, meaning 'the way' in Latin, is an experimental fusion reactor that will be built in southern France (see 'France wins fusion project'). Its proponents hope that it will lead the way for reactors that generate electricity without releasing greenhouse gases.

But the projected costs of building and maintaining a plant, let alone getting it to work, are simply too high for fusion ever to become a viable power source, according to William Parkins, formerly chief scientist with the California-based technology company Rockwell International and author of an article in this week's Science1.

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