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To: zamboz who wrote (17593)	2/12/2009 10:32:14 AM
From: Real Man	Respond to of 71456

Yeah. And fusion plants will cost more than 6 billion. They are not nearly as dirty, and a meltdown is not possible (the amounts in a fusion reaction are directly controlled), but the public perceives otherwise. Fission plants ARE dirty and prone to meltdowns, so they will never be "liked". -g- There is some "dirty stuff" in a fusion reaction, of course, just much less of it.

To: zamboz who wrote (17593)	2/12/2009 10:53:32 AM
From: Real Man	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71456

This joint project is 5 bln. Euro... This wiki article basically says everything - the point of DOE is that fusion is the solution that is always 50 years away, since renewable energy will never be able to provide more than 15% of energy needs, and that's already very optimistic. They keep funding it at a slow pace. Last year US completely cut ITER funding, violating international agreement. The breakthrough has been achieved in recent years (20 orders of magnitude in heating to create self-sustained plasma and output > 1). You would think now they'd fund the hell out of this kinda like peaceful Manhatten project, but no! The Japanese will do it. They are working on it. -g/ng- en.wikipedia.org Proponents believe that much of the ITER criticism is misleading and inaccurate, in particular the allegations of the experiment's "inherent danger." The stated goals for a commercial fusion power station design are that the amount of radioactive waste produced be hundreds of times less than that of a fission reactor, that it produce no long-lived radioactive waste, and that it is impossible for any fusion reactor to undergo a large-scale runaway chain reaction. This is because direct contact with the walls of the reactor would contaminate the plasma, cooling it down immediately and stopping the fusion process. Besides which, the amount of fuel planned to be contained in a fusion reactor chamber (one half gram of deuterium/tritium fuel[26]) is only enough to sustain the reaction for an hour at maximum,[27] whereas a fission reactor usually contains several years' worth of fuel.[28] In case of accident (or intentional act of terrorism) a fusion reactor releases far less radioactive pollution than an ordinary fission nuclear plant. Besides, tritium, being lighter than air, would rise up into the stratosphere and dilute to concentrations whereby the radiation released would be far below the natural background radioactivity of air. Proponents note that large-scale fusion power — if it works — will be able to produce reliable electricity on demand and with virtually zero pollution (no gaseous CO2 / SO2 / NOx by-products are produced). According to researchers at a demonstration reactor in Japan, a fusion generator should be feasible in the 2030s and no later than the 2050s. Japan is pursuing its own research program with several operational facilities exploring different aspects of practicability. [29] In the United States alone, electricity accounts for US$210 billion in annual sales.[30] Asia's electricity sector attracted US$93 billion in private investment between 1990 and 1999.[31] These figures take into account only current prices. With petroleum prices widely expected to rise, political pressure on carbon production, and steadily increasing demand, these figures will undoubtedly also rise. Proponents contend that an investment in research now should be viewed as an attempt to earn a far greater future return for the economy.[citation needed] Also, worldwide investment of less than US$1 billion per year into ITER is not incompatible with concurrent research into other methods of power generation.[citation needed] Contrary to criticism, proponents of ITER assert that there are significant employment benefits associated with the project. ITER will provide employment for hundreds of physicists, engineers, material scientists, construction workers and technicians in the short term, and if successful, will lead to a global industry of fusion-based power generation[citation needed]. Supporters of ITER emphasize that the only way to convincingly prove ideas for withstanding the intense neutron flux is to experimentally subject materials to that flux — one of the primary missions of ITER and the IFMIF,[32] and both facilities will be of vital importance to the effort due to the differences in neutron power spectra between a real D-T burning plasma and the spectrum to be produced by IFMIF.[33] The purpose of ITER is to explore the scientific and engineering questions surrounding fusion power plants, such that it may be possible to build one intelligently in the future. It is nearly impossible to get satisfactory theoretical results regarding the properties of materials under an intense energetic neutron flux, and burning plasmas are expected to have quite different properties from externally heated plasmas.[citation needed] The point has been reached, according to supporters, where answering these questions about fusion reactors by experiment (via ITER) is an economical research investment, given the monumental potential benefit. Furthermore the main line of research—the tokamak—has been developed to the point that it is now possible to undertake the penultimate step in magnetic confinement plasma physics research—the investigation of ‘burning’ plasmas in which the vast majority of the heating is provided by the fusion event itself. A detailed engineering design, has been developed for a tokamak experiment which would explore burning plasma physics and integrate reactor relevant technology. In the tokamak research program, recent advances in controlling the internal configuration of the plasma have led to the achievement of substantially improved energy and pressure confinement in tokamaks—the so-called ‘advanced tokamak’ modes—which reduces the projected cost of electricity from tokamak reactors by a factor of two to a value only about 50% more than the projected cost of electricity from advanced light-water reactors. In parallel, progress in the development of advanced, low activation structural materials supports the promise of environmentally benign fusion reactors, and research into alternate confinement concepts is yielding promise of future improvements in confinement.[34] Finally, supporters point out that other potential replacements to the current use of fossil fuel sources have environmental issues of their own. Solar, wind, and hydroelectric power all have a relatively low power output per square kilometer compared to ITER's successor DEMO which, at 2000 MW,[citation needed] should have an energy density that exceeds even large fission power plants [35]