camelot-forum.co.uk

The 35-nation Iter project has a groundbreaking aim to create clean and limitless energy but it is turning into the ‘most delayed and cost-inflated science project in history’
It was a project that promised the sun. Researchers would use the world’s most advanced technology to design a machine that could generate atomic fusion, the process that drives the stars – and so create a source of cheap, non-polluting power.

That was initially the aim of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) which 35 countries – including European states, China, Russia and the US – agreed to build at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France at a starting cost of $6bn. Work began in 2010, with a commitment that there would be energy-producing reactions by 2020.
Then reality set in. Cost overruns, Covid, corrosion of key parts, last-minute redesigns and confrontations with nuclear safety officials triggered delays that mean Iter is not going to be ready for another decade, it has just been announced. Worse, energy-producing fusion reactions will not be generated until 2039, while Iter’s budget – which has already soared to $20bn – will increase by a further $5bn.

Other estimates suggest the final price tag could rise well above this figure and make Iter “the most delayed and most cost-inflated ­science project in history”, the journal Scientific American has warned. For its part, the journal Science has stated simply that Iter is now in “big trouble”, while Nature has noted that the project has been “plagued by a string of hold-ups, cost overruns and management issues”.

Dozens of private companies now threaten to create fusion reactors on a shorter timescale, warn scientists. These include Tokamak Energy in Oxford and Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the US.

“The trouble is that Iter has been going on for such a long time, and suffered so many delays, that the rest of the world has moved on,” said fusion expert Robbie Scott of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. “A host of new technologies have emerged since Iter was planned. That has left the project with real problems.”
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“It was originally planned to line the tokamak reactor with protective beryllium but that turned out to be very tricky. It is toxic and eventually it was decided to replace it with tungsten,” said David Armstrong, professor of materials science and engineering at Oxford University. “That was a major design change taken very late in the day.”
Then huge sections of tokamak made in Korea were found not to fit together properly, while threats that there could be leaks of radioactive materials led the French nuclear regulators to call a halt on the plant’s construction. More delays in construction were announced as problems piled up.
Then came Covid. “The pandemic shut down factories supplying components, reduced the associated workforce, and triggered impacts – such as backlogs in shipping and challenges in conducting quality-control inspections,” admitted Iter’s director-general, Pietro Barabaschi.

Bugtownboy wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2024 2:27 pm But, we’re already utilising fusion energy.

Today providing 20-25% of the UK’s energy needs. More, if you accept it drives so much of Earth’s weather.

Perhaps, we should focus the intellect and finance on achieving improved utilisation of availability and then, once we’re not in a race to achieve the potential Unobtainium, we can take a more relaxed view of the project.

Saladin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2024 12:50 pm

Stop trying to correlate energy transduction to private wealth accumulation.

Pioneer electro-gravitics.

Gravity + hydrogen = fusion. Stars are mocking us.

Why we're so concerned about sport and fashion and what's on the twitfeed etc.. but 6 000 years of civilisation later nobody has a effin' notion how to control gravity is embarrassing.

Gravity is a wave and it travels at the speed of light. There's also more than 3 states of matter. Plasma is the 4th and I'll bet there's another after that.
Was any of that part of our education? I recall being told all sorts of fairy tales.