BREAKING! Fusion Reactor Works

[SvennoJ]

Faelco said:

SvennoJ said:
What Faelco said. They've been working on this project since 2006. Nuclear fusion has been around a lot longer. Claims of cold fusion breakthroughs were quite regular 30 years ago.

ITER isn't going to produce energy either, it's a proof of concept.

http://www.jt60sa.org/b/FAQ/EE2.htm
ITER is about equivalent to a zero (net) power reactor, when the plasma is burning. Not very useful, but the minimum required for a convincing proof of principle. In ITER the conversion to electricity will not be made: the production of fusion power by the ITER experiment is too spasmodic for commercial use.

We'll get there eventually. Perhaps if we invested as much into fusion reactors as into the military...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-iter-idUSKCN1271BC
Costs are now up to 18 billion euros (for the entire project) Total defense spending (world) is estimated at 1,586 billion euros a year!

You're right! ITER is supposed to be the first reactor to create more energy than it needs to work, so that's a big step, but still for research purposes.

 

Nothing really new in the article, just one more greenlit step in a 60-70+ years long process... 

Yeah it's taking quite some time. And by the time ITER is up and running it will be obsolete. It's like building an interstallar spaceship that gets overtaken halfway into the journey by a better version.

Another challenge is the production of Tritium needed for the Tritium Deuterium reaction that fuels these reactors. Tritium can be generated by the reactor itself by letting stray neutrons interact with Lithium. Litium and Deuterium are easily harvested. Waste product will only be Helium.

It's all so simple on paper, yet working with temperatures that simply melt all known materials is a 'slight' challenge. Yet if we can figure that out in a safe manner, it's time to start working on those anti matter interstellar space engines :)