Fusion megaproject confirms 5-year delay, trims costs

[Chieftain]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/fusion-megaproject-confirms-5-year-delay-trims-costs

 By Daniel CleryJun. 16, 2016 , 4:00 PM

The ITER fusion reactor will fire up for the first time in December 2025, the €18-billion project’s governing council confirmed today. The date for “first plasma” is 5 years later than under the old schedule, and to get there the council is asking the project partners—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—to cough up an extra €4 billion ($4.5 billion).

 “It is expected, if there are no objections, that we can approve [the schedule] by November and then we can move forward,” says ITER director general Bernard Bigot.

ITER aims to show that it is feasible to fuse hydrogen nuclei together to form helium and thereby release enough excess energy to make a viable source of power. To achieve that requires heating two hydrogen isotopes—deuterium (D) and tritium (T)—to temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius. ITER will feature an enormous vessel to contain the D-T plasma, powerful superconducting magnets to confine it, and elaborate particle accelerators and microwave generators to heat it.

The international consortium that is building the reactor has parceled out the construction work to hundreds of companies across the globe. But the sheer complexity of the effort has led to delays and cost increases as researchers sought to finalize the design, maintain standards, and get the million-plus components delivered on time to the reactor site at Cadarache, France.

SCHNIPP

This stuff is hard to do and worth the effort if we can master cold fusion.  Find a technology that works, and then get a working plant into high earth orbit and see what kind of thrust it can be used to produce....

[geronl]

billions here, billions there...

[Chieftain]

I find it fascinating that the majority of the engineering involved has to do with overcoming the significant disadvantages of being at the bottom of a 1G gravity well.  The infrastructure just to keep it from sinking into the planet's core is enormous.  Of course everything has to be protected from the effects of 1 Bar of mixed gas atmosphere, water vapor, insects, bacteria and the intrusion of all kinds of crap in the thick soup its being built in.

You still have to build to support and control mass, but in an airless, weightless environment the engineering requirements suddenly change dramatically.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I find it fascinating that the majority of the engineering involved has to do with overcoming the significant disadvantages of being at the bottom of a 1G gravity well.  The infrastructure just to keep it from sinking into the planet's core is enormous.  Of course everything has to be protected from the effects of 1 Bar of mixed gas atmosphere, water vapor, insects, bacteria and the intrusion of all kinds of crap in the thick soup its being built in.

You still have to build to support and control mass, but in an airless, weightless environment the engineering requirements suddenly change dramatically.

 

Yes, they would. There would still be forces to compensate for, but fewer and lesser if the right part of space (in system, near Earth) was used to conduct the work. But when our government decided it was going to spend the money on 'problems right here at home' rather than invest in a future out there, humanity shot itself in the foot.
We got a great ROI on the problems here at home, though, (subsidies bought more than ever....)