Personal View site logo
Capitalism: Issue with ITER
  • According to Fusion for Energy--the EU's joint undertaking for ITER--18 niobium-tin superconducting magnets, aka toroidal field coils, will be used to contain the 150 million degrees celsius plasma. The powerful magnets will generate a powerful magnetic field equal to 11.8 Tesla, or a million times stronger than the earth's magnetic field. Nearly 3,000 tonnes of these superconducting magnets will be connected by 200km of superconducting cables and kept at -269C by the world's largest cryostat manufactured in India.

    Issue with any such reactors is that in reality they will never work.

    During any real thermonuclear reaction you have particles that don't have any charge and hence can't be held with any fields, and it does not matter how strong they are. They have big energies and almost instantly destroy any walls or protection you can come up with. ITER proposal is to use 1 meter thick walls, but they won't be use for any real life reactor functioning, instead it will be tiny research runs where you can for year tell some promising wordsa dn show presentations.

    All the guys who are behing ITER know this, yet they spend huge money of working people on such thing. And before it spent around 5x more on smaller versions of same concept in many countries. All of them utterly failed to do anything besides some particles research results and getting more knowledge of keeping plasma in more or less control. Btw it is another problem, as reactor need to keep control of the plasma for very long periods and ue to instabilities they can't do any of this yet.

    Even worse, people behind ITER now repeatedly promized breakthroughs before, since 1960th, spending lot of money and having no practical results. Here in mordor, guy who had been head of all tokomaks projects gave interview in 91 or 92 year openly telling that they intentionally induced maximal financial damage to the country knowing that thing will never work (to make communist regime fall, as he said).

    Some finance facts:

    • Original budget promized to tax payers - $10-12 billions
    • Present budget - $50 billions
    • Expected actual budget - around $150-270 billions


    • Actual first plasma (not suitable for any thermonuclear reaction) is promised at best at 2025.
    • First tiny attempt of synthesis will happen in 2035 (staff working on ITER plans to eat around $10-20 billions to this date)
    • Actual more or less energy efficient operation promised to around 2040, but can delay to 2045 (and they will eat another $20 billions)
    • Even at best times they plan to inject 50MWt into plasma using around 620Mwt of total consumption to get 500Mwt theoreticl output (all of it won't be even collected). Not impressive at all, quite reverse.
    • But it will be virual efficiency as no way of even research on how to collect energy exist in this project
  • 17 Replies sorted by
  • Do you really think this is only used for this proyect?

    Don’t be naive. It’s obviously money redirected to something else. Any time this amounts of cash are inserted to this projects other ”projects” also benefits.

    Thing is how much really goes to this kind of things cos all the years you tell me a no advancement...hmm smells fishi.

  • At this stage, we are not talking about the commercial production of electricity by fusion. Neutrons will not be captured and their energy will not be converted to electricity. Neutrons will leave the installation and will be trapped by the building's concrete walls. Particles will penetrate into rooms and cells, so there will be no people in the building during installation

    Official description.

    It is as if during first nuclear plant people instead of making proper thing just got 50 billion USD and for this just piled Uranium in some dug hole to make it self heat and called it huge breakthrough.

    They also have huge, really huge issue with plasma control, so whole protocols and design is build around to not show it. One small thing with unstable plasma touching the wall - and all thing could require repairs that will take years. It is not thing suitable for any serious stuff even in distant future, but it can feed thousands of parasites.

  • Mordor paid for new laser based sphere for thermonuclear research

    image

    image

    Since around 1965 USSR and Mordor later paid staggering amount of billions for similar things and ITER like things. Yet it is absolutely zero output from this, if you do not count actual shit going out of researchers and their shitty quality papers.

    All this happen due to staggered irresponsibility.

    sa15788.jpg
    742 x 497 - 75K
    sa15789.jpg
    745 x 497 - 79K
  • 1965 was Soviet-era. Are you gasp critical of the Soviet ?

  • @zcream

    1965 was Soviet-era. Are you gasp critical of the Soviet ?

    I am critical of group of people who literally became parasites.

    It is common problem as such groups of parasites are hanging on all the developed countries like worms.

    As for USSR critique - USSR had been very far from ideal, but standing for its core values is important as it is bashed by all capitalist mass media.

  • Chinese scientists have managed to break the Korean record for holding superheated plasma. The team of the EAST fusion reactor was able to achieve unprecedented results - confining plasma with a temperature of 160 million K for 20 seconds. They held a plasma with a temperature of 120 million K for 101 seconds. This is already very close to the threshold of thermonuclear fusion - we are not talking about fractions of a second, but about tens of seconds.

    In order for the reaction of thermonuclear fusion to begin in the installation, a plasma with a temperature of 150 million K must be held for about 300-400 seconds.

    Scientists just never told you that they have no means to collect energy, no way to save their precious reactor (it is not even in design) and that it is another huge waste of money and resources that will end in nothing.

  • Scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have reported a record power output from a thermonuclear reaction. The new ignition produced 25 times more energy than the previous experiment. This brings researchers to the threshold, the next step from which promises to ignite an artificial sun on Earth.

    During the reaction, 1.3 megajoules of energy were released. This is approximately 70% of the energy expended on fuel ignition. This is the threshold, scientists are sure, the next step beyond which will lead to a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction.

    https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition

    It is bunch of marketing statement.

    • Note that they have no way to collect released energy.
    • They also don't have no way to constantly add new fuel and remove the products of fusion
    • Whole thing run for extremely short time and such lasers are not made to run for long times
    • Such systems exist for very long time, all they did is improved amount of energy released, that also even can be not thermonuclear at all
  • image

    Chinese scientists have completed the development of the China Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor (CFETR) fusion reactor. The project takes into account all modern developments in the field of controlled thermonuclear fusion. If the government approves the project, scientists promise to light the "artificial sun" in about ten years.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3150464/chinas-artificial-sun-tipped-provide-electricity-10-years-if

    They again need money, and again it will be nothing. Just better temperatures and more time.

    Issues are fundamental - they can't keep plasma stable, they can't protect magnets, and they can't collect energy.

    sa18387.jpg
    800 x 508 - 87K
  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev assuming your claims are true, how do the scientists manage(d) to fool all governments financing these projects, for so long? Your claims aren't difficult to understand (I'm sure the reasoning behind them is), how did the scientists managed to keep such tight secrecy (way better than alphabet agencies) around these conceptual failings? These aren't some late stage war Nazi efforts, there has been ample time for audits and independent review. It would be the biggest con in history period, not just the history of science. Without knowing anything about the physics involved, your claims are intrinsically suspicious, too black and white. I'm not qualified to have my own opinion on the topic. On claim #3 (collecting energy, disposing of spent fuel) I've read recently that yes, they haven't got to that yet, and don't have good plans on how it's going to be done. Still.

  • @radikalfilm

    assuming your claims are true, how do the scientists manage(d) to fool all governments financing these projects, for so long?

    Same way narco cartels thrive despite being totally known for authorities. Because they form symbiosis. Math field that I know inside is even worse - it is hundreds of thousands of math guys who write some science papers, but all of them can be used only for toiled purposes. And all of them get good money from the same government.

    how did the scientists managed to keep such tight secrecy (way better than alphabet agencies) around these conceptual failings?

    Similar to youtube. Any discussions of this topics are usually absent in public and being monitored and censored. But in private talks they openly tell you that it is all scam.

    there has been ample time for audits and independent review

    Due to extreme division of labor all reviews are being made by people inside same industry. Are they idiots to bust their nice life?

    On claim #3 (collecting energy, disposing of spent fuel) I've read recently that yes, they haven't got to that yet, and don't have good plans on how it's going to be done.

    And it is the most important thing, because if they had any means to do it sustainably - you already knew it from each billboard across your area.

  • The Korean Superconducting Tokamak (KSTAR) was able to increase the duration of plasma confinement at a temperature of 100 million ° C in one year. The scientists reported that instead of 20 seconds, the plasma retention time increased to 30 seconds. This is an impressive step forward in such a short time. Moving along this path, Korean experts promise to bring the plasma retention time to 300 seconds by 2026 and, in the long term, provide mankind with an inexhaustible source of energy.

    https://www.sciencealert.com/korea-s-cutting-edge-fusion-reactor-breaks-its-previous-record-for-swirling-plasma

    Unfortunately, it will be same as before - "give us more money and another 30 years". As none of the core things are solved.

  • An experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or China's "artificial sun", on Thursday in its latest experiment achieved continuous operation of plasma at high temperatures for 1056 seconds, which is the longest operating time of its kind in the world.

    The breakthrough was announced on Friday by Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), who was in charge of the experiment, which took place in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province in eastern China.

    “Earlier, in the first half of 2021, during the experiment, we held a plasma discharge at a temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius in a tokamak for 101 seconds. This time, the stable work of the plasma lasted for 1056 seconds at a temperature close to 70 million degrees Celsius. , which laid a solid scientific and experimental basis for the construction of a thermonuclear reactor, "said Gong Xianzu.

  • According to Chinese media reports, one of the three largest operating fusion reactors in the country was able to hold plasma heated to 70 million ° C for more than 17 minutes. This is an important milestone in the development of the extraction of thermonuclear energy. Long-term operation of the pilot plant allows debugging process control systems, which will eventually help develop a commercial version of the reactor.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3161780/chinas-artificial-sun-hits-new-high-clean-energy-boost

    Small cheat here is that they didn't heat ion plasma, but only electrons.

    Of course all we see now is huge PR due to big energy shortages, where lobbyists of thermonuclear scam are pushing hard.

  • The neutrons which are liberated in this type of fusion have to go somewhere. Over time, just like in nuclear fission plants, these neutrons damage the reactor vessel wall. One design addresses this issue by encapsulating the fusion fuel in a "one-meter thick liquid lithium sphere or cylinder." This will create tons of radioactive waste that has to be removed annually. Without this approach the vessel walls will have to be replaced periodically and then transported to waste disposals sites. Scientists are working on better reactor vessel materials.

    https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Fusion-A-Clean-Energy-Revolution-Or-A-Radioactive-Nightmare.html

  • https://spectrum.ieee.org/fusion

    "new confidence that fusion power is now a solvable engineering challenge rather than an eternally elusive scientific puzzle." Well they accept that at least was an "eternally elusive scientific puzzle".

  • @garroulus

    Yup. After hundreds of billions had been wasted.

    Modern scientist are much more harm to society than any drug cartels. Even COVID developers alone made damage that is hard to compare to anything else.