6 ms·

ITER is one of the most ambitious energy projects

72 points by tempestn 11y ago

jessriedel 11y ago
Excellent longform piece on ITER in the New Yorker from March 2014: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot...
- dang 11y ago
  With a couple of major HN discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=star%20bottle%20points%3E20&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=star%20bottle%20points%3E20&so....
Simorgh 11y ago
Has anyone any knowledge of machine learning being combined with nuclear fusion data? I ask because I may be pursuing this intersection. (Anecdotes from HNers can be more insightful than research papers).
- sanxiyn 11y ago
  I don't know anything about this area, sorry about that. Quick search found this: Fuzzy logic and support vector machine approaches to regime identification in Joint European Torus (JET), Plasma Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2006.875825 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2006.875825.
  - Simorgh 11y ago
    very interesting article! It seems that machine learning could be used to stabilise a nuclear fusion reactor through a real-time control strategy, e.g. optimising the reactor's environment/conditions via micro-adjustments.
    - sanxiyn 11y ago
      I think it would be interesting if data used in the article is posted to Kaggle as a competition.
    - cocoablazing 11y ago
      The article previously posted concerns design of a reactor for inherent stability. What you are thinking about is called active control. Here is a paper investigating such control of a fusion torus: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/21/8/10.1063/1.4893418 http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/21/8/10.106...
transfire 11y ago
> "ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. And ITER will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity." Lord, let us pray that is not true, as ITER is notorious for pushing their time tables back. Right now they are pushing 2027.
- eudox 11y ago
  >ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. Why is it legal for government projects to lie so brazenly? Or, at the very least, make these kinds of promises.
  - gawa 11y ago
    It's because scientists need money to do their work. And their work is to find things we don't know yet, or to check for things we are not sure of : it's a risky and costly business. Because scientists need money to get started, they have to appeal to the interests of those who are paying - i.e the tax payers. That's why the promise always precedes science work. After enough actual work, you'll have a better view of what's ahead. You'll be able to revise the roadmap and to measure the costs, or abandon it ... To sum it up : > ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. You'll never get any funds (nor a high moral among the workers teams) if you frame your research project as "yet another (probably doomed) attempt at nuclear fusion energy".
- venomsnake 11y ago
  > "ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. Is that proven or just hopeful?
  - Someone 11y ago
    AFAIK, proven in the sense that extrapolating known results shows that a device this size should be net positive, and that material scientists state that the necessary parts can be made, size- and tolerance-wise. Hopeful in the sense that the pudding hasn't been eaten and in that it may take only one of these material scientists to be wrong or too optimistic to turn a 'can' into a 'cannot' (In many cases, we have never built parts at the necessary scale and tolerances, so scientists assessing whether we can build them have to extrapolate, too) And of course, it helps for many of the scientists involved to be on the optimistic side. That possibly is a good thing, as we will never know whether we can build this if we do not try doing it. Finally, there always is a chance that we overlook some important problem, or (less likely) that new science rears its head.
transfire 11y ago
I suspect ITER was setup to act as a honeypot for fusion research money, to slow the technology's development.
supernova87a 11y ago
Um, you know that ITER is also one of the most delayed and in-jeopardy major science mega-projects out there? http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-to-fix-iter http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-to-fix-iter Classic case of scientists being allowed to become project managers with no training...
- mtgx 11y ago
  They just announced it's going to be delayed by another 6 years, probably why the reason for this article: http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2015/11/breaking-iter-fusion-project-take-least-6-years-longer-planned http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2015/11/breaking-iter-fusi... ITER is going to be the F-35 of science projects.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    At least the F35 flies.
- mannykannot 11y ago
  The article also points to the negative effects of national self-interest.
hannob 11y ago
I can say upfront that I'm extremely skeptical about nuclear fusion in general. I don't think that it will ever play any major role in energy production. The ITER project is only fueling that skepticism. They started with projected building costs of around 6 billion euro and before they really started these costs have already more than doubled. It seems very likely that if this project ever gets finished the costs will rise a lot more. If you're advocating for nuclear fusion and projects like ITER then my first advice would be to be honest: It won't be a bargain. That said I want to mention why I'm so skeptical about fusion: It is often quoted as some kind of magical energy source without problems. Although it's hard to make predictions about a technology that isn't working yet, most likely it will mean expensive, huge power plants that generate large amounts of energy at one place. That means even if you are able to build these plants technically, you face a number of additional challenges: Getting it to work so that it makes any economic sense (competing probably mostly against much cheaper wind and solar which will likely be much cheaper than today when fusion is ready) and getting energy transmission working at a huge scale. Right now for many energy projects transmission lines are a major cost and acceptance factor already.
- yc1010 11y ago
  Climate change called and states that she doesn't care about your skepticism, renewables alone will not bring us into carbon free future. We have to try EVERYTHING in order to beat climate change, up to and including moonshots like this. Sadly this strange hatred of anything nuclear by environmentalists has done more to harm this planet and its people. BTW 6 billion is nothing when compared to over a hundred billion that for example Germany has spent on renewables, same Germany that replacing nuclear with coal on the other hand. Aside was just watching this documentary on BBC on tv there > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI The vision and drive of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs back in 19th and 20th centuries have lifted the world from literal darkness into the modern system of grids and electricity on a flick of a switch. I am sure there were many naysayers back in their day on top of all the obstacles they faced, these guys such as Edison and his team kept buggering on, and the modern world is thankful for foundations they laid. Let the scientists and engineers at ITER do their job and instead of moaning about it keep pressure on politicians to spend money on projects like this instead of bombing people in other countries.
chefkoch 11y ago
Fusion is only 10 years away.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  For the last 50 years
rwmj 11y ago
Anyone got a good summary of how the alternative fusion projects are working out? eg. The company that was trying to use hydraulic rams to compress the target (I think it was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Fusion) Are they hoaxes or wishful thinking or likely to succeed? Edit: This is a good summary from 4 years ago: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skeptical-look-3-wild-fusion-energy-schemes/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skeptical-look-3-w... I'm looking for something more up to date.
- DennisP 11y ago
  Tri Alpha, General Fusion, and Helion just got major coverage in the NYTimes and Time Magazine. Here's a summary: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/pictures-of-tri-alpha-energys-nuclear.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/pictures-of-tri-alpha-energ... Tri Alpha has achieved stable plasma, next step is to ramp up the temperature, which is relatively easy. According to their model the plasma should get more stable, in which case they'll move straight to an attempt at net power from aneutronic boron fusion. Helion and General Fusion haven't released any major results but they seem to be doing well, and have good funding. Helion is attempting a mostly-aneutronic hybrid D-D/D-He3 reaction, which I think is news since four years ago. EMC2 released a paper about a year ago: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-project-steps-out-shadows-looks-money-n130661 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-... They're looking for funding, and need about $100 million for the next step: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/01/emc2-chief-scientist-presents-path-to.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/01/emc2-chief-scientist-presen... LPP is doing a lot better with funding since their indiegogo campaign, and is working on getting the last residue of contamination out of their reactor chamber: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/lpp-fusion-will-line-vacuum-chamber.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/lpp-fusion-will-line-vacuum... Some recent work suggest that petawatt picosecond lasers could ignite boron fusion: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/picosecond-pulsed-laser-design-for.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/picosecond-pulsed-laser-des... The most advanced lasers have been increasing by a factor of 1000 every ten years: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/generating-kilotesla-magnetic-fields.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/generating-kilotesla-magnet... Sandia's MagLIF got good results in 2014 and is making upgrades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetized_Liner_Inertial_Fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetized_Liner_Inertial_Fusi... Germany's about to turn on their stellarator. UW's Dynomak and MIT's ARC are looking for funding. Edit: also see this IEEE Spectrum article on ARC, LPP, and fast lasers: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fusion-projects-that-are-making-progress http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fu... And Scientific American has a new article covering at least one fusion company I hadn't heard of, but I don't have a full text link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-fusion-researchers-are-going-small/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-fusion-researc... Also of course Lockheed Martin's made a splash in the press, but they haven't released much detail and fusion researchers have been fairly skeptical.
etrautmann 11y ago
Doesn't it seem more likely that one of the stellerators will win the fusion race due to the plasma containment issues that make controlling a tokamak difficult? For anyone not familiar, these are eye-poppingly impressive machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
powertower 11y ago
Also, Germany's "Mobius Strip" Tokamak Reactor is going live. http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-is-turning-on-its-monster-stellarator-2015-10/ http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-is-turning-on-its-mon...

72 points by tempestn 11y ago

Excellent longform piece on ITER in the New Yorker from March 2014: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot...

dang 11y ago
With a couple of major HN discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=star%20bottle%20points%3E20&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=star%20bottle%20points%3E20&so....

Simorgh 11y ago

Has anyone any knowledge of machine learning being combined with nuclear fusion data? I ask because I may be pursuing this intersection. (Anecdotes from HNers can be more insightful than research papers).

sanxiyn 11y ago
I don't know anything about this area, sorry about that. Quick search found this: Fuzzy logic and support vector machine approaches to regime identification in Joint European Torus (JET), Plasma Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2006.875825 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2006.875825.
- Simorgh 11y ago
  very interesting article! It seems that machine learning could be used to stabilise a nuclear fusion reactor through a real-time control strategy, e.g. optimising the reactor's environment/conditions via micro-adjustments.
  - sanxiyn 11y ago
    I think it would be interesting if data used in the article is posted to Kaggle as a competition.
  - cocoablazing 11y ago
    The article previously posted concerns design of a reactor for inherent stability. What you are thinking about is called active control. Here is a paper investigating such control of a fusion torus: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/21/8/10.1063/1.4893418 http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/21/8/10.106...

transfire 11y ago

> "ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. And ITER will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials, and physics regimes necessary for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity." Lord, let us pray that is not true, as ITER is notorious for pushing their time tables back. Right now they are pushing 2027.

eudox 11y ago
>ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. Why is it legal for government projects to lie so brazenly? Or, at the very least, make these kinds of promises.
- gawa 11y ago
  It's because scientists need money to do their work. And their work is to find things we don't know yet, or to check for things we are not sure of : it's a risky and costly business. Because scientists need money to get started, they have to appeal to the interests of those who are paying - i.e the tax payers. That's why the promise always precedes science work. After enough actual work, you'll have a better view of what's ahead. You'll be able to revise the roadmap and to measure the costs, or abandon it ... To sum it up : > ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. You'll never get any funds (nor a high moral among the workers teams) if you frame your research project as "yet another (probably doomed) attempt at nuclear fusion energy".
venomsnake 11y ago
> "ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy. Is that proven or just hopeful?
- Someone 11y ago
  AFAIK, proven in the sense that extrapolating known results shows that a device this size should be net positive, and that material scientists state that the necessary parts can be made, size- and tolerance-wise. Hopeful in the sense that the pudding hasn't been eaten and in that it may take only one of these material scientists to be wrong or too optimistic to turn a 'can' into a 'cannot' (In many cases, we have never built parts at the necessary scale and tolerances, so scientists assessing whether we can build them have to extrapolate, too) And of course, it helps for many of the scientists involved to be on the optimistic side. That possibly is a good thing, as we will never know whether we can build this if we do not try doing it. Finally, there always is a chance that we overlook some important problem, or (less likely) that new science rears its head.

transfire 11y ago

I suspect ITER was setup to act as a honeypot for fusion research money, to slow the technology's development.

supernova87a 11y ago

Um, you know that ITER is also one of the most delayed and in-jeopardy major science mega-projects out there? http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-to-fix-iter http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-to-fix-iter Classic case of scientists being allowed to become project managers with no training...

mtgx 11y ago
They just announced it's going to be delayed by another 6 years, probably why the reason for this article: http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2015/11/breaking-iter-fusion-project-take-least-6-years-longer-planned http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2015/11/breaking-iter-fusi... ITER is going to be the F-35 of science projects.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  At least the F35 flies.
mannykannot 11y ago
The article also points to the negative effects of national self-interest.

hannob 11y ago

I can say upfront that I'm extremely skeptical about nuclear fusion in general. I don't think that it will ever play any major role in energy production. The ITER project is only fueling that skepticism. They started with projected building costs of around 6 billion euro and before they really started these costs have already more than doubled. It seems very likely that if this project ever gets finished the costs will rise a lot more. If you're advocating for nuclear fusion and projects like ITER then my first advice would be to be honest: It won't be a bargain. That said I want to mention why I'm so skeptical about fusion: It is often quoted as some kind of magical energy source without problems. Although it's hard to make predictions about a technology that isn't working yet, most likely it will mean expensive, huge power plants that generate large amounts of energy at one place. That means even if you are able to build these plants technically, you face a number of additional challenges: Getting it to work so that it makes any economic sense (competing probably mostly against much cheaper wind and solar which will likely be much cheaper than today when fusion is ready) and getting energy transmission working at a huge scale. Right now for many energy projects transmission lines are a major cost and acceptance factor already.

yc1010 11y ago
Climate change called and states that she doesn't care about your skepticism, renewables alone will not bring us into carbon free future. We have to try EVERYTHING in order to beat climate change, up to and including moonshots like this. Sadly this strange hatred of anything nuclear by environmentalists has done more to harm this planet and its people. BTW 6 billion is nothing when compared to over a hundred billion that for example Germany has spent on renewables, same Germany that replacing nuclear with coal on the other hand. Aside was just watching this documentary on BBC on tv there > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI The vision and drive of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs back in 19th and 20th centuries have lifted the world from literal darkness into the modern system of grids and electricity on a flick of a switch. I am sure there were many naysayers back in their day on top of all the obstacles they faced, these guys such as Edison and his team kept buggering on, and the modern world is thankful for foundations they laid. Let the scientists and engineers at ITER do their job and instead of moaning about it keep pressure on politicians to spend money on projects like this instead of bombing people in other countries.

chefkoch 11y ago

Fusion is only 10 years away.

venomsnake 11y ago
For the last 50 years

rwmj 11y ago

Anyone got a good summary of how the alternative fusion projects are working out? eg. The company that was trying to use hydraulic rams to compress the target (I think it was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Fusion) Are they hoaxes or wishful thinking or likely to succeed? Edit: This is a good summary from 4 years ago: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skeptical-look-3-wild-fusion-energy-schemes/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skeptical-look-3-w... I'm looking for something more up to date.

DennisP 11y ago
Tri Alpha, General Fusion, and Helion just got major coverage in the NYTimes and Time Magazine. Here's a summary: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/pictures-of-tri-alpha-energys-nuclear.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/pictures-of-tri-alpha-energ... Tri Alpha has achieved stable plasma, next step is to ramp up the temperature, which is relatively easy. According to their model the plasma should get more stable, in which case they'll move straight to an attempt at net power from aneutronic boron fusion. Helion and General Fusion haven't released any major results but they seem to be doing well, and have good funding. Helion is attempting a mostly-aneutronic hybrid D-D/D-He3 reaction, which I think is news since four years ago. EMC2 released a paper about a year ago: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-project-steps-out-shadows-looks-money-n130661 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/low-cost-fusion-... They're looking for funding, and need about $100 million for the next step: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/01/emc2-chief-scientist-presents-path-to.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/01/emc2-chief-scientist-presen... LPP is doing a lot better with funding since their indiegogo campaign, and is working on getting the last residue of contamination out of their reactor chamber: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/lpp-fusion-will-line-vacuum-chamber.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/10/lpp-fusion-will-line-vacuum... Some recent work suggest that petawatt picosecond lasers could ignite boron fusion: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/picosecond-pulsed-laser-design-for.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/picosecond-pulsed-laser-des... The most advanced lasers have been increasing by a factor of 1000 every ten years: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/generating-kilotesla-magnetic-fields.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/generating-kilotesla-magnet... Sandia's MagLIF got good results in 2014 and is making upgrades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetized_Liner_Inertial_Fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetized_Liner_Inertial_Fusi... Germany's about to turn on their stellarator. UW's Dynomak and MIT's ARC are looking for funding. Edit: also see this IEEE Spectrum article on ARC, LPP, and fast lasers: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fusion-projects-that-are-making-progress http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fu... And Scientific American has a new article covering at least one fusion company I hadn't heard of, but I don't have a full text link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-fusion-researchers-are-going-small/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-fusion-researc... Also of course Lockheed Martin's made a splash in the press, but they haven't released much detail and fusion researchers have been fairly skeptical.

etrautmann 11y ago

Doesn't it seem more likely that one of the stellerators will win the fusion race due to the plasma containment issues that make controlling a tokamak difficult? For anyone not familiar, these are eye-poppingly impressive machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X

powertower 11y ago

Also, Germany's "Mobius Strip" Tokamak Reactor is going live. http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-is-turning-on-its-monster-stellarator-2015-10/ http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-is-turning-on-its-mon...