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It is no coincidence. If everything goes to plan, ITER will demonstrate first plasma in 2025, which will be a bit of a PR nightmare for ITER (as it will not hav
by 317070 5y ago
It is no coincidence. If everything goes to plan, ITER will demonstrate first plasma in 2025, which will be a bit of a PR nightmare for ITER (as it will not have high Q's, and go out of operation for another 10 years after that).
So a lot of alternatives, like SPARC, General Fusion, Lockheed, Tokamak Energy, Commonwealth Fusion, ... are all aiming to demonstrate in 2025 as well, because it will contrast nicely to the ITER approach costing a lot of government money. Anyone that will beat the Q of iter in 2025, might see more government funding flowing their way between 2025 and 2035, because they managed to do the same, but orders of magnitude cheaper.
- mrfusion 5y agoWill the operation of iter give the other programs useful data or not really?
- 317070 5y agoNot in 2025, except if ITER would have a huge unforeseen failure mode. ITER will have good data in 2035. ITER is mostly a giant experiment in programme management. One could argue that it is the most complex machine built so far by humanity, way more complex than e.g. the LHC or Ligo or ISS. 2025 might give us an upperbound on the complexity of machines humanity can manage with our current society.
- ksec 5y agoSo basically none of them are aiming at 2025 but ITER. >Funding flowing their way between 2025 and 2035, So they will need another round of funding to 2035, which means even the most optimistic outlook we wont see one operation until something like 2045?
- 317070 5y agoWell, yes? All of them will try to show a brothers Wright moment of science history in 2025 (except ITER, which will do more like a sanity check). But building commercial airlines is the step after that and will need more funding and research. Commercially viable fusion is not for before 2045, but its MVP might be there in 2025, if one is really optimistic.