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ITER if ever finished will have exactly zero apparatus to extract useful power. They are not even talking about starting on a power plant before 2050, or finis
by ncmncm 4y ago
ITER if ever finished will have exactly zero apparatus to extract useful power.
They are not even talking about starting on a power plant before 2050, or finishing before 2070.
It will of course all be dropped long before then, one way or another. Either we build out renewables fast enough, or civilization collapses before we get there. Either way, no fusion power.
- elihu 4y agoExtracting useful power isn't really the point of ITER; the main thing is to operate the machine long enough to produce useful data that everyone else can use to build reactors that aren't based on technology that's several decades out of date. I don't think ITER would be dropped because of renewables. Even if we had enough energy to power our civilization, there's always other things we could do if we had more. Civilization collapse could put a halt to ITER, but another possibility is the project could be dropped because someone else beats them to it and they don't need to finish this expensive machine just to find out what everyone already knows about magnetic plasma confinement.
- ncmncm 4y agoDropped is dropped is dropped. Continuing to spend up until then diverts money from other things not best dropped. Confining plasma does not suffice to get you power generation.
- dmix 4y agoWas there not a cheaper/faster way to do the ITER R&D? I guess there's also lot of value in getting the private industry expertise in building the magnents and all of the complicated sub-parts. Basically training a whole generation in practical advanced fusion development. Hopefully there will be some real-world application in time for this knowledge and expertise to be transferable.
- pfdietz 4y agoHopefully they'll be a pony in there somewhere?