World powers combine on joint fusion project

The world’s leading powers have finally agreed to finance a joint nuclear fusion project. It is one of mankind’s most daring experiments – a quest to produce virtually limitless clean energy that, if successful, would revolutionise life on Earth by harnessing the explosive power of the sun.

Source

It looks like another, larger, project concerning fusion power is about to take off. I have heard rumblings this was comeing for some time now. I am glad to see it finally picking up some forward momentum.

I know a year ago some navy scientists claimed they stumbled back upon cold fusion. I found a news article about it, but have not seen anything new from that area in some time.

What I am glad to see is the international community pulling together to tackle these problems, recognizing that its going to take a global effort to fix these issues for all. I guess better late than never.

Cold Fusion rediscovered


I will check to see if I can find the list of projects that the international community wanted to start cooperating on (Like CERN). I know the French are the industry leaders with nuke power (they are about 20 years ahead of the US in Nuclear power generation technology). I thought they had an experimental fusion reactor they were playing around with.

[edit on 12-8-2010 by Xcathdra] - MODS I searched for this article or similar and did not find anything. After reading the article I have seen some acronyms used. If this has been posted already please feel free to remove.

[edit on 12-8-2010 by Xcathdra]

This is amazing! I think I'm going to celebrate tonight. Everyone in the world promote Green living. We need to give back to the planet!

Then fight over it after.....

2nd line

So they're going to continue with the ITER crap? How annoying.

It's pretty obvious that fossil fuel use can not and should not continue at anything approaching the rates we are now using it. It's also clear that renewable technology isn't capable of powering the world - too expensive and unreliable. And as much as I like current iterations of Nuclear, it's clear that if massively scaled up we would run out of Uranium rather quickly. It's pretty clear we need alternative Nuclear technologies such as the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR, otherwise known as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor or LFTR), Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR, otherwise known as Integral Fast Reactor, or IFR), or even iterations of Nuclear Fusion. One or more of these technologies has to succeed, or else the transition from fossil fuels is going to be a slow and painful process. Maybe in order to save the environment, it's time to turn to the one form of energy that nature doesn't use...

I worry though, that fusion will take funds away from more viable and cheaper projects, like the LFTR, which can do everything that fusion promises, and has the upside of burning existing depleted uranium and spent fuel into nothing.

[edit on 12/8/2010 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by Edews
So they're going to continue with the ITER crap? How annoying.

Everyone read the small print of ITER.


ITS STATED AIM IS TO DEMONSTRATE CONTAINMENT LASTING ABOUT 120 SECONDS.

120 SECONDS.

that is it.

no power is going to be produced by dumb expensive monstroisity.


it will never work anyway as it is the wrong shape.


what shape is the sun?

ITER scientist 1: "Hey, some guy on the internet says it's the wrong shape!"

ITER scientist 2: "What shape should it be?"

ITER scientist 1: "The sun, apparently"

ITER scientist 2: "Ok, lets shut this thing down and start dismantling it. It's gonna be a long weekend"

reply to post by nobodysavedme


At some point in the Hisotry of everything invented, it failed. This is no different, and could very well lead to the greater discovery of how to make it last longer than 120 seconds.

Giving up because it only lasted 120 gaurantees that it will never work. Scientific dicovery is based on perseverance, trial and error, and continued testing until someone, somewhere, at 2:30 in the morning makes the Eureka moment.

If everyone had the same mindset you had, then you would not be typing it here because you would not own a computer. When the computer was first invented, it was said that there would not be a world demand for them.

The US patent office, waaay back in the day, said that everything that could be created, has been created.

All it takes is the 3am eureka moment to change humanity.

Well I just hope this is actually going to lead somewhere.

It seems the investigation of the potential of fusion power (which this is) is being pursued half-heatedly. There's not enough pressure to get this done. Sure it might not yield any results and as such deemed financially risky. But come on, it's not like we'll power the world with current alternative fuel sources.

I know a lot of believers in the whole extraterrestrial angle say that many new power sources have been kept secret to keep us addicted to oil. Don't know if that's true, I've not worked in any secret black ops projects.

Nevertheless, I just hope there's more of a drive financially and politically in finding real and big new sources of power.

Time will tell if this will get us anywhere exciting.

Its interesting but we need to be careful we don't put all our fusion eggs in one basket. Theres more than one way.

Have a read into Bussard Fusion.

en.wikipedia.org...

This work continues despite Bussards death. Its now under the auspices of the US Navy. Why the Navy would want sole usage rights to a compact fusion power source should be obvious.

I am glad countries are investing materials and people into making this a reality.

Sure the thought that almost every household would have a fusion generator in their pantry seems pretty far fetched, but in the year 1820 a microwave oven would have seem far fetched as well.

I can't wait on how they tax us all on it.

Granted it does seem half-hearted. However, compared to 5, 10 or even 20 years ago I think we are making great strides. Just the fact that the Scientific community is cooperating on a global effort is amazing.

While I am positive we still have the mindset of technology under national security = no share, some of those areas seem to be openin up (LHC, Fusion Power, Space etc).

The fact that some countries who in the past could not compete against the US or Russia are quickly catching up and even surpassing us in tech areas, forcing us to cooperate with them.

Catalyst for change maybe?

While we stiull have a long way to go, this is at least in a positive direction. Now if we can get some real results.

Pity that there is delay upon delay. Do a search back and note that ITER was first announced as being started as far back as 2004.....