Reply To: Remnant heat of Focus Fusion

[jamesr]

I think a large part of the cost is due to the nature of the deal for each country to get the skills to build every part of it, and so build up the knowledge and infrastructure to build other tokamaks in future.

So rather than have contractors bid on say the superconducting magnets then the consortium decide which one to go with. There ends up with several contractors making some each, which all have to be made to the same spec. So rather than one company making the tools and rigs needed to make lots identical parts. Each contractor in each country sets up its own factory to make a few. Which then have to be project managed and compared centrally to make sure they all meet the spec and will work together when fitted.

Repeat this for a million or so parts, coming from all over the world and you get an idea of the bureaucratic nightmare