Reply To: turn heat into electricity

[asymmetric_implosion]

ITER is a risk and the longer it goes on the worse it looks. Unfortunately the wheels are in motion. Most large science like this carries on due to momentum alone but we might have another superconducting super collider (SSC). The SSC was killed suddenly with little warning. ITER might suffer the same fate. I hope it doesn’t for the sake of the scientists that have relocated with their families. I think it is more likely to die a slow death and never reach its real potential. The crown jewel of the ITER program is owned by the Japanese, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF). This facility will be a world class user materials irradiation test facility for the next generation.

The money spent on ITER could be better spent on other project but fusion is at a crossroads as a program. It has been a science program for a long time and people are calling for it to become an energy program. If it becomes an energy program it will die quickly when someone points out that fusion has never produced any net power. I hope the science program continues but opens it’s scope.