Fusion is the only possible way to replace fossil fuels. So how is ITER doing?
Preface. This website, and my book, When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the future of transportation, and Martin Hoffert, et al in the 2002 Advanced Technology Paths to Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet, Science. Vol 298 argue that the only possible energy resource that could replace fossil fuels is Fusion.
But given how soon energy will decline, and how far away ITER is likely to be finished, it is unlikely we’ll ever come close to figuring out a way to make fusion work on earth.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report
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Daniel Clery, et al. May 6, 2016. More delays for ITER, as partners balk at costs. Science 352: 636-637
It wasn’t the pat on the back that ITER officials were looking for. Last week, an independent review committee delivered a report that was supposed to confirm that ITER, the troubled international fusion experiment under construction in Cadarache, France, finally has come up with a reliable construction schedule and cost estimate. But the report says only that the new date for first operations—2025, 5 years later than the previous official target—is the earliest possible date and could slip.
And it underscores the challenge of ITER’s ballooning budget. To start running by 2025, ITER managers have asked for an extra €4.6 billion, which they are unlikely to receive. As a result, the report says, ITER’s ultimate goal—producing a “burning plasma” reaction of deuterium and tritium nuclei that sustains itself mostly with its own heat—will be delayed from 2032 until 2035 at the earliest.
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