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Published online 12 June 2008 |
Nature
453,
829
(2008)
| doi:10.1038/453829a
Corrected online: 10 June 2008
News
Fusion reactor faces cost hike
ITER will also be delayed by up to three years.
A massive international nuclear fusion experiment planned for Cadarache, France, is set to cost up to 30% more than anticipated and be delayed by as much as three years, governments will learn next week.
Construction has not even begun on the ITER fusion reactor, which has been beset by political wrangling since its inception.
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This round of cost increases and what will likely be larger cost increases, primarily result from a project management flaw that grew out of the "in kind" contributions that are the basis of the parties contributions to the project. The original 5.6 billion dollar cost estimate that formed the basis of the parties contributions was not a cost estimate, but was a "task description". This was made clear by Robert Aymar at the Snowmass meeting that preceeded the US re-joining ITER. The task description omitted many of the normal cost components appropriate for a cost estimate - noteably contingency. The task description and the design it was based on, was only intended to assign value to the parties contributions. In selling the US involvement in ITER, within the US, ITER was represented as having a high level of detailed design and a ground-up cost estimate. Neither were true. Even though the technical deficiencies were understood, in the US, this led to the assignment of mainly purchasing and contract management divisions from ORNL to the project, not the large engineering staff that will be needed for final design, vendor supervision, and cost control. The ITER organization expected the parties to contribute the needed engineering, and so they are understaffed. Citing the ELMS and seismic technical issues as reasons for the cost increases is really just an indication that there was not enough engineering resources applied to the design effort. The site seismic differences between Rokasho and Cadarache were well understood during the site selection. I can't comment on the ELMS issue except to say that it has been an issue for divertor design for many years, and at least should have figured into appropriately larger contingency and R&D. The US eliminating the FY2008 ITER budget only compounds management difficulties, and adds to the US reputation of being an un-reliable partner that we earned when we first pulled out of the project in 1999. A lot of work will be needed to fix ITER's problems. Honest characterizations of it's status should be a first step.
An extra USD 1.9 to 2.5 billion? No problem - MicroSoft and Google make that EVERY 3 MONTHS. That's AFTER taxes and other expenses. I think it's time to start looking for some private equity. And either of these two companies have massive interest in cheap, clean and reliable energy to power their server farms...
In 1958 Edward Teller and Albert Latter wrote a book about the future potential uses of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. It included the seeds of a proposal that was fleshed out later when Dr. Latter left Rand Corp. with the entire physics department of 28 Ph.D.'s to form RDA, inc. The proposal was rejected for political, not scientific reasons, owing that vessel contained fusion power is very probably never going to be cost effective. I expect the same fate if it were renewed now but it should be taken seriously. The proposal is simply this: Detonate one or more fusion (thermo-nuclear) bombs deep within the salt mines located in the upper northwest, mainly Michigan, designed to produce more heat than shock. The salt walls are so thick they will hold that heat for a very long time and mine the heat as geo-thermal energy. One could produce all the electrical power needed in the USA interminably. In fact it would be quite practical to produce 200% of the needed electrical power and use the excess to make hydrogen or other fuels to run internal combustion engines, i.e., cars, busses, etc. This is GREEN squared. The only things that may still need to run on oil would be airplanes and possibly locomotive engines. Halbert Fischel
En primer lugar creo que esta discusión es poco seria por parte de los responsables del proyecto. Independientemente de cuales sean los costos finales es claro que el ahorro que producirá y la ganancia superaran con creces los cálculos, mas allá de la economÃa simple con que se está planteando esto. Las medidas adicionales que se tomen para prevenir que este impresionante salto evolutivo no se convierta en un boomeran de nuestra destrucción son igualmente necesarias como las obras en si. Es preferible retroceder un par de metros y no tener que escalar gravosos acantilados por ignominia o por la estúpida codicia cotidiana.
Such a massive cost escalation of the ITER project with in two years does not augur well. Scientists justifiably dream big; however, they may find it harder to explain the reasonableness of participating in a project which is seemingly expensive from the very beginning. Adding magnets to control the newly discovered instability may not have been thought of originally; these changes are inevitable. Cost of overheads must be pruned from the very beginning. Collaboration with CERN, which has been working on truly gigantic projects may help.The seven partner nations must make a conscious effort to cut cost. Posted by K.S.Parthasarathy
This is only one of many expensive blunders caused by "group-think" science [anonymous reviews of research results and proposals]. Governments invested huge sums of money on a project to mimic solar fusion before NASA finally decided on a new, serious study of the Sun! http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jun_solarprobe.htm?list1080446 This abrupt U-turn in NASA's attitude may also reverse the fortunes of politicians who took advise from "group-think" scientists that told them the Sun is a ball of hydrogen that bathes planet Earth in a constant supply of heat from H-fusion. NASA admits to two solar mysteries in the news story: a) The high temperature of the corona is one mystery; b) The origin of the solar wind is another mystery. Here are other solar observations that are not explained by the standard model of a H-filled Sun: c.) The strong enrichment of lightweight atoms in the solar wind; d.) The weaker enrichment of lightweight atoms in solar flares; e.) The strong enrichment of lightweight s-products in the solar photosphere; f.) Measurements showing that 65% of the solar neutrinos are "missing"; and g.) Solar cycles (magnetic storms, sunspots, eruptions) that are strongly linked with changes in Earth's climate. Understanding the Sun is important for all of us, as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. explained in a recent news story about "Global Warming." http://www.aapsonli ne.org/newsofthe day/0026 Sincerely, Oliver K. Manuel, http://www.omatumr.com
ITER should not be compared with linear colliders etc. Fusion research has never been fundamental science. Its whole justification is energy production. That is the standard it should be judged by. Is it likely that it can deliver on a timescale relevant for replacing oil and gas? Can it replace coal for electricity before it is far too late? Even if so, is it cost-effective? If not, the money should be put into something more useful, such as solar cells and energy efficiency. Fredrik Lundberg Stockholm
100 million celsius? If this can't be significantly reduced with some kind of catalyst then I think nuclear fusion is hideously impractical and we'd be better off trying to harness lightning.
During March-April 2006, three simple questions on nuclear stability were posed by me to the seven ITER participants. The questions were based on some very disturbing findings in a lab in Darmstadt, Germany, reported in Physical Review Letters and accepted also by the International Atomic Energy Agency (1). The questions are as follows. (A) Are we quite certain of the stability of deuterium and tritium up to temperatures where they are expected to fuse? (B) If yes: Does any literature anywhere carry the empirical verification for these two specific particles? (C)If no: How is it even ethical then for us to build the ITER - all theories, predictions and extrapolations aside - before unequivocally confirming that these two particles will be there at all, intact at around a hundred million degrees Celsius, to fuse and produce the energy especially in view of conflicting findings in a closely related field? Only one of the seven cared to respond. Not surprisingly, it was the US ITER Project Manager himself, Dr Ned Sauthoff, with many years experience also at the DOE Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was quite accommodative of my views in the many emails we exchanged (2). With letters also to the White House and DOE, the subsequent US attitude towards the ITER came as no surprise to me at all. The ITER is a damp squib. Fusion energy is not a viable proposition even in principle in our neck of the cosmic woods (3). Cheers! (1) http://www-nds.iaea.org/reports-new/indc-reports/indc-nds/indc-nds-0399.pdf (2) www.sittampalam.net/ITER.Letters.htm (3) www.sittampalam.net/NaturePreprint.pdf
This publication Nature make two axiomatic mistakes in his editorial about ITER. The firs is to considered ITER a scientific project. ITER is not a scientific project. ITER is a engineering project because the main objective of ITER is simple to produce electricity. Of course that ITER need science knowledge to produce a machine able to give more energy than it receives. Then when publication Nature say that the ITER cost is to high is the same that if a scientific newsletter complain that the new airplane from Airbus is to expensive or 3 Gorges Dam in China is to costly and the people in the review comities of these projects are not doing their job. ITER is a machine to produce electricity and the shareholders can agree or disagree with the time schedule and finances presented by the Director board but this is the outside world for Science. The second axiomatic mistake is about honesty. In science we know what is honesty, but in the general society of this world honesty can have a different value for the Catholic people or for Protestant or for Jewish or for Buddhist or for Muslin or either for atheist man. The claim of Publication Nature that ITER project is not honest is like to say that a Eskimo man is not honest when he share is wife in winter with newcomers. Very simple Nature forget that Honesty in science is a objective value but in the society is a subjective value and do not forget that ITER is the beginning of a utility to produce inexpensive electricity.