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* [2006-03-24] Nuke fusion reactor completes test * [2006-03-08] Scientists unplug tabletop fusion August 25, 2005 * Breeder reactor waste will be transmuted in fusion reactors * 2005-05-10: No deal yet in sensitive nuclear fusion talks - EU * 2005-05-07: French claims over Japan's ITER 'pullout' infuriate Tokyo * 2005-05-06: France seeks to harness energy at heart of sun * 2005-05-05: France says key deal struck on nuclear reactor project * 2005-05-05: Japan ready to give up plan to host ITER project * 2005-05-04: EU sees 'no change' on nuclear project despite French claim * 2005-05-04: France bullish on deal to host ITER nuclear reactor * 2005-05-04: Japan may end bid for nuclear fusion project * 2005-05-04: EU sees 'no change' on nuclear project plans * 2005-05-04: France closing in on deal to host ITER nuclear reactor * 2005-05-02: Japan ready to discuss site of ITER nuclear reactor: EU * 2005-05-02: Europe and Japan at Odds over 'Superpower' Reactor * 2005-05-01: Tapping the Force of Fusion, Again May 24, 2004 * Fusion - Russia backs French location for ITER * Fusion - at best, significant energy by 2070s or 80s, requiring huge investment after 2040 * Fusion - prospects hurt by anti-nuclear public opinion in Europe * 2005-04-28: Table-top fusion 'demonstrated' * 2005-04-28: Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas * 2005-04-28: Experiment Creates Nuclear Fusion in Lab * 2005-04-27: Nuclear fusion 'on the way' * 2005-04-20: Cold Fusion Returns to Mit * 2005-04-18: EU stresses nuclear fusion reactor to be in Europe * 2005-04-18: EU research chief sees deal with Japan on nuclear reactor by July * 2005-04-12: EU, Japan agree July deadline for fusion site deal * 2005-04-12: Japan sets July deadline for deal with EU on nuclear reactor * 2005-04-12: Japan sets July deadline for deal with EU on nuclear reactor * 2005-04-08: EU research chief to head to Japan next week to discuss ITER March 27, 2004 NIF turns to plan B for ignition by 2010, after Sen. Dominici pans proposed slippage to 2014 Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations subcommittee chairman Dominici threatened this week to shut down the world's largest laser if the Bush administration falters in creating a miniature sun inside a California laboratory. In recent months, Linton Brooks (the nation's top nuclear-weapons executive) and Ev Beckner (deputy National Nuclear Security administrator) have shuttled around Capitol Hill to stave off attacks on multiple Bush initiatives -- including a delay in hydrogen fusion experiments on Livermore's $4 billion National Ignition Facility until 2014. The delay caught the attention of the four committees overseeing nuclear weapons spending, especially the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations subcommittee. As nuclear-weapons spending soared to levels 50 percent higher than the Cold War average, two administrations have relied on the panel's chairman, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), to carry their case in the Senate and in spending negotiations with his House counterparts. St. Pete, as Domenici is fondly known in three weapons labs, is the latest in a dynasty of nuclear purse-string holders from the high-desert state where nuclear weapons were invented. Since 1996, Domenici poked a critical finger at the giant laser on several occasions but always preserved its budget, even in the face of a $2 billion cost overrun and substantial drain on pet projects at the two weapons labs in Domenici's own state. The sacrifice, the senator made clear this week, was for one reason: to realize after more than 40 years the dream of controlled thermonuclear-fusion -- the creation of a momentary sun -- inside a lab. "You know how I feel right now is that I've been hoodwinked," Domenici told executives of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday. "And not a little hoodwink. Big one." If Livermore's stadium-sized National Ignition Facility simply becomes the world's greatest laser research facility and doesn't actually achieve ignition -- that is, harvest more energy from hydrogen fusion than the electricity in its laser beams -- then, Domenici said, no more money will flow its way. "And I tell you, if I see that coming, it (the laser lab) better not be asking me for any money, because I'd close it down, because that's not fair," Domenici said. "We never intended to spend $5 billion to $6 billion to build a laser facility or a laboratory that would provide civilian research and visitations from around the world." Beckner assured Domenici that a recent technical advance -- and the emphatic objections of all four congressional committees -- had made it possible to shoot for ignition in 2010. "They made sure that we understood," Beckner said Friday. Originally, scientists planned on fusing hydrogen gases frozen solid inside spheres of plastic or beryllium. But their plan required designing and building a cryogenic robot to carry the frozen target from a filling lab into the laser's target chamber, maintaining it at subzero temperatures. Rough estimates suggest the scheme would cost at least $100 million and scientists aren't certain it will succeed. In order to try for ignition in 2010, Beckner said, they are reaching for a backup plan to pump the gases into the sphere through a straw about a tenth of a hair's width and freeze it inside the target chamber. "We have very good target designs there. The complication is in the experimental realization," Beckner said. Which is to say, no one has built such a target, nor filled it, frozen it and crushed it with X-rays driven by laser beams. "We have a higher level of risk associated with this. But in view of the importance of getting earlier results, we will change those priorities," he said. Project critics have seen the promised date of ignition slip from 2003 to 2008 to 2010 to 2014 and now back to 2010 with a novel target. Some plan to lobby Congress for an investigation of the laser's ability to meet its promise of ignition. "The idea that at this late date that they still are designing the target for which they designed the entire facility is indicative of what's wrong with the entire project," said Chris Paine, a senior nuclear weapons analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. [Source: Ian Hoffman (staff writer, ANG Newspapers), "Bush's laser, bunker buster under attack from Senate; Feinstein vows to oppose 'bizarre' weapons at 'every step of the road'", Oakland Tribune, March 27, 2004] February 21, 2004 * ITER - acrimony threatens project which has lagged since 1992 * Fusion - commercial power by 2050, perhaps December 16, 2003 ITER site selection meeting - Dec 20 Representatives of Japan, Russia, the European Union and Canada will come to Washington DC this week, where the US Department of Energywill host the December 20 final meeting to choose the site of the experimental nuclear fusion reactor project knwn as ITER -- International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The project was suggested by the Soviet Union in 1985, and the US was one of the early supporters of the idea. As time went on, the US Congress became disappointed with how expensive the project plans had become. In 1998, the USA withdrew from the project. The remaining member nations were able to cut the project plan's costs by about half, and President Bush last January indicated that the US would rejoin the project talks. The US apparently will pony up some $500-million for the project. No US location is in the running for being selected as the reactor site. The Bush Administration is also offering to make contributions to ITER in the form of construction work and seeks involvement in the project's administration, as well as scientific research and technological development. [Source: Jerome Bernard, "US rejoins ITER after five year absence", Agence France Presse, December 16, 2003] December 12, 2003 ITER siting, budget firming up Rokkasho, a village in Japan's northern snow country in Aomori Prefecture, is one of two candidates for the ITER international fusion project. It is also the site of a facility now under construction to reprocess spent nuclear fuel so plutonium can be extracted and used in the nation's nuclear-fuel recycling program. The other candidate is Cadarache in France, which was chosen by the European Union in November. The site to host the ITER is expected to be selected at a ministerial meeting set for Dec. 20 in Washington, D.C. Victory, however, will come at a price, with the finalist contributing the lion's share of about 300 billion yen for construction and equipment. International negotiations to pick the construction site, as well as participants in operating the ITER facility, got under way in November 2001. Japan offered Rokkasho as a candidate in May 2002. The selection of the construction site will be made through a vote of the seven members. Science and technology ministry officials have been lobbying their counterparts in China and South Korea to back Japan. However, an official with the Cabinet Office said China appears to be leaning toward France, but Russia may back Japan. Other Japanese government officials said they hoped lingering ill will between the United States and France over the war in Iraq will work in Tokyo's favor. The total cost for all participants is expected to reach 1.3 trillion yen over the 20-year life of the project. Construction of the experimental reactor will cost about 570 billion yen and take about a decade to complete. In addition, about 600 billion yen will be needed to operate and maintain the facility during its life span. The budget was decided in Dec. 4-5 negotiations in Vienna. ITER members are Japan, the EU, Russia, Canada, the United States, China and South Korea. Canada said it cannot pay its share, which leaves financing to the other six members. The United States, China, Russia and South Korea will pay 10 percent each. The winner of the construction site contest, either Japan or France, will pay about 48 percent and the loser the rest. In addition to construction, the winner will pay all costs for equipment: price tag about 90 billion yen. [Source: The Asahi Shimbun, "Dream Energy Source: Hot future", Dec 12, 2003] ITER design overview The goal of the ITER project is to produce more than 10 times the energy used and to maintain nuclear fusion continuously -- for more than five minutes. About 500,000 kilowatts of electricity will be needed. The reactor will feature a tokamak-style vacuum container shaped like a doughnut. Its outer diameter will be about 20 meters. Superconducting magnetic coils will confine and heat the fuel, deuterium and tritium, to temperatures above 100 million degrees. At that temperature, the fuel becomes a plasma, in which atomic nuclei and electrons are separated. [Source: The Asahi Shimbun, "Dream Energy Source: Hot future", Dec 12, 2003] ITER funding in Japan would come at expense of other sci-tech efforts, perhaps JAERI The Japanese Cabinet approved Rokkasho as candidate site for ITER on condition no special fiscal measures would be implemented. That means the budget for other science and technology projects will have to be cut. Among the projects that could be affected are the high-intensity proton accelerator under construction jointly by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization and the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI). [Source: The Asahi Shimbun, "Dream Energy Source: Hot future", Dec 12, 2003] November 6, 2003 Fusion energy - helium-3 from the moon is a commercial prospect My colleagues at the Fusion Technology Institute of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Interlune-Intermars Initiative, Inc. believe that ... a commercially viable project exists in lunar helium-3 used as a fuel for fusion electric power plants on Earth. ... Helium has two stable isotopes, helium 4, familiar to all who have received helium-filled balloons, and the even lighter helium 3. Lunar helium-3, arriving at the Moon as part of the solar wind, is imbedded as a trace, non-radioactive isotope in the lunar soils. It represents one potential energy source to meet this century's rapidly escalating demand. There is a resource base of helium-3 about of 10,000 metric tonnes just in upper three meters of the titanium-rich soils of Mare Tranquillitatis. This was the landing region for Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11 in 1969. The energy equivalent value of Helium-3 delivered to operating fusion power plants on Earth would be about $4 billion per tonne relative to today's coal. ... These numbers illustrate the magnitude of the business opportunity for helium-3 fusion power to compete for the creation of new electrical capacity and the replacement of old during the 21st Century. Past technical activities on Earth and in deep space provide a strong base for initiating this enterprise. Also, over the last decade, there has been historic progress in the development of inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Progress there includes the production of over a milliwatt of steady-state power from the fusion of helium- 3 and deuterium. Steady progress in IEC research as well as basic physics argues strongly that the IEC approach to fusion power has significantly more commercial viability than other technologies pursued by the fusion community. It will have inherently lower capital costs, higher energy conversion efficiency, a range of power from a few hundred megawatts upward, and little or no associated radioactivity or radioactive waste. It should be noted, however, that IEC research has received no significant support as an alternative to Tokamak-based fusion from the Department of Energy in spite of that Department's large fusion technology budgets. The Office of Science and Technology Policy under several Administrations also has ignored this approach. [Source: Harrison H. Schmitt (Chairman, InterLune-InterMars Initiative, Inc.), "Lunar Exploration" Senate Hearings, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space November 6, 2003] September 25, 2003 Craig Wallace's little 'fusor' won't solve the world's energy problems The news stories are true -- about a desktop fusion reactor from a university in Utah. The reactor designed and built by physics undergraduate Craig Wallace churns out about the equivalent of one millionth of a millionth of a solitary watt. The production of neutrons, pretty easily identified by radiation detectors, is evidence that fusion is occurring. There is nothing particularly revolutionary about Wallace's little reactor, which has won prizes from science fairs and the like. Reportedly cobbled together from parts salvaged from junkyards and charity shops, the device is the latest example of what is known as an inertial electrostatic confinement fusion reactor. About the size of footballs, they were first designed and built in the 1950s but their feeble power output has seen them relegated to the fringes of fusion research ever since. "They've been used quite a bit in universities because they're relatively easy to make," says David Ward, a physicist who works on the Joint European Torus fusion reactor at Culham. "They use a large electric field that will accelerate ions into the centre, where they will collide and produce small amounts of fusion." Far fewer collisions occur when relying upon electrostatics than in more modern fusion reactor designs which use magnetic fields to control and sustain the reaction. [Ref: The Guardian (London), "Is it true that an American student has built a desktop nuclear fusion reactor?", September 25, 2003, Guardian Science Pages, p. 2] September 16, 2003 Fusion unlikely to ever be useful for power plant use Too many difficult challenges limit the attractiveness of a potential technology, and nuclear fusion has more than its share. For example, the only sustained nuclear fusion reactions are in the Sun and other stars, at energy levels of many millions of degrees. The thermonuclear reactions are contained -- most of the time -- by enormous gravitational forces. Solar flares -- occasional huge bursts of energy extending out from the surface of the Sun for hundreds of thousands of miles -- are an indication of the challenges of controlling and containing sustained thermonuclear reactions. The brief periods of energy production in fusion energy experiments to date are another indication. Because of very high temperatures, a conventional structure for primary containment of a fusion reactor would not be possible, and gravitational forces comparable to those in stars do not exist on Earth. Magnetism has been proposed for containment and other ideas have been suggested. But assured containment for fusion energy that would meet the demands of a rigid safety analysis is probably not achievable. Controlled nuclear fusion, accelerators for production of tritium and transcalifornium elements, lasers for isotope separation, and manipulator-maintained pyro-processing for nuclear fuel recycle are interesting research concepts. But they would not likely be on a high priority list of a well-managed program for energy and nuclear technology. [Source: Clinton Bastin (chemical engineer who, during the 1960s, was in charge of Savannah River Plant tritium and nuclear weapons programs), Nuclear News, "LETTERS: Close enough", September 2003, p. 10] May 14, 2003 Fusion research foes in Canada Canada is in the running as location for ITER -- an international fusion energy research project that would provide thousands of jobs and billions-worth of foreign cash to the host nation. Yet a Toronto Star columnist reports that scientists are pretty indifferent about the project, and environmentalists are downright hostile: "The scientific community, perhaps fearing that a large investment in ITER would mean less government money for other projects, has provided a half-hearted endorsement of the science behind ITER... Worried that ITER will drain away money from their pet projects (solar and wind power), some environmentalists have written federal MPs challenging the assertion that fusion energy is either clean or safe." [Source: Ian Urquhart (Toronto Star) "Liberals urged to back fusion project", Toronto Star, May 14, 2003, p. A25]
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