Is The World's Largest Fusion Project Dead?

[@DrBenMiles]

There's a ton here I didn't get to cover. I want to know your thoughts. Should we write off ITER or is it still relevant and important? Check out today's sponsor: AKIFLOW 🚀 Take control of your schedule and boost your productivity with time-blocking! Try Akiflow today: akiflow.com/drbenmiles

[@cabanford]

@@DrBenMiles You're spot on. Wondering how the government would choose who and how much to fund on these for-profit companies? Feels ripe for some nice corruption

[@jimcabezola3051]

I'd rather that governments spend my money on this fusion reactor than spend it on their military projects or providing tax breaks and subsidies to petroleum, natural gas and coal companies. The lessons we learn from this reactor can be used by other researchers and engineers.

[@cabanford]

@@jimcabezola3051 That's for damn sure.

[@PrivateSi]

I've fought the ConFusion Crazies for decades online. Burning Water (what it boils down to) vs burning stuff that actually burns, or concentrating naturally hot radioactive materials.. Waste Incineration Energy, Advanced Breeder Reactors and Wind / Solar for some places. Avoid hydro as it destroys land and dams break.

[@bartroberts1514]

ITER was ever the product of deceptive and misleading claims. While commercial electric fusion generation just isn't terrestrially possible on energy balance, ITER in particular is also bad science and bad technology. If the world wants to defray the cost of military deuterium and tritium for h-bombs, there are surely cheaper ways to share overhead costs with pure academic research.

[@slickm7]

I work for a private fusion company, the work iter has done is invaluable to our mission I wish it the best and hope it succeeds. There is so much interesting science that has already been done by iter.

[@PrivateSi]

Your mission is to eat money while using as many Watts as possible to produce as few Watts as possible? That's the best your company can ever hope to achieve, realistically.

[@mrhassell]

ITER has made significant progress in assembling crucial components like the poloidal field coils, toroidal field coils, and vacuum vessel modules. These components are essential for creating the conditions necessary for nuclear fusion. The Cryostat Base Installation, is just one of the first major components installed was the cryostat base, which provides a high-vacuum, ultracool environment for the vacuum vessel and superconducting magnets. The construction of the vacuum vessel, used to contain the superheated plasma, is another vital achievement. This vessel is designed to withstand extreme conditions and is a vital part of the fusion process. The production and installation of ITER’s superconducting toroidal field coils are engineering marvels. These coils are designed to create the magnetic fields needed to confine the plasma particles within the reactor.

[@JackDespero]

People do not understand that private companies are getting decades of experience given directly by ITER. It is not only about the plasma physics: ITER is a mega project, and as a mega project, the physics is just a small part of the whole scheme. ITER has cemented protocols for international scientific collaboration like no other project before, and that is why it is a template for so many private companies.

[@JacquesMartini]

What did they do so far? Show how management should NOT work?

[@JacquesMartini]

@@mrhassell Yes, but almost useless as long as the machine is out of order! CGI and nice CAD modells are not enought!

[@septimusmarius88]

Dear Dr. Miles, last summer I was having a tour of the Wendelstein 7-X reactor in Greifswald, Germany, the largest and most advanced stellarator type reactor. When I asked what the biggest challenge was, building this magnificient piece of science, the answer was surprising: Convincing companies to build all the components. You need hundreds of very specialised high-tech companies as suppliers and often times participating in a fusion reactor project is not a appealing business case, as it may take 50 years before the investment really pays off when finally the reactors will be built in series. Imagine a start-up company knocking on their door instead of a renowned rearch institute... In my opinion these large over-budget state-funded projects play a huge role in paving the way for smaller privately-funded projects that follow along and may even overtake them at some point in time. To give an expample, the large fusion projects are the sole reason there are now companies that have the manufacturing expertise and equipment to produce large amounts of superconducting magnets.

[@tobymichaels8171]

That sounds like a deflection. Suppliers have nothing to lose so long as they're being paid for the components they build. The reality is that the Science isn't there yet, and by most cognizant accounts never will be.

[@NotIdefix]

the question I would like to see answered is.......given that the project was intended to be a "proof of concept", and not be a power generation plant......why build it so large......? the scale would amplify every single issue you mentioned with custom componentry

[@cocolasticot9027]

​@@NotIdefix If you want to prove that fusion is viable, you need to demonstrate that every little loss here and there doesn't eat up the net gain of the fusion process. I'm not sure a smaller reactor would clearly show that. And if you go big, yes there are lots of logistically complex and very large pieces to deal with. But in return you have enough space to place reasonably sized components around without ending up in an integration and miniaturisation nightmare. Plus you have space for lots of censors and apparatus as it is a research project. (Not an expert here, there may be other more critical reasons)

[@Kevin_Street]

You make an excellent point. And frankly it should be the role of government to pioneer things and spend huge sums of money getting industrial ecosystems started. Now those companies exist, it's better for everyone following behind.

[@bobjayp]

excessive verbiage. please try to make your comments more pithy.

[@erykczajkowski8226]

A couple of points to put this expenditure in perspective: 1) We are talking about solving one of the biggest problems of humanity. 2) Energy produced in EU alone in a year is worth 650 billion EUR. What is 30 billion over 20 years? Nothing. If you taxed energy in participating countries with a fusion development taxation it would not be noticeable for consumers. 3) There would be no fusion startups without government spending in the field for decades. 4) I am sure that ITER solved many technological issues which these startups now build upon, like magnet technology. 5) I am sure that that a lot of people working in these startups have have previously worked on ITER or for its suppliers. To conculde: we should keep the expenditures on ITER. We should also flood the startups with cash.

[@doublepinger]

One of the interesting notes in energy discussion, was that people tend to not notice the logistics cost. Around ten years ago, they were noting that even with 100% free energy generation, infrastructure cost of electricity would still have been something like 4-5 cents per kilowatt hour. The comparison was for local solar - even if it still cost that much, just not moving it would save the money, and tip the scale. Turns out this was before AI and electric vehicles were taken into the mix, and now if you could get solar + storage under like 10 cents, the cost would be competitive. C'mon battery tech!

[@Yattayatta]

@@doublepinger While I have huge hopes for Solar and battery tech myself, huge industrial applications won't be running off of that, especially not when we go for really energy intense things like decarbonizing steel production, green helium and things like that, it will requires immense power generation globally.

[@unsteadyeddy3107]

Fusion power will not "solve one of the biggest problems of humanity". It would actually make it far worse. With almost unlimited energy, we would begin to extract the resources of our planet even faster than we currently do. There would also likely be a human population explosion as the costs of those resources dropped temporarily. Yet it would still take several decades to develop a human-rated fusion-drive starship and leave our planet. We would risk stripping the Earth bare before we could escape it.

[@wilkosgaming9224]

From what I understand ITER hasn't done anything, JET, reactor in Culham, Oxford has been making all these discoveries, ITER hasn't even been active or finished, it was supposed to take over from JET this year, but clearly isn't going to. Until the end of last year, JET was the most advanced experimental fusion reactor in the world. ITER not being finished this year is rather detrimental in my eyes for this project, it's good private companies are doing different research on it and different ways because otherwise I fear we'd not having really any actual fusion research that meant anything for at least a decade if 2034 is true...

[@fr57ujf]

If it was designed to generate power, ITER could produce 500 MW. We would need to build more than 20,000 of them to replace fossil fuels. We can't build on that scale, and even if we could, it would be far too late to prevent global temperatures from reaching catastrophic levels. With annual energy demand now at 175,000 TWh, and with nearly 80% of this still serviced by burning fossil fuels, no clean technology can be scaled up to replace them. And this doesn't even consider the collapse of ecosystems around the world which is a separate but related existential threat which on its own will also force a collapse of our global technological civilization.

[@jewymchoser]

In iter’s defence, that was the size needed based on the magnet technology at the time. REBCO magnets now allow iter to be 40x smaller / cheaper

[@dianapennepacker6854]

What a REBCO? I wonder if iron nitrade magnets will change things. Not for fusion. Just in general. They are more powerful than Neodymium.

[@unoriginalname4321]

@@dianapennepacker6854 Rare-earth barium copper oxide (ReBCO)

[@jewymchoser]

@@dianapennepacker6854 REBCO is a High Temperature Superconductor created by IBM many years ago. In 2010's, manufacturers figured out how to make it into a foldable tape & MIT realized that it could be used to make high Tesla magnets needed for fusion (and MRI machines, etc..). MIT's SPARK reactor is coming online in 2026 and it will be (almost) as strong as ITER but 40x smaller. Now the limiting factor is extracting all the energy from such a small surface area. I think 2026 will be the "kitty hawk" year for fusion

[@MrMichiel1983]

So I wonder can we redesign ITER with REBCO magnets and add an actual steam generator to it? 40x might translate to an actual economic efficiency for a tokamak that size?

[@jewymchoser]

@@MrMichiel1983 nope, that ship has sailed. But many are starting from scratch and much father along after just a few years

[@rebokfleetfoot]

they only reason i don't complain about the trillions spent on particle physics, is because it's money that would otherwise be used for warfare

[@daMillenialTrucker]

same, id rather that money be used for science and research to enhance our QOL and NOT for killing people

[@dimos5422]

live it to countries to weaponize science

[@jeolman1]

what do you mean, the ultimate goal of those funding science is to gain military advantage

[@Whatismusic123]

@@jeolman1 the idea is that military advantage would be the inevitable result of progress, so it's better to reverse it.

[@mrhassell]

The statement assumes that funds allocated to particle physics would otherwise be directed to warfare, which is not true. Budget allocations are complex and influenced by many factors, including political, economic, and social considerations. The most fundamental flaw in the statement is that it presents a false dilemma (or false dichotomy) fallacy. In this case, the statement implies that money can only be spent on either particle physics or warfare, ignoring the myriad of other potential uses for government funds, such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, and social services, in other words, I strongly urge you to reconsider your position and expand your perspective.

[@xtieburn]

'We have 35 credible teams advancing different approaches faster and for a lower cost' - That isnt really true. None of the other projects are as far along as tokamak research and we frankly have no idea what kind of problems they will run in to when scaling up to a real grid level power station, and if there is one thing that fusion research has told us its that there are always major problems; Yes, they are moving fast at the outset, so did tokamak research thats why the oft repeated 'Its thirty years away' emerged before it became clear just what a herculean task it was really going to be. The difference between ITER and just about every other attempt is that ITERs issues lie in management, budget, sourcing parts, etc, but the science behind it appears absolutely rock solid. Every experiment at places like JET have only served to prove that ITER will work and quite likely well beyond expectations. The other approaches are important to investigate but are littered with far more unknowns as to whether they will be ready in short order, will take many decades, or just arnt viable at all. I wish ITER didnt suffer the problems it did with the bureaucracy, and less money was spent so it could be spread around a bit, but I wouldnt choose to abandon either side of this. ITER should be built, experimental alternatives should be investigated, and we are successfully doing both. We are on the right path with this, even if it could and should have been a lot smoother a journey.

[@lifeteen2]

Most of the other credible teams are also building tokamaks. They've just figured out smaller and cheaper ways to build one, but it's still based on the same well tested design as ITER. ITER's problem is it was designed to around the limitations of 1980's technology (forcing it to be enormous). 2020's tech would allow it to be significantly smaller and cheaper, but ITER is too far along to redesign it.

[@JustATakit]

@@lifeteen2 ITER is a scientific Ponzi scheme if you have not figured it out yet. They all know that the moment they turn the machine on that the eyes of the world will be on them and it will be almost impossible to BS any excuse of why it does not work and that will be the end of all this money they are getting. Think about it trillions of dollars have been spent and billions more is available as long as they can keep people believing they will solve the problem next year or the year after but the second they solve the problem that money stops. Sure the scientists working on it may or may not be in on the scam but in my opinion they all are involved in it just to keep the money flowing in by the truck loads. ALLEGEDLY

[@mrhassell]

ITER has a few fundamental flaws. 1. It is based on the Russian T-15MD, never able to achieve the anticipated outcomes of ITER. 1-second bursts are expected to be 500 second in ITER and so far, not a single second. 2. 35 nations working together, in any case, for the common good by energy production, or any reason, slows projects to snail's paces. ITER is not designed to be an energy production system in of itself but provide a platform from which the World will learn to build reactors and provide each of their nation's power needs, long after 2035. 3. The cables used for magnetic confinement, are made from niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) and niobium-titanium (NbTi), both are rare earth elements. Production of these superconducting strands involved a significant procurement effort, with 500 metric tons of strand produced by nine suppliers between 2008 and 2015. This cable length is more than 100,000 km, enough to wrap around the Earth 2.5 times. 4. Current-generating fusion reactor supplying 1,000 MW the electricity needed to power the superconducting magnet cryogenics system, is in a range of 20 to 30 MW. 5. Apart from problems of yield and electric consumption, there is not even one electricity network in the world that can supply the 2 GW power input required. 6. ITER's magnetic systems, in particular the TF (Toroidal Field) system, store unprecedented amounts of energy, far outpacing all the other superconducting systems developed to date. The huge size of these magnetic systems means it is essential to use high currents (40 to 70 kA) to limit inductances and, therefore, electric voltages, during operation. 7. Disruption (plasma disruption): indicates full loss of plasma confinement. A disruption may have many consequences. Any sudden decrease in current and/or magnetic field induces mirror currents and/or magnetic fields in the components surrounding the machine. These components are then subjected to what may be considerable forces. 8. ITER is billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule. Not even its leaders can say how much more money and time it will take to complete. 2035 buys time, that's all. 9. Cable-in-Conduit Conductors (CICCs) developed for ITER are a significant part of its overall cost. ITER total costs surpassed €20 billion (approximately $21.8 billion), which is more than four times the original budget of €5 billion, the CICC costs represent 30% of the total cost alone, more than the initial entire budget allocated! 10. ITER is funded and run by seven member countries since 2006. Not one of these countries honestly expects ITER to EVER become fully operational, based on costs and time. 11. Charles Seife, director of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University, sued ITER for lack of transparency. Since then, its damage control and cover ups. According to Yang Zhao, Energy Singularity's Chief Executive Officer, using high-temperature superconducting materials can reduce the volume of a device to about 2 percent of that of traditional low-temperature superconducting devices, allowing the construction period of the device to be shortened from ~ 30 years to only 3-4 years. Shanghai, Energy Singularity, completed the engineering feasibility verification of high-temperature superconducting for its Honghuang 70 (HH70) tokamak device "The design work of the device began in March 2022, and the overall installation was completed by the end of February this year, setting the fastest record for the research and construction of superconducting tokamak devices worldwide," Yang Zhao, Energy Singularity's Chief Executive Officer. Energy Singularity plans to complete the next generation high magnetic field high-temperature superconducting tokamak device, HH170 with a deuterium-tritium equivalent energy gain (Q) greater than 10 by 2027.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@mrhassell Thanks for the information. Has anyone ever estimated the cost of the electricity that any fusion reactor might someday produce? I'll bet it's an order of magnitude more than existing renewables. A small point: Neither Niobium, Tin, nor Titanium are Rare Earths. That term has a specific meaning, and it isn't "stuff that comes from the Earth and is rare". Also, titanium and tin are not even rare. Niobium is not terrifically rare. It's cheaper than silver.

[@carbonstar9091]

We have no idea what issues ITER will face either. It's not a power station.

[@S00rabh]

We waste so much money in wars. 20B is noting. 200B is nothing. This is totally worth it and more.

[@ILoveTinfoilHats]

Just for reference, here's some YEARLY US government spending numbers: 350 Billion in interest 750 Billion in defense 1.1 Trillion in social security

[@rays2506]

In 1982 my lab had contracts with the DOE to develop armor for the first wall of a prototype fusion reactor and to develop high energy/high current neutral beam injectors to fuel and heat the plasma in such a reactor. Which became ITER. That was 42 years ago and ITER is still ten years away from producing a Q>1 plasma. I'm 82 now and doubt that I'll be around to see ITER reach that milestone.

[@mrhassell]

ITER will most likely never become fully functional.

[@tobymichaels8171]

The Lord Almighty won't be around long enough to see it.

[@oldguy7402]

Rays: I'm a whipper snapper at 72. Remember when flying cars were 10 years away forever? Me too... (not THAT me too...) oh, oh... what about the imminent ice age trumpeted in the 1970s?

[@4thorder]

@@oldguy7402 "whipper snapper" lol - I am a boomer (barely at 1964) and we shall take over this chat with our uber pre-l33t speak unheard by the youngins. :)

[@oldguy7402]

@@4thorder we need our own forum....

[@pr0hobo]

You didn’t answer the question. You answered “Do i think ITER Should die”. I appreciate your insight but i wanted to know if it was dead. I wanted news on iter. Is iter being defunded? Are there plans released to the public saying things like; “if we dont reach our qutoa we will be backing out of the project”? I want to hear the news.

[@111_Chromia]

Nop iter's not going to be discontinued, a lot has been poured into this project, then what's the logic of discontinuing it.Might move at a snail's pace though

[@mx2000]

​@111_Chromia it's called the sunk cost fallacy, also known as throwing good money after bad.

[@PoseidonOilRig]

27 billion divided amongst several countries isn't a lot of money. Keep going, ITER!

[@ILoveTinfoilHats]

Yeah that's like a little more than 3 big macs

[@davidbear1961]

I would like to think that if it were not for the government funded "Human Genome Project" that the ultimate privately funded winner and the huge number of spin-off technologies that allow anyone to get a high quality self-sequence for $200 would not have happened. It is true that one of these or future nuclear fusion startups may achieve practical fusion well before ITER, but without ITER there would be no startups. I am not convinced that ITER is the wrong direction for achieving practical fusion and thus I am convinced it should continue to be funded.

[@KentoLeoDragon]

Ah yes the human genome project. 100s of millions of dollars. We'll cure disease! Now the same tech costs $200. Still not a single cure developed. Not. One. Single. Disease. Has. Been. Cured.

[@richdobbs6595]

Maybe that was true. But on the other hand, maybe it is a case like the Apollo project, where an expensive government project lead to another expensive government project which lead to such a muck up by that point in time a private company could revolutionize the industry. I think it is interesting that Ayn Rand's reaction to the American space program that advanced it by about 40 years from when private industry would have done placed it about the time SpaceX started developing the Falcon series of rockets. Would DNA really have stayed still without the Human Genome Project? Or did it just distort things a bit?

[@Mandragara]

@@richdobbs6595 Soyuz: $80 mil. SpaceX: $70 mil. Not revolutionary

[@mx2000]

Here's the important distinction: Nobody argues that ITER was a bad idea from the start. Because it was a good idea, back in the 80ies. The argument is that it has outlived it's usefulness - because it has been under construction for so long, it missed out on decades of innovation in other fields.

[@colingenge9999]

Compare the genome project to fusion: Genome=measuring and collecting data on something that already exists on Earth. Not construct a DNA molecule that will give rise to humans who don’t make war on each other or an insect that will robotically do housework. Fusion=notice something happening on the Sun, make is work on Earth, extract energy from it and do it competitively with capturing photons from the Sun which we can already do super cheaply. Our energy problem is not that we cannot make it cheaply without polluting ourselves to death but rather we cannot overcome the FUD from the entrenched Fossil Fuel lobby. We are trying to solve a complex problem created by Reagan when he gave the Fossil Fuel Industry a deregulatory pass on paying for the health and environmental damage they were doing by getting the Sun top burn safely and cheaply on Earth. Fusion is insanity at its finest.

[@Yattayatta]

Don't forget that the Fusion startups around the world might end up like the solid state battery startups, all doing a whole bunch of nothing. I'd rather not scrap our one "safe" way until fusion has been proven elsewhere. If all the startups fail, we've still got ITER to study the plasmas. The real "problem" ITER has is the magnets, REBCO magnets making the cooling for super conductivity a much easier task since you don't have to use liquid helium. Also, there is money to fund ITER, and the promising startups, 27 billion Euro might seem like a lot, but you have to remember how many nations are involved. Investment into the startups will for sure rise as they get ever closer to a powerplant.

[@JacquesMartini]

The money is PEANUTS, compared to the GDP of the nations involved! How much do we spend on "defence"?

[@joeker1013]

A lot of the money spent on ITER is spent in the home countries developing their industrial base to build machinery and components for fusion. This industrial base supports other fusion projects. So ITER is useful in creating the fertile ground for other projects.

[@richdobbs6595]

My off the cuff reaction is that you are delusional. Since you don't know how fusion will be achieved, how do you know that the industrial base developed for a research project will have any relevance to other fusion projects? This is like the USA being the technological leader for photovoltaic cells for space craft previously having essentially no relevance to competitiveness in creating solar panels for roof top solar.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@richdobbs6595 Do some more research. There have already been successful test reactions that resulted in a net gain in the reactor core. There is still a ton of work that needs to go into the efficient delivery of the necessary energy to the core, but the basic road map is pretty solid at this point. This project will deliver relevant discoveries to get us there. Fusion won't be the whole solution, but it will be a part of it.

[@dennisestenson7820]

​@@Wi2Low, it's funny you think the money spent by government is yours.

[@mrhassell]

Total nonsense.The European Union is responsible for the largest portion of the construction costs for the ITER project, contributing 45.6% of the total. The remaining costs are shared equally by China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States, each contributing 9.1%. Japan has been responsible for producing key components like the superconducting magnets, 30% of the ITER total budget and exceeding the total budget originally allocated, due to be active in 2016. Japan's first commercial reactor, Tokai Power Station, went operational in 1966 with a generation capacity of 166 MW. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi (“Number One”) plant in northern Japan. The second-worst nuclear accident in history, following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, all 17 major plants were shut down. A total of 24 reactors are scheduled for decommissioning or are in the process of being decommissioned. As of 2022, only 6 out of 17 major nuclear power plants operate in the country, operated by the Kyushu Electric Power (Kyuden), Shikoku Electric Power Company (Yonden) and Kansai Electric Power Company (Kanden). Do not talk out your backside! The entire planet is looking at everything you say.

[@bujin5455]

@@richdobbs6595 Off the cuff reactions are usually wrong, especially if your intuition hasn't be well disciplined by deep analysis with relevant analogous domains. Getting tooling up and running in a new industry is VERY difficult and VERY important. Also, you don't have to have a 100% fit, for the tooling to have a wide set of useful applications. For instance VR and Drone technology were both built off of the back of the smart phone revolution. Getting the tooling 90%+ the way it needs to go, and getting expertise built up making that kind of tooling, makes it easier to fine tune it down the road. It's not like anything ever starts as a 100% bullseye.

[@ShieldAre]

JWST, which you mentioned, is a good comparison: It took a long time and went way over budget, but in the end the launch and unfolding went flawlessly and it is doing an amazing job at improving our understanding of the universe. Likewise, ITER is a massive project that is taking a long time and going over budget, but in the end, it might provide absolutely crucial information about fusion technology or physics in general. We won't know if we don't try. ITER's funding could be used for other research, but sooner or later we will want to fund also projects like ITER that study things that cannot be studied in other ways, and as we are already this far into ITER, it wouldn't make sense to stop and waste all the progress so far, only to start again in 50 years. Better finish ITER now, and use knowledge from it to make a much better project 50 years later. We need to fund science on all levels, everything from small one-person projects to megaprojects like ITER, ELT, JWST and the LHC and its successors. Of course, we shouldn't fall into the sunk cost fallacy, but if there isn't a reason to think that the project will keep getting delayed and require a lot more funding, then it makes sense to not abandon a project when it is 90% finished. So much has been spent on ITER, and it would be a waste to not see if it can actually do what it was designed to do. Only if the budget starts to become completely unreasonable, no clear progress is being made, there are problems that are seemingly impossible and we have no reason to think a solution is likely, or it turns out that the majority of the project has to be overhauled (e.g. need to rebuild several major components), then cancelling it should be in serious consideration. Cancelling it isn't unthinkable. There have been projects like the American Superconducting Super Collider which in retrospect would probably not have been worth the price, as ultimately the LHC could do basically the same for much cheaper, thanks to new technology and by focusing on a different aspect than just pure energy of the collider. Similarly, it is possible that instead of ITER, a couple smaller fusion projects with a different focus might have been better. But it is easy to be wise in retrospect, the thing about cutting edge science is that we don't know what is out there. If the international cooperation is causing problems for ITER decisions, maybe some participants (most likely at least the EU, as the project is built in France) can buy out some other participants, if they are willing to exit. Basically, the participants who stay would pay the exiting participants for at least a part of the investment they have made into the project, and after that, they no longer have decision-making power in the project.

[@JackDespero]

No, it is not dead. On top of that, ITER has already given us plenty of experience. It will be a template on what to do and what not to do in multibillion multinational consortiums, as well as how to create such a complex machine. That knowledge is already being applied to current projects, right now. Plasma wise, only ITER will really be like ITER. Other machines that are promising will explore different regimes, but again, only ITER will give the answers that only ITER can give, whenever they come, so there is really no way for it to get obsolete, because it will answer questions that cannot be answered anywhere else. Maybe other machines find a viable path to fusion first? It could be, but that still does not eliminate the goal of ITER.

[@palladin9479]

The mistake is thinking that those governing bodies actually want ITER to be finished in the first place. Whenever ITER is "finished", that is going to be a large number of government connected people needing to find new jobs and contracting companies needing to find new contracts. As long as ITER is under construction but "making progress", money can be moved from tax payer pockets to private parties with a share going to government managers via kick backs.

[@rickwatkins7285]

Here's an interesting question: What if in a World War we needed fusion reactors to win? How long would this take?

[@ccubsfan94]

3 years tops

[@DragonKingGaav]

I love how B1N also released a video about this earlier today!

[@vivienclogger]

I know...weird inverse synergy. I think someone crossed the streams.

[@mrhassell]

The clicks are a strong force in Nuclear reactors.

[@STYX-a-Lot]

I like how you personally are very teachable. You are like a perpetual student of life. When you endure criticism You don’t defend yourself. You actually adopt the perspective of the other while not abandoning your own. You display that your most focused perspectives are fragmented, and that any supreme perspective is paradoxic. I like that you don’t just walk in and take over and force people. You actually consider what they’re saying and walk away with something useful every time. I see you, and it’s like you are resonating in a cloud of light that contains multiple or even all probable futures, and it’s like you just reside there, calling the past and present to you. It’s like you’ve got your eye on a certain outcome, and you don’t flinch or look away and it doesn’t arrive to you, you are already there… I think it’s Meta genius, and that this kind of teachable open-mindedness is something we could all benefit from. The look on your face and your demeanor is not complacent. However, it looks like you’re about to bust into laughing because you’re excited about something you know, and or, that will take place. I’ve seen lots of people with a beam in their eye, but when you are beaming, I can actually see something coming into focus. You’re thinking it very fluent, and highly advanced…I dig the name, Dr. "Been Miles." Been there dude, "To boldly go where no man has gone before." And when you get there, everybody speaks English. STYX.

[@connecticutaggie]

It is interesting that a similar thing is happening in the US on Space Travel. The traditional approach to Space Travel in the US has been to provide money to NASA who then used contractors to design and build the final solution (the rocket and the spacecraft) but for NASA to get the money, NASA had to court to different state politicians to support their vision - mostly by promising to use contractors or build research facilities in their state. This tends to make for a slow hodge-podge development path. One recent example of this is the SLS which is actually a re-branding and extension of several previous projects and so far has cost about $12B and each rocket costs about $2B each and has had one launch and has taken over 20 years. On the other hand, is SpaceX which has its own solution which has had four test flights costing about $100M each and has only taken about 10 years.

[@johnenglish7568]

Here’s one for you. We’re talking ITER costing 20-49B USD. The US state of Hawaii spent 10 billion dollars on a monorail. The utility of that rail is in question. Do you see my point? This message is to Dr. Miles.

[@user-pn8te8tl1t]

Bureaucratic jobs program for physicists.

[@goodfodder]

How much have the olympic games cost over the same period as the iter project and which program will advance humanity the most?

[@haroldhahn7044]

You are comparing a bad idea to a bad idea! Good luck with that.

[@Thestuffonmainstreet]

The practical problem is it’s either ITER or nothing. Funds will just dry up NOT get redistributed. It might be possible to continue ITER & call for more funding towards other projects. Which is realistically what we need. US or EU only addition mega fussion project might also be possible.

[@richdobbs6595]

My quick reaction is although the simple scaling laws based on heat loss vs heat generation favor larger experiments, the basic problem is with plasma stability. What does that scale with? In practice, I think the way to solve fusion is to get practical nuclear fission, which basically means being quantitative about risk vs reward. This would kick the can down the road by about a hundred years, by which time we either solve fusion, get better batteries, or the risk vs reward set point needs to kick up a notch.

[@mrhassell]

Russian Scientists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov designed the Tokamak-15, or T-15, which is the Russian machine that ITER is based on. It succeeded in creating its first thermonuclear plasma in 1988, and the reactor remained operational until 1995, achieving 1 MA and 1.5 MW injection for a 1-second pulse. From 1996 to 1998, the reactor underwent a series of upgrades to conduct preliminary research for the design of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER. In 2010, further upgrades led to the creation of T-15MD. The assembly of the magnetic coils was completed in August 2019, which are the same coils to be used in ITER. The first working tokamak, the T-1, was developed by Natan Yavlinsky in 1958, with 'T' standing for Thermonuclear.

[@hamsternchips]

Deceloping and practicing the means of collaboration across nations and corporations is just as important as the tech for planet changing technologies. ITER is developing the world culture that will benefit humanity in many major projects to come and will perhaps have the side benefits of less conflict.

[@TreyRuiz]

One of the superposition of possible states of fusion technologies, is a large massive fusion venture.

[@HermanVonPetri]

My main reservations about fusion is that the equipment and maintenance costs are always so large that it would continue to concentrate electricity generation into the hands of a few large wealthy corporations with an outsized influence on markets and politics. Solar, geothermal, and to a lesser extent wind, at least have more potential for localized residential home and community level power generation that can never exist with fusion. We need to diversify, localize, and democratize power generation, not continue to be held hostage by oligarchs.

[@bujin5455]

One could have said the same thing about computers back in the 1940s, and look at where we are today. Technology, especially advanced technology, always starts astronomically expensive, and works its way down the cost curve. Once we actually solve the problem, the technology will be refined, and the cost will come down. Assuming governments don't prevent that with over regulation, turning it into a protectionist market (like they have with so many things).

[@mrhassell]

FuZE - the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment by Zap Energy is known for being the simplest, smallest, and lowest-cost fusion device to achieve electron temperatures exceeding 30 million degrees Celsius. While the exact total price of the FuZE reactor isn’t publicly detailed, Zap Energy has raised significant funding to support its development, including a $160 million Series C funding round. ITERs insane budget, is a result of the size and scale, with 35 nations all climbing on top of each other like ants, they also need massive amounts of space, with huge costs of land purchasing, being the first expense, which has only continued to balloon since, the magnets made in Japan cost more than the entire budget allocated and it was initially meant to have gone live 8 years ago. The truth is, its the least likely fusion reactor to ever function, at all.

[@IMBlakeley]

When I was in primary school fusion was a decade + away, I am retired now and it is still nowhere in sight.

[@misterdudemanguy9771]

Fusion. The gift that keeps on taking. Always 10 years away.

[@cinemaipswich4636]

ITER has already brought forward Industrial Science products such as their "force field coils". New methods of welding alloys, and several other things.

[@lawrencefrost9063]

This is similar to the problem of "When should we send space ships to other solar systems?" Because if you start too soon, your tech will be outdated and inefficient because while the first ships are halfway there by then we will have much more advanced ships so there is the question of timing. Same here. We started this way back when but by now it's not even finished and it's sort of outdated.

[@thoriummarcell403]

Summary: unlike breeder fission reactors, the fuel for fusion is a real problem. The waste volume (total waste, including device waste) is larger, handling fusion related waste is much more complex (complex devices vs. simpler fission vessels and heat exchangers +fuel pins or fuel salt). Fusion feasibility fails at realiability. Economy is grave at best. There is no scientific evidence that fusion can compete (on level playfield) with fast neutron breeder fission reactors in any of the aspects. (note: "waste" without the equipment/decommissioning waste is non-scientific). 0.010 kg / year / person Li is mined. That is 0.0007 kg / year / person 6-Li that would be the fuel of T-breeding (Practically sufficient for appr. 5000 kWh / person / year, not even enough for electricity; way insufficient to support industrial heat, H2, fertilizer, syntethic fuels, etc... - all required to significantly reduce fossil fuel usage). Needless to say: "it does NOT run on seawater". Since not enough neutrons to breed T, fission is a must. If U or Pu fission is used, the fusion is totally unnecessary. Just adds complexity, 10x more equipment waste, extreme problems to run continuously and maintain operation. Be could be used to help breeding. However, the 240 ton of the world's 1 year Be production would be enough for less than 1 DEMO-category fusion plant (actually 480 tons needed according to ITER studies, that is 2 years worth of all Be mined worldwide). Thousands of reactors would be needed. Not enough consumables to replace 1/2 of fossil fuels, and extreme amount of waste and problems. Clean energy equals fast-spectrum fission for the time being, 37-Cl based molten salt fast reactor being the best, Na and molten salt heat storage being 2nd (perhaps the D2O technology from India can be an immediate solution with some smart fuel arrangement, see "Breeding Capability and Void Reactivity Analysis of Heavy-Water-Cooled Thorium Reactor" Sidik PERMANA, Naoyuki TAKAKI & Hiroshi SEKIMOTO ). Most likely there will be other options in the long run. Fusion would make sense if it could be made small (SMR-size or even smaller), not even on the horizon. Also feasible for some scientific applications with fast-neutron subcritical neutron multiplier for fast neutron pulses. So far politics have killed the good paths and paying demo-"science" projects that is known unfeasible. The last correct scientific conclusion about DT-fusion was from LANL: "The investment of time and money required to commercialize the (fusion) hybrid cycle could only be justified by a real or perceived advantage of the hybrid over the classical FBR (fast breeder fission reactor). Our (LANL, 1980) analysis leads us to conclude that no such advantage exists." It is even worse if positive energy balance from DT-fusion is required. Anyone objecting: don't take it as an offense, just show the scientific study of the volume and handling of total DT-tokamak fusion related waste, including the equipment waste (and compare to fast-neutron fission reactors). Fusion with virtually no waste is a dangerous myth. Especially together with the "unhandlable amount of fission waste", another deceptive myth. The DT-Tokamak concept was studied by Hans Bethe (1979) and LASL/LANL (1980) and known for certain to be a giant waste of resources without real advantage compared to fast-neutron fission. With much money spent on it, it simply diverts attention from working fission reactors that produce less waste for all practical purposes, if we recycle fuel, most fission products (16 million USD /ton) and consider decommissioning waste for the total plant.

[@haakonht]

Why would *anyone* in the private sector take on the risk of commercializing a small start-up reactor technology concept as long as peddling the commodity is risk free and guaranteed profit? Even if you spent *all* that money on smaller start-ups they would still be facing the same challenges when scaling it up and making it safe for daily operation and the public would probably still have to invest in a technology demonstrator like ITER in order to convince the market - the only difference is that it would come 20 years later (facing exactly the same setbacks as ITER does, probably costing the same too) and *maybe* have a different reactor core? I guess my argument is that ITER and these smaller start-ups, while they are all trying to solve the same problem, are solving *very* different issues along the way, and they often compliment each other and will in turn inspire even further innovation.

[@hughsiefken5858]

There is still some physics that may be learned from ITER. Sometimes the large data points about the physical world are hard to win and controlled nuclear fusion looks like another example.

[@leetakamiya]

We are now one step closer to the next cost overrun/ delay announcement. If that’s not progress then I don’t know what is.

[@bujin5455]

10:24. No, probably not. One of the reasons these sort of large scale projects struggle like they do, is because of the availability of funds. They feel like they can make any problem go away with money, which means they don't spend a lot of effort asking basic questions like: "Is this the right thing to be doing?" And that question needs to be asked at EVERY level of the project, not just at the project level. What makes these scrappy efforts so effective is the fact they are constrained by cash, which forces them to sweat the details. What we don't need to do is turn 30+ effective fusion projects into 30+ ITER projects, by removing their cash discipline from their efforts.

[@billthomas8994]

When I lived in San Diego from 1989 through the early 90s UCSD was hosting the project to develop code for the reactor design. Progress has been so slow since then but reading through the comments it's good to know that there are still benefits realized by other fusion projects thanks to the ongoing development of key ITER components

[@ronniejarvis2679]

“Too big to fail” project

[@rwesenberg]

Yup. Government development projects are often immortal. Fail to succeed, and the checks keep rolling in. Succeed and the checks stop.

[@linuxranch]

Ben, there is no incentive to finish this project, so they don't. They need a DEADline. And maybe one with teeth like "Management will not be eligible to work on government funded programs if you don't produce the following tangible results by x date, for a period of y years." The equivalent of "big science purgatory.".

[@jhweisen]

Thanks for another excellent video. My career was in publicly funded fusion research. As a student I choose this because the general belief, shared by the lecturers, was that fusion was 25-30 years away. I would be able to look back when retired with pride to what I contributed to. I am certainly not ashamed if what I contributed to, but commercial fusion is not what it is. That remains, in my opinion, well over 30 years away. Assuming that all technical hurdles are overcome in a few decades, the first commercial projects will find themselves in a vastly different energy landscape than we have today. Carbon-neutral technologies will dominate power production. These technologies will be comparably simple and cheap. Judging by ITER and the even larger DEMO project, fusion looks likely to be extremely complex and consequently less reliable. In clear, fusion may by the time it is ready, not be competitive. Maybe some of the alternative, privately funded approaches will be able to develop smaller, less complex fusion reactors. However, from what I can see, is that they still have to discover and experience the issues and problems which are well known in publicly funded fusion research and for which so far only tentative solutions exist that still are to be validated at scale.

[@David-ey9jg]

But it’s only 30 years away…..

[@STYX-a-Lot]

For fission, you don’t float it in water. You suspend it in jets of air. A sphere of…you guessed it… zirconium dioxide. A hole on top and bottom for fresh air to enter. Hot air is jetted out the equator to propel the shell to spin. The reactant fuel in the center is kept from spinning by the intake air jetted in the opposite direction of the shell. These can be small.

[@sunroad7228]

"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future" (2017).

[@drhxa]

I think commercial is a double edged sword. If you ask anyone, especially the most senior scientists, working at Iter (smartest scientists in the world) what they think of the promises of private commercial fusion in 5-10 years they laugh and say there is ZERO chance. Because they are pragmatists and they know the challanges are immense. Any such promises are inevitable but ultimately fail to stand up to outside scientific rigor. The only fusion technology known today that has any real chance of succeeding is the Tokamak. This is objectively true. Of the commercial players, the closest one is MIT-backed SPARK / ARC. They're building on the science of Tokamaks augmented by much improved magnet materials. Good luck to everyone nonetheless!

[@dragoonpreston3]

Look up the history of the Stellarator. And why America didn't even Name the Tokamak despite inventing it first.

[@KeithSPC42R]

“Strong opinions held weakly” I love that. I also loved the clip of the fusion reactor for sale on Amazon 😆. Great video doc!

[@ulla1623]

I find it easy to understand your rhetoric Ben thanks .😮

[@Anamnesis-Apotheosis89]

Technically many of these fusion projects were just test platforms in the first place, and not practical reactors, these are essentially just feasibility test reactors, so yeah, if it can work in this experiment, they can work up to full-scale systems. Did you expect them to keep it active forever? All it takes is a few successful reactions that net more power than they put in and bam the projects over, because now they can virtualize the data and simulate it in a virtual lab setting. If you want progress you have to move fast.

[@mkunz-3548]

Just look at the new and modern fission design EPR. In the UK they are building two reactors for £35bn or 44bnUSD. That just conventional fission. And they were not the only ones contributing to the development costs of the design.

[@fredericoamigo]

I truly hope they will see this project through. This is just like CERN. ITER is really important to achieve a major technological milestone.

[@th232np]

Thank you for answering the question "why is bigger better ?". But nobody seems to care about the tritium procurement problem for such reactors.

[@gregoryfrechou]

rocket scientist checking in: it would be better to launch you towards Jupiter and do a gravity assist (wrong direction) to cancel out angular velocity so you can actually fall into the sun.

[@HiggsBoson2149]

Just a theoretical question. If a civilization is advanced enough to create a Dyson sphere, then would it not also be advanced enough to have invented net positive fusion? Then why would that civilization still need a Dyson sphere?

[@xxportalxx.]

I wish more money was being invested in short term fusion projects like General Fusion in Canada, they have a much more feasible path to viable energy production, large scale takomaks seem like more of a lofty future goal than a current solution to our energy needs.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

I think the other fusion projects are generally very much oversold. Especially "micro" reactors. I would have rather seen all the effort spend on building wind, solar, geothermal, tide and other renewable energy plants in combination with more and better battery storage. I wouldn't mind having seen better fission plants as well. Reducing our carbon emissions simply has to come first and the rest is secondary.

[@ColbyAzimuth]

That's only half the price of buying Twitter. What's the big hold up? Just slap some video games on it and sell advertising. Do they not know how the world works?

[@michaelhiltz7846]

The thing I think most people are forgetting is that we are trying to harness the power of the sun here on Earth. This legitimately could be the single most difficult thing humanity has ever tried to do. Sometimes you just need to brute force your way through something to make way for efficient ways of doing something. Just compare internal combustion engines, from where they were when they were first invented to where they are now.

[@hurricanemeridian8712]

A lot of the money spent does go directly back into the pockets of a lot of scientific staff on site which will hopefully assist scientific institutions in learning and funding other projects as well

[@drfirechief8958]

Big dreams are a great long term motivator. But, imo, you're correct, a multi-approach is the most logical. We have discovered a multitude of non or low carbon energy sources already. Even standard fission has already shown its usefulness. Especially if we use it as an interim source. Produce massive amounts of power with it, power all of our needs and use it to power the next great leap. But pushing it away while we blindly go down a road that we have no clue of success or time is asinine.

[@timjohnson9849]

So here’s a question. Your gripe is essentially that because ITER is trying to focus in on a single extremely large project, the multinational team is too spread out logistically to effectively work on such a large project. So instead you suggest breaking down this large project into smaller projects that each take a different approach (from my understanding u would want the international community to either model the private companies and/or simply fund them directly thus having this collection of companies replace ITER). My question would then be how would this approach actually avoid any of the issues that still inherently plague these international projects? Again my understanding may be wrong, but it seems like you would want ITER replaced with something that utilizes a multitude of approaches. We can’t even figure out how to work together on a singular approach it would seem this would just add significant complexity. If you want a product made, the answer is almost always private industry and allowing the free market to distribute that product.

[@timjohnson9849]

To be clear, if your intention was more so just to forgo an international team and just make an international fund that funds the top private fusion projects, I %1000 agree. Idk how this works exactly but I’d imagine the problem here then becomes ownership of the IP of the project because it’s a private company funded internationally but that’s just my ignorance. That still seems easier to figure out than getting 20 countries to remain on the same production standards and such.

[@29stanmorestreet63]

Which fusion startups would you prioritize for funding instead?

[@dewaynehiggs2098]

LPP Fusion

[@supercompooper]

This fusion plant costs over runs a very similar to the Toronto subway system. We have a budget of say 500 million dollars and 5 years and it ends up being $700,000 billion million billion billion billion dollars and taking 90 years.

[@dodaexploda]

Yes. With a large project involving many nations you can get inefficences. Splitting up the money to give to various organizations to do their attempts also comes with ineffecencies, imagine everyone is going to have overlapping difficulties they need to overcome. Instead of paying one entity to overcome that problem, you're getting many entities to overcome them. You'll still end up with ineffecincies, it's just a matter of which type you want.

[@STYX-a-Lot]

Listen, fusion is so much more simple than people realize. Rather than explain what is wrong with current fusion reactor designs, it’s better to just state as fact the only way it ever will be done. What no one seems to be using is sound. Everything which is, Has motion. The consequence of quantum motion is called frequency, resonance, and sound, which is pressure waves. You don’t need Tritium with deuterium to make fusion occur. You take a hollow sphere made of zirconium dioxide. Ceria stabilized zirconium. Put hydrogen gas in this sphere. Microwaves heat to gas to a plasma. Magnetic mirroring drives the plasma toward the center of the sphere as it tries to expand outward. Now, sound travels through a plasma 1/3 the speed of light, not a mere 640 mph. So the shell is tapped. When this pressure wave travels from the shell to the center of the plasma within it, the pressure wave converges in the center of the shell, with a concentration of pressure in the center. Then radiates outward again to the shell. The shell is tapped again to increase the amplitude of the sound. At 1/3 the speed of light this happens almost without time. This continuous tapping at precisely the right time is called resonance, and the pressure waves amplify exponentially. In less than .5 of a second the hydrogen fuses into the next heavier element. A pressure wave so intense radiates toward the shell that magnetic mirroring increases strongly enough to drive the pressure wave back to the center of the sphere once it bounces off of the diamond hard shell surface, and the converging pressure wave in the center is strong enough to fuse the now helium into the next heavier element, and so on. It doesn’t require lasers, or intense energy input. The energy created will be more than you can even use. The shell will ring with its own resonance, but only if it is tapped from one side. The sound that taps the shell has to come from everywhere outside of it, and at exactly the same time. The shell has to be atomically symmetrical to work. Any discrepancy in the absolute atomic symmetry will cause it to explode. The shell can only be formed by heating zirconium to a plasma by microwaves, contained in a perfect magnetic bubble controlled by A.I. in space. Surfaces, and density, are checked by x-rays, and light, bouncing off of the inside, and outside of it. This kind of power needs to be developed far away from the planet on the dark side of the moon. Once "perfected," a hand held device can power whole cities. Nano plants can be reproduced instantly by the millions per second via plasma forming, and each one identical, and as stable as atoms. This is the universe inside out. These aren’t breadcrumbs, this is English. There is a short window of time to act, or the oceans will stagnate. There are structures already waiting for this on the dark side of the moon. It’s inevitable because our evolutionary development was designed, and/or, predicted. We’re not alone. We’re still peddling with assistance on training wheels. We have first to lay down the stick, and work together. The clock is ticking, and if we keep turning on each other, the invisible hand of time will smash all of our faces into the dirt, and another civilization will be formed. STYX

[@xypnosii]

It’s never too expensive if it’s below the USA’s annual military spending budget. That’s all i’m gonna say.

[@guy17777]

If you want a faster result. Economic competition always wins, Not collaboration. Beraucracy kills the bird before it even hatch... That's why the disruptive nature of startup ecosystem will always be the first to bring any cutting edge tech to useful & practical products/services.

[@erykczajkowski8226]

There were no such startups when ITER was initiated. They appeared a couple of years ago and are a result of science progress driven - among others - by ITER itself.

[@dicerson9976]

I wonder if a steam turbine is the correct way to go? Perhaps there is some other way to yoink energy out of a fusion reaction? It produces light and heat, though if it is being held in some kind of vacuum then it would produce most of its energy as light. Would it be possible, I wonder, to redirect that light somehow and do some weird fancy trick with it to make some kind of super-charged solar panel pump out insane amounts of power? Or perhaps use the sheer "force" of the fusion reaction generated by it being very very hot to create some kind of opposing magnetic field to spin a magnetic turbine with?

[@davidenzler1691]

The basis for all power generation is a steam turbine. The heat itself doesn’t apply a force and if you want to use that energy, it needs to be converted into a form we can harvest. So far, the most practical way to do that is heat water, use the steam to turn a turbine, and that turbine has the magnets which generate the electricity. That’s how coal plants and fission plants generate electricity. The reaction produces way more heat than light. So you basically end up with needing to convert thermal energy -> kinetic energy-> electromagnetic energy.

[@dragoonpreston3]

Fun fact, we can convert Heat directly to Electricity, It's not hard. But It's still more efficient to use that heat to boil water to spin a turbine, by like 50 - 60%. Steam is the most efficient method of power transfer / generation we have ever found as a civilization. Its extreme efficiency is WHY we found it so long ago, and why it's still used. Another fun fact, turning light into heat and using that heat to spin a turbine is more efficient that photovoltaic panels. Photovoltaics are just small, light, and able to be placed everywhere making them cheaper per dollar then a more efficient system.

[@kamra702]

Amazing video as always. Found the background music being Kanye West a little unexpected and funny!!

[@anticarrrot]

We should be doing both. And not just for fusion, but fission too, and a lot of conventional technologies that could beat both of them to the punch.

[@ytbpromeneur]

There's another competitor: fast breeder. For example in France, if we replace the nuclear fission power plants by fast breeder power plants, with the stock of 300 000 t of depleted Uranium 238 that we have, we can produce during 2000 years (and more with the stock of plutonium) the energy (fuel+gas+electricity) consumed in 2021. In Russia the BN-600 fast breeder and in China the CFR fast breeder are connected to the electricity network. In France, Superphenix prototype worked during one year without any problem. In France we don't need any nuclear fusion power plant. Perhaps fast breeder is a solution for other countries. CEA says "The uranium resources identified today could power a major global nuclear power plant for thousands of years." Académie des sciences says "Currently unused depleted uranium reserves are considerable. France, for example, currently has a stock of depleted uranium of around 350,000 tonnes, which could provide hundreds of years of electrical energy production [...] even if uranium mining ceases”.

[@senefelder]

Is it economically viable?

[@incognitotorpedo42]

Big Science is often colossally wasteful, and ITER is a prime example. It would be a lot better to divide up each of ITER's billions and fund a thousand academic and industrial labs at a million Euros apiece.

[@honkhonk8009]

It would be better to have a cold war with China and Europe, and have a space race to see who could make the first fusion reactor. We should seriously start drawing up military applications for fusion reactors now tbh

[@MikhaelHausgeist]

About Kardashev scale I'm totally agree. Because You really can't reach even type 1 without global collaboration... But small private initiatives always more effective in the end. Beginning from Bell's invention workshop which broke when younger Tesla show more prominent idea and authoritarian character of Bell lose in the end. Decentralised approaches more effective because stupid statistics... And just imagine how much money will obtain such private initiatives if ITER doesn't exist? And we don't need to think about dealing with china and paruzzia! Delicious bonus if You asked me!

[@wadewilson524]

I think it was the right approach in the last quarter of the 20th century. But technologies have changed and, perhaps most importantly, our concept of what private/non-government industry can achieve. A great example of this is spaceflight. Not to long ago, it was practically inconceivable that a private company (or even most nations) could put a spacecraft into orbit. Yet, with both governmental and private investment, here we are. We have also seen that, in most cases, these companies have been able to do it far more efficiently than their governmental counterparts. Up to now this has been on the relative small scale of low earth orbit as opposed to a “moonshot”. ITER may have delayed itself into obsolescence. The question (that I am not expert enough to answer) is, in the wake of what has been developed privately, whether there is now anything that can only be achieved at this “governmental” scale and cost. Unfortunately, much like managing the multitude of nations to get things done, it might prove just as difficult to put on the brakes.

[@AM-hz3bi]

so you mean we should ask Musk to create FusionX? maybe a good idea :D

[@wadewilson524]

@@AM-hz3bi Not necessarily Musk, but it’s that mentality (person or organization) that will get it done quickly (relatively) and efficiently. There certainly are some scenarios where corporate greed serves a “good” purpose.

[@Pentagram666mar]

I think that iter is the reactor that will lead a way towards fusion energy, we must remember that it rivals mostly start ups and those are skilled in promising huge gains even though most of them are scam from the beginning, or will end up digesting investors money

[@jimk8520]

The real bummer is that this is more dead land once they figure out that this doesn’t work as needed.

[@jjeherrera]

ITER can't be stopped because it's like a locomotive which has acquired huge momentum. Canceling the contracts involved would probably be just as expensive as letting it get to fruition. I've always thought making it a multinational collaboration was a humongous mistake, for the reasons you mention in your video. They must proceed through consensus, and that's a hurdle when you deal with advanced technology. The performance of fusion experiments advanced at a greater pace than Moore's law up to 2000. Then came iTER, and it stalled. This has brought me to the conclusion that in this kind of endeavors competition is preferable to cooperation, because it keeps the sense of urgency alive. Regarding the new companies, many are just exploring concepts that were explored and discarded years ago. I can see a couple of them which may have some chance of success, though. However, I doubt any of them will be able to deliver in the time they claim. I joke that thanks to private fusion companies fusion is no longer permanently 30 years away; now it's permanently 5 years away... 😅

[@zkoibito709]

I think this is exciting if they can pull it off. My question is, what type of materials are being used for the walls of this fusion reactor considering that plasma would evaporate the materials, since there is no known material with melting points that go beyond the temperature of the plasma? I know that magnetic fields can be used, but isn't that determined by the particles that are being used inside of the fusion reactor?

[@ceezb5629]

We need new management to take the initiative. Give all partners voting and nonvoting membership. Depending on how much $$ they contribute, is whether they can vote on a decision. Also, we don’t want to fund private companies and disregard ITER. We have too many examples of government funding public works only for private companies owning the patent and charging the public for the use of the public funded invention.

[@ricardoabh3242]

In the case of ITER, quick seems to be a factor not because of the money or complexity, but because we’re so close.

[@brianmckeever5280]

I like the wave-function analogy. This isn't an area I should probably give an opinion, but it is certainly easier in my experience to fail faster and fix things when so much inertia -- $$$ , reputations, etc. -- are not involved. Maybe a wealth fund from the countries of the World investing is a better idea. Like everything else, we won't know for another 100 years -- probably -- which was the best route. Historians have to have something to do, after all ;-)

[@jacobtschetter5610]

It’s worth it, if that project didn’t exist then the money would likely not be going to fusion anyway. If anything I’d argue for more funding to try to get it done faster

[@MrBrew4321]

Another way to look at it is to be ecstatic that the government and governments are involved at all championing one of the fusion approaches while we still get several other approaches studied independently by those smaller teams. Also those smaller teams are potentially extremely optimistic on their timelines I don't know no expert however I still think iter has a lot to offer wish it wasn't so late but I don't think it's too late to offer anything.

[@takashitamagawa5881]

It's seems unrealistic to write off the ITER project at this point. Too much has been invested in it. These high cost projects develop their own momentum. To cancel the project before its completion means writing off most if not all of the funds that have gone into it (there may be some related payoffs from the investment but such would be relatively minor.) Add to that the scientists, politicians, and other people who have invested their reputations in the project, and it becomes very difficult to stop.

[@gustavorabino9353]

The purpose was never to build a fussion reactor but rather spend as much money as possible.

[@edwardmorvan5809]

It's sad that we don't have the data yet. It would greatly facilitate the AI training to improve the design and reduce costs. And thx for the vid😉

[@Number_Free]

The problem with such designs that they to make long-term commercial, practical operations rather difficult. Thus I favour the 'inertial containment' pulsed model of operation. I believe that the Americans actually considered the commercial aspects!

[@christopherleubner6633]

Hence it only works as a very large reactor. A regular nuclear plant costs around 4 billion dollars, and lasts 30 to 40 years while generation around 500MW. To do fusion the reactor and immediate support gear would be about the size of a football stadium, generate 7 to 11 GW and cost 300 to 500 billion dollars and require much more maintenance than a fission based reactor due to the newer technology and more hellish conditions that the parts are exposed to.l

[@Cianan-vw1lb]

Since they omitted the power generating component, we won't know the answers in my lifetime.

[@vilippo]

I'm not worried at all. I'm just surprised that Olkiluoto 3 got ready first and is cheaper.

[@mrhassell]

The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant is one of Finland's two nuclear power plants, the other being the two-unit Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is owned and operated by Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), and is located on Olkiluoto Island, on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, in the municipality of Eurajoki in western Finland, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the town of Rauma and about 50 kilometres (31 mi) from the city of Pori. Unit 3 currently is the most powerful nuclear power plant unit in Europe and the third most powerful globally. It consists of two boiling water reactors (BWRs), each with a capacity of 890 MW, and the Unit 3 is an EPR type reactor with a capacity of 1,600 MW.

[@Telencephelon]

One of your best videos so far. I think this will be ultimately reflected in viewer numbers

[@terrydanks]

I'm an old man, born at the dawn of atomic energy. Recall "too cheap to meter." Oh, the irony! Controlled, sustainable fusion remains, and will remain, impossible . . . until it isn't. It's been a long, expensive and disappointing road so far.

[@trentpack7325]

Could it be that ITER is also a breeder of minds used to create these competing fusion reactor designs? It would be interesting to know the pedigrees of the various engineers, scientist, entrepreneurs, etc .. that are leading these other fusion reactor companies. How many degrees of separation does each have from staff at ITER?

[@gatitodura]

A lot of good aspects where mentioned about ITER, and also the difficult ones. But, if you're asking that question now, with technology advancing incredibly fast and with the advent of IA, it means it will be answered in a short term.

[@Italianjedi7]

I love your superposition analogy and I agree that is the best approach going forward.

[@enriquemino9963]

My big issue with ITER is WHY did it take 30 years just to do design work (1987 - 2016 start of construction), at least a good 6 years just bickering of where it was going to be built, then after signing all the countries interested they still had management issues that caused at least 10 years delay. The private startups are going to beat ITER to the game long before they are ready to do real science. I condemn Reagan for shutting down the MFTF(Mirror fusion test Facility) we probably have working fusion now.(that project was killed the minute it was turned on, it had high potential)

[@honkhonk8009]

Because its European lmfao. Seriously these people love their monolithic massive bureaucracies. Historically theyv always been conservative asf when it comes to management styles. Americans are alot like startups. They move fast and break things. A quality you need when doing anything in life. A quality Europeans can only use during war.

[@sammy5576]

reminds me of the early days of ic engines or steam, so many different ideas to achieve one goal, may worked ok but one was the best and one survived, the rest fell into economic obscurity

[@FredsRandomFinds]

Seem to remember a couple of years back one of the big US based military companies coming out with a big announcement that they were working on small fusion reactors, Since then it seems to have b=gone radio silent? Anyone have any updates on this?

[@mathquir190]

ITER looks to me a pretty much nice approach for people studying into physics who can't work in the field to get a free pass to have an easy salary to repay theirs student loads.

[@user-221i]

Musk waste 44 Billion Dollars on Twitter to become worse 4chan. We have enough money.

[@digestiveissue7710]

Twitter, steam forums, and 4chan itself nowadays feel like they're filled with both 4chan's and tumblr's most obnoxious users at the same time. At least back in the day you knew what type of people you'd find on what site, but now it's all muddled and neurotic, probably all thanks to bots.

[@alenngk]

ITER is paid by governments so it's your money, 44B for Twitter are money that were created by his companys products before

[@mattiarenzi5673]

Yeah that's what I was thinking, we are just giving them to the worst people

[@mehnameehjeff6325]

Government spend that much of our money weekly, and some still concern themselves how others spend their money.

[@sixtysixstyx]

Came here to say this lmao.