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Nuclear fusion – an expensive pipedream

“Fusion will never be a practical source because it requires vast resources and technical capital”

The Tantalizing Promise And Peril Of Nuclear Fusion, Forbes, 15 April 12 “…..To be clear, fusion is different from fission, which is how today’s nuclear reactor’s produce energy. Fission splits atoms apart whereas fusion combines them — a process that thus far consumes more energy than it generates. The aim, though, is to heat the hydrogen gas to more than 100 million degrees Celsius so that the atoms will bond instead of bouncing off each another. ….
“All ITER members consider this spending a good investment. What is at stake is a new source of energy on earth, which will be safe, with almost limitless fuel and environmentally responsible.”
But others are more tempered, if not outright cynical about fusion technology. The central question is whether the process can ever yield enough heat to fuse permanently those atoms that are needed to commercialize such power…..

Here, the argument breaks down two ways: the knowledge and the expense. The National Academy of Sciences is saying that the field is still in its “early stages” and that critical challenges remain. Then there’s the European Parliament’s green movement, which calls ITER funding not just wrongheaded in the aftermath of the Japan’s Fukushima but also a “ticking budgetary time bomb.”

“Fusion will never be a practical source because it requires vast resources and technical capital,” adds John Kutsch, executive director of the ThoriumEnergy Alliance, in a talk with this reporter. “On paper, it looks awesome but when you get down to practicalities, it is beyond our capabilities.”…. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2012/04/15/nuclears-strongest-potential-weapon-fusion/

April 16, 2012 - Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, technology

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