Protesters Broke Into a Nuclear Power Plant to Prove How Badly Defended It Is Stunt was to show poorly defended France’s nuclear plants are, Fortune, By Reuters 12 Oct 17
Greenpeace activists broke through two security barriers and launched fireworks inside the grounds of a French nuclear plant on Thursday to highlight the vulnerability of the plants to attacks.
The environmentalist group issued video footage showing several of its members inside the fence of EDF’s Cattenom nuclear plant in northeast France, and launching several rounds of fireworks over the plant.
Local police said eight people had been detained. EDF said there had been no impact on Cattenom’s security and condemned Greenpeace’s intrusion as “irresponsible.”
“Do we need to wait for a malicious attack on a nuclear plant before EDF gets out of denial?” asked Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaign head Yannick Rousselet.
Olivier Lamarre, deputy head of EDF’s French nuclear fleet, said on a call with reporters that Greenpeace activists had broken through two barriers and reached the reactor’s nuclear zone to within a few tens of meters of the nuclear installations.
He said that as the activists had raised their hands in the air and unfurled a Greenpeace banner, police officials present on the site arrested them without violence within eight minutes……..
12 Oct 17 Greenpeace activists set off fireworks inside a nuclear plant in eastern France early Thursday after breaking into the facility to underline its vulnerability to attack, the environmental group said.
Electricity consumers ‘to fund nuclear weapons through Hinkley Point C’
Scientists tell MPs government is using expensive power project to cross-subsidise military by maintaining nuclear skills, Guardian, Holly Watt, 13 Oct 17, The government is using the “extremely expensive” Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to cross-subsidise Britain’s nuclear weapon arsenal, according to senior scientists.
In evidence submitted to the influential public accounts committee (PAC), which is currently investigating the nuclear plant deal, scientists from Sussex University state that the costs of the Trident programme could be “unsupportable” without “an effective subsidy from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure”.
Prof Andy Stirling and Dr Phil Johnstone from the Science Policy Research Unit at the university write that the £19.6bn Hinkley Point project will “maintain a large-scale national base of nuclear-specific skills” without which there is concern “that the costs of UK nuclear submarine capabilities could be insupportable.”
Their evidence suggests that changes in the government’s policy on nuclear power in recent years will effectively allow Britain’s military nuclear industry to be supported by payments from electricity consumers.
Last June, MPs passed a motion in favour of replacing four submarines carrying Trident missiles at a cost of £40bn.
“What our research suggests is that British low-carbon energy strategies are more expensive than they need to be, in order to maintain UK military nuclear infrastructures,” said Stirling.
“And without assuming the continuation of an extremely expensive UK civil nuclear industry, it is likely that the costs of Trident would be significantly greater.”………
This week, the Green MP Caroline Lucas asked the government about the Ministry of Defence and the business department discussing the “relevance of UK civil nuclear industry skills and supply chains to the maintaining of UK nuclear submarine and wider nuclear weapons capabilities”.
Harriett Baldwin, the defence procurement minister, answered that “it is fully understood that civil and defence sectors must work together to make sure resource is prioritised appropriately for the protection and prosperity of the United Kingdom”.
Johnstone said the decision-making process behind Hinkley raised questions about transparency and accountability, saying: “In this ever more networked world, both civil and military nuclear technologies are increasingly recognised as obsolete. Yet it seems UK policymaking is quietly trying to further entrench the two – in ways that have been escaping democratic accountability.”
At a hearing held by the PAC in parliament on Monday, senior civil servants defended the Hinkley deal after a National Audit Office report concluded that it was “risky and expensive”.
The officials admitted that the economic case had become “more marginal” in recent years, as the costs of alternative technologies had fallen……
At the PAC hearing, the Labour MP Meg Hillier asked whether “Hinkley is a great opportunity to maintain our nuclear skills base”.
Lovegrove answered: “We are completing the build of the nuclear submarines which carry conventional weaponry. So somehow there is very definitely an opportunity here for the nation to grasp in terms of building up its nuclear skills. I don’t think that’s going to happen by accident. It is going to require concerted government action to make that happen.” https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c
Europe’s nuclear trade body pushes for swift ‘Brexatom’ deal with UK, Telegraph, James Rothwell, brexit correspondent, brussels 11 OCTOBER 2017
Europe’s nuclear trade body has said it sees no reason why the UK cannot quickly sign a nuclear deal with the EU after Brexit which mirrors agreements the bloc already holds with the US and Japan.
Foratom, which is based in Brussels and represents nearly 800 nuclear firms across the EU, said it “absolutely” wanted to maintain close links with the British nuclear industry, even after its departure from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
The government’s announcement that Britain will leave Euratom – a process dubbed “Brexatom” – is controversial, as it would force the country to establish its own nuclear safeguards regime and sign complex nuclear co-operation agreements with trading partners.But Berta Picamal, a member of Foratom’s executive office, said it was eager to set up a partnership that was “as close as possible” to the current regime as it would be mutually beneficial.
“It is in our interests to put in a regime as soon as possible that is as close as possible to the one we have,” she told the Telegraph.
“We are now analysing nuclear cooperation agreements that we have with third countries to see to which extent we can replicate what we have with the US or Japan with the UK.”
She added: “We do not foresee this not being solved, it’s not an option. Theresa May said she would cooperate on continued research and development projects. It’s key.”
Founded in 1957, the Euratom treaty oversees the international movement of nuclear materials, people and services through a framework which governs safety standards and research.
Though technically not part of the EU, Euratom is under the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and requires the free movement of nuclear scientists between EU member states.
Both of these requirements are red lines for the British government, which has vowed to end free movement and direct jurisdiction of the EU over UK laws after Brexit.
Russia’s high-tech combat suit, the Ratnik 3 has received an upgrade of a nuclear blast resistant watch. The suit reportedly includes 59 other high-tech features to create the most advanced body armor ever.
STORMTROOPER CHICRussia has a new battle suit that seems to be visually inspired by Star Wars’s Imperial Shadow Stormtroopers. While Russia’s version likely doesn’t come with a cloaking device, the high-tech armor does have a few tricks up its sleeves, including nuclear blast resistant tech.
The suit was developed by Rostec and is called the Ratnik-3. The latest upgrade to the new armor includes a reportedly nuclear blast resistant watch. According to a statement released by the press office, the Chief Designer for the Life Support System of the Soldier Combat Outfit at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, Oleg Faustov, says “The watch, which we have included in the Ratnik outfit, retains its properties upon the impact of radiation and electromagnetic impulses, for example, upon a nuclear blast.”
The watch also features a self-winding mechanism and operates under water.
Other perks of the 59 items Rostec has included in the suit include a powered exoskeleton, which is said to give soldiers greater strength and stamina; the latest in bulletproof body armor tech; and a full face-covering visor and helmet equipped with a video game-esque heads-up display (HUD). According to Russian state-owned media outlet Tass, the weight of the completed combat gear will be reduced by 30% when it is released for use in the field.
The Ratnik 3 is expected to be ready for use by 2022.
IN BRIEF
Russia’s high-tech combat suit, the Ratnik 3 has received an upgrade of a nuclear blast resistant watch. The suit reportedly includes 59 other high-tech features to create the most advanced body armor ever.
STORMTROOPER CHIC
Russia has a new battle suit that seems to be visually inspired by Star Wars’s Imperial Shadow Stormtroopers. While Russia’s version likely doesn’t come with a cloaking device, the high-tech armor does have a few tricks up its sleeves, including nuclear blast resistant tech.
The suit was developed by Rostec and is called the Ratnik-3. The latest upgrade to the new armor includes a reportedly nuclear blast resistant watch. According to a statement released by the press office, the Chief Designer for the Life Support System of the Soldier Combat Outfit at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, Oleg Faustov, says “The watch, which we have included in the Ratnik outfit, retains its properties upon the impact of radiation and electromagnetic impulses, for example, upon a nuclear blast.”
The watch also features a self-winding mechanism and operates under water.
Other perks of the 59 items Rostec has included in the suit include a powered exoskeleton, which is said to give soldiers greater strength and stamina; the latest in bulletproof body armor tech; and a full face-covering visor and helmet equipped with a video game-esque heads-up display (HUD). According to Russian state-owned media outlet Tass, the weight of the completed combat gear will be reduced by 30% when it is released for use in the field.
The Ratnik 3 is expected to be ready for use by 2022.
Weapons are also getting next-gen upgrades with laser weapons currently being deployed in various forms around the world. The United States Navy has the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) mounted on the USS Ponce, an amphibious naval transport dock, to defend against drone strikes and eventually incoming missiles. China has also previously given its soldiers laser weapons designed to blind opponents.
In the sky, killer drones the size of a quadcopter have been developed to carry weapons. The Air Force is even training soldiers to get the military ready for combat in space with extraterrestrials or other hostile interests.
Of course, with all these developments, it maybe good to be reminded what a nuclear showdown would do to the planet—and hope that these future technologies rarely have to be put to use.
French-backed Finnish nuclear plant delayed again https://www.ft.com/content/99922334-acc8-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 High-profile power station likely to start production more than a decade late OCTOBER 9, 2017 by Richard Milne, Nordic Correspondent A high-profile French-backed nuclear power plant in Finland has been delayed yet again, meaning it is likely to start production more than a decade late. Western Europe’s first new nuclear power station for more than two decades will now start production in May 2019 rather than at the end of 2018 as previously announced, according to the Finnish consortium behind the Olkiluoto-3 plant.
Using a similar European pressurised reactor to the one envisaged for the UK’s controversial Hinkley Point plant, the Finnish project — led by French reactor manufacturer Areva — has been regularly beset by delays and huge cost overruns. Olkiluoto-3 was originally meant to start production in spring 2009 and cost €3.2bn but the last price estimate was almost three times as high. “We are very disappointed by this additional delay. There is still substantial work to be accomplished in the project and it is essential that all the necessary technical, human and financial resources are allocated to the project,” said Jouni Silvennoinen, head of the Olkiluoto-3 project at operator TVO.
TVO is particularly concerned about the reorganisation of the French nuclear industry under which utility EDF has taken over the lead role for the development of Hinkley Point. The Finnish nuclear plant operator is worried that France will prioritise another much-delayed project locally in Flamanville over Olkiluoto. “The restructuring of the French nuclear industry must not compromise [that enough resources be directed to Olkiluoto],” Mr Silvennoinen said. TVO took the unusual step last month of complaining to the European Commission that French state aid for Areva was not enough.
Areva, along with its one-time partner Siemens, and TVO have sued each other for billions of euros in a long-running arbitration dispute. The International Chamber of Commerce tribunal made a partial award in TVO’s favour last year but did not specify how much the Finnish group might receive.
The most recent delay is only the latest in a series of problems behind nearly all new nuclear reactors being built in western Europe. Operators complain about a lack of expertise after few reactors were built following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Another Finnish project, Fennovoima, took the decision to go for Russian nuclear technology as manufacturer Rosatom has continued building power plants. But Fennovoima was forced this year to admit a delay of a year in obtaining its construction licence, an embarrassing setback for a project that had touted its ability to learn from the problems at Olkiluoto-3.
Flamanville is running at least six years late and three times over its original budget while Hinkley Point is under scrutiny both for its elevated and rising cost of £20bn and a guaranteed price for electricity that is well above the current wholesale level. TVO said Areva-Siemens had told it the first connection to the grid at Olkiluoto-3 would take place in December 2018 with the start of regular production forecast for May 2019.
France’s nuclear spent-fuel pools major security risk: Greenpeace, Geert De Clercq, 10 Oct 17, PARIS (Reuters) – The spent-fuel pools of French utility EDF’s nuclear reactors are highly vulnerable to attacks, Greenpeace said in a report published on Tuesday.
Written by a group of nuclear experts and delivered to French authorities, the report says that spent-fuel pools, which typically contain the equivalent of one to three nuclear reactor cores, have not been designed to withstand external aggression.
An attack leading to a loss of cooling water could spark a spent-fuel fire that could contaminate areas as far as 250 kilometers away, Greenpeace’s Yannick Rousselet said. “EDF must address this issue and reinforce its spent-fuel pools,” he said.
EDF, which operates 58 reactors, denied its spent-fuel pools are at risk and said they have been designed to withstand earthquakes and flooding as well as terror attacks. “Our nuclear fleet is safe and EDF, in close cooperation with the authorities, permanently evaluates the risk of terror attacks,” and EDF spokeswoman said.
Once uranium fuel is burned, the waste – which remains radioactive and very hot for years – typically is cooled in pools 2-3 years before being shipped to processing plants.
Greenpeace experts estimate the cost of upgrading the pools’ safety at about one billion euros ($1.2 billion) per reactor.The group said that since France has built many nuclear plants right by its borders, citizens of Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg are at risk.
“Nuclear facilities could be an attractive target for a terror organization,” said German nuclear expert Oda Becker.
Becker said the biggest risk is a complete loss of cooling water, which could happen if the building’s walls are hit by an airplane, a helicopter loaded with explosives or wall-penetrating rocket-propelled grenades.
More than 5,500 sign anti-dumping petition, Ian Craig, -South Wales, Argus, 9 Oct 17, MORE than 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for a stop to plans to dump waste from the nuclear power station off the coast of Cardiff.
The petition was launched after it was revealed EDF Energy had applied to be allowed to dredge 300,000 tonnes of mud from near Hinkley Point in Somerset and dump it off Cardiff Bay.
Although some have claimed the mud could be radioactive, both EDF and the Welsh Government have denied this is the case.
A petition launched by South Wales Central AM Neil McEvoy calling for the plans to be reviewed has been signed by more than 5,500 people, meaning it must be debated in the Assembly.
Mr McEvoy, who was suspended from Plaid Cymru for the second time this year last month and is currently sitting as an Independent AM, said: “This isn’t just about radioactive mud, even though that’s bad enough.
“This is about Wales’ future.
“We’re not here to have the things other people don’t want being dumped on us, whether that’s potentially radioactive mud from a nuclear reactor or mass numbers of prisoners.”
Russia Ready to Offer Nuclear Technologies to Algeria, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia is ready to offer Algeria its technologies and technical solutions if a decision is made to establish a national nuclear industry as well as to develop cooperation in other spheres.MOSCOW (Sputnik)— Russia is ready to offer Algeria its technologies and technical solutions if a decision is made to establish a national nuclear industry, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Algerian news agency APS ahead of his visit to the country.
Russia is already preparing nuclear industry specialists for Algeria, the prime minister noted.
Recent news means we should change our perspective on nuclear weapons Independent UK , Robert Forsyth, 8 Oct 17Caroline Lucas spelled out on Saturday 7 October what the PM should now do about nuclear weapons. To which I would add that the PM’s first and immediate action should be to rescind her statement that she is prepared to carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
Such an action, or even the threat of doing so, is in contravention of Nuremberg and Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and a 1996 ruling by the International Court of Justice and therefore places our Trident submarine commanding officers in an impossible position as to whether they should carry out such an order, bearing in mind they are not absolved of responsibility by the military chain of command. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/recent-news-means-we-should-change-our-perspective-on-nuclear-weapons-a7988846.html
ground crews who washed down planes that flew through the cloud soon began falling sick and low levels of radiation were detected all over Australia.
In 2007 it was found nuclear veterans had the same DNA damage as Chernobyl survivors.
Wives had three times the normal numbers of miscarriage and children 10 times more birth defects.
The secrets behind Britain’s first atomic bomb – and the heartbreaking aftermath The detonation of the plutonium bomb in 1952 was hailed a national success, but many of the servicemen involved were left permanently damaged by the fallout BY SUSIE BONIFACE, MIRROR UK, 6 OCT 2017
A blinding flash, an eerie silence, and then the sky cracked.
The sound reached those watching at the same time as the blast – a scorching 600mph wind carrying with it the long, grumbling roar of the worst weapon known to humankind.
It was 65 years ago this week – 9.30am local time on October 3, 1952 – that Britain detonated its first nuclear bomb .
Winston Churchill was jubilant, the scientists bursting with pride. But on a tiny island off Australia the cost of the radioactive fallout from Operation Hurricane had yet to be counted.
Many of the servicemen present that day went on to suffer heartbreaking consequences.
Royal Engineer Derek Hickman, now 84, was there. He says: “We had no protective clothing. You wore shorts and sandals and if you remembered your bush hat, that was all you had.” The blast took place on HMS Plym, an old frigate anchored 300 yards off Trimouille, one of the Monte Bello islands. Troops and scientists lived and worked for months on a small fleet that accompanied her on her final mission.
Derek remembers: “They ordered us to muster on deck – I was on HMS Zeebrugge – and turn our backs to the Plym. We put our hands over our eyes and they counted down over the Tannoy.
“There was a sharp flash and I could see the bones in my hands like an X-ray. Then the sound and the wind and they told us to turn and face it. We watched the mushroom cloud just melt away. They gave us five photos as a memento.
“All that was left of the Plym were a few pieces of metal that fell like rain and her outline scorched on the sea bed.”………
In 1951 Australia agreed the blast could take place at Monte Bello. ….
Thousands of UK and Aussie servicemen saw the mushroom cloud disperse before dozens of planes flew through it to collect dust samples.
The press had been given a viewing tower 55 miles away. The Mirror announced: “This bang has changed the world”.
No official statement was made until October 23 when PM Churchill told the Commons: “All concerned are to be warmly congratulated on the successful outcome of an historic episode.”
But ground crews who washed down planes that flew through the cloud soon began falling sick and low levels of radiation were detected all over Australia.
James Stephenson, 85,remembers being given an unexplained posting to Abergavenny. The former Royal Engineers soldier says: “We went for training and they started weeding us out, removing lads they thought were Communist sympathisers or not up to it.
“Nobody told us what it was about. When we embarked in Portsmouth we had to load machinery ourselves, they wouldn’t let the dockers do it.”James left with the first wave of vessels in January 1952. They were followed six months later by HMS Plym carrying the bomb.
Derek explains: “It was a plutonium bomb – the dirtiest. A few years later I went to the doctor and mentioned Monte Bello.
“He asked if I was married. I said ‘Yes’ and he replied ‘My advice is never have children’. He wouldn’t say why.”
It was a warning Derek, now living alone in Crediton, Devon, couldn’t ignore. He says: “My wife wanted children and in the end I walked away from the marriage.
“She never blamed me but it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Since then I’ve discovered my friends’ wives suffered many miscarriages and their children had deformities.
“It’s given me a small comfort that at least we avoided that.”
In 2007 it was found nuclear veterans had the same DNA damage as Chernobyl survivors.
Wives had three times the normal numbers of miscarriage and children 10 times more birth defects. James, from Taunton, Devon, had two healthy children. But he was lucky.
He says: “I know people whose children were born with organs outside their bodies. It made me worry about my grandchildren. Thank God they’re fine.”
Hurricane had an explosive yield of 25 kilotons – 15 kilotons had flattened Hiroshima and killed 126,000. But less than four weeks later the US detonated a hydrogen bomb 400 times more powerful than Hurricane.
The UK was back out in the cold and would not be accepted at the nuclear top table until 1958 when it finally developed its own H-bomb.
In all 22,000 servicemen took part in Britain’s nuclear tests which ended only in 1991. Derek and James are among the 2,000 or so who survive and are still coming to terms with the chain reaction unleashed at Monte Bello.
James says: “Nobody really knew what they were doing, not us or the scientists. It was just a job we had to do.”
The Monte Bello islands are now a wildlife park but visitors are warned not to stay for more than an hour or take home the fragments of metal that can still be found – radioactive pieces of a long-forgotten Royal Navy warship that unleashed a hurricane. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/secrets-behind-britains-first-atomic-11300935
Thousands of UK and Aussie servicemen saw the mushroom cloud disperse before dozens of planes flew through it to collect dust samples.
The press had been given a viewing tower 55 miles away. The Mirror announced: “This bang has changed the world”.
No official statement was made until October 23 when PM Churchill told the Commons: “All concerned are to be warmly congratulated on the successful outcome of an historic episode.”
Dave Elliott’s Blog 5th Oct 2017, The UK Trade Unions currently mostly back nuclear power.
In 2016, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady noted that the Hinkley project ‘will
be the largest construction project in the UK, creating 25,000 high-quality
jobs and 500 apprenticeships’.
It wasn’t always like this. In 1986, in
the wake of Chernobyl, the TUC backed a nuclear ‘moratorium and review’
policy. In the same year, the Labour Party had confirmed its 1985 anti
(civil) nuclear power stance, with a two thirds majority for phasing it
out.
The then quite dominant Transport and General Workers Union said it
was ‘clear and unambiguous in its position on nuclear power. We support a
halt to nuclear expansion and a safe and planned phase out of nuclear power
in this country.’
So what has changed? Well it’s taken nearly 30 years,
but renewables are now big (25%) growing, and creating jobs- with nearly
126,000 people employed in the UK renewable energy industry in 2017
according to the REA.
However, the unions still seem unsure, and some have
taken to recycling dubious statistics and arguments to try to undermine the
case for renewables. At its 2016 annual Congress the GMB Union’s National
Secretary, Justin Bowden, noted that‘over the last 12 months there were
46 days when wind was supplying 10% or less of the installed and connected
wind capacity to the grid’ and insisted that ‘until there is a
scientific breakthrough on carbon capture or solar storage, then nuclear
and gas are the only reliable shows in town which those advocating a
renewable energy-only policy have to accept.”
This doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For over half of those 46 low-wind days
i.e. outside of winter, and for most of the nights, overall energy demand
would have been low, so a low wind input would not matter. When it did,
existing gas plants would have ramped up a bit more to provide the extra
energy needed e.g. as they do any way to meet daily peaks. As more
renewables come off the grid, other balancing measures can also be used, so
there is not really a problem. But inflexible base-load nuclear plants are
no use for this – they can’t vary output regularly, quickly and safely.
They just get in the way of the flexible supply and demand approach that is
needed.
5minutes 5th Oct 2017 [Machine Translation] Luxembourg and Austria filed a complaint against thebillions of euros of aid granted to the Hinkley Point C power plant.
OnThursday, the case will be examined before the Court of Justice of the
European Union. After years of negotiations, Britain and the French
electricity giant, EDF, finally signed a contract a year ago for the
construction of the power plant. A Chinese company is also participating in
the billions project.
The project is controversial because of the public
subsidies of billions granted to the project. It is for this reason that
Luxembourg and Austria filed a complaint before the Court of Justice of the
European Union: this form of state aid would undermine the rules of
competitiveness.
Thursday is the first hearing on this issue. The experts
believe that a judgment at first instance is not to wait for two months. As
for the final decision on the question of the subsidy principle for nuclear
power plants, it should be made no later than early 2019. http://5minutes.rtl.lu/monde/europe/1082666.html
Abstract (Abstract is Copyleft, duplication permitted but only with attribution and link to original )
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the largest and most expensive science experiment on Earth today. Public outreach for the experimental fusion reactor, under the direction of Laban Coblentz, the head of the ITER communications office, has led journalists and the public to believe that, when completed, the reactor will produce 10 times more power than goes into it.
It will do no such thing. The $22 billion reactor is designed to produce only 1.6 times more thermal power than it consumes in electric power. Using a more conservative calculation, the reactor will lose more power than it produces. The planned output power of the reactor has been reported correctly, but the input power for the reactor has been widely reported, incorrectly, as 50 megawatts. The actual input power value, rarely discussed publicly, will be significantly larger.
For decades, some proponents of thermonuclear fusion research have used a double meaning for the phrase “fusion power” yet failed to inform the public, the news media, or legislators about the existence of this dual meaning. This ambiguity has caused non-experts to think that power production rates from large-scale thermonuclear fusion experiments show greater technological progress than has actually occurred. As a result, people who are not fusion experts think that ITER will achieve a power production rate, or power amplification, six times larger than its design specification. ITER will produce power at a rate of only two-thirds of the rate it will consume power, when comparing electric power input to equivalent electric power output.
Some fusion proponents have used the secondary meaning of “fusion power” to convince non-experts that the record-setting 1997 fusion experiment in the Joint European Torus (JET) reactor in the U.K. had produced thermal power at a rate of 65 percent of the electric power consumed by the reactor and, therefore, that the reactor had come close to producing power at a rate equal to the rate of power consumed. In fact, in that experiment, the reactor produced power in heat at a rate of less than 2 percent of the power in electricity it consumed. Coblentz and the ITER communications group have used the same double meaning to promote the publicly funded $22 billion ITER reactor, under construction now in southern France.
Fusion research insiders know that the current primary goal of ITER is not to demonstrate power amplification of the reactor. Instead, they know, the main goal is the power amplification of the fusion plasma, a significantly different measurement. Fusion experts say that non-experts understand the distinction, but nearly all evidence, as shown for example in news coverage by The New York Times, Scientific American, Bloomberg, Forbes and BBC News, is to the contrary. The double meaning of the phrase “fusion power” went unnoticed for years and has misled experienced journalists, scientists, members of the public and elected officials…….http://news.newenergytimes.net/
