Fusion power actually coming soon?

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.ibtimes.com/nuclear-fusion-our-time-scientists-outline-hurdles-potentially-transformative-energy-1410232

Nuclear fusion, the engine that drives the sun, could potentially transform human society if we could harness it... The concept is relatively simple on its face: the nuclei of atoms fuse together and, in the process, release energy -- a lot of energy. A single gram of deuterium and tritium, which are variations of hydrogen, can produce nearly 10 million times the amount of energy from the same amount of fossil fuels, with no side products of greenhouse gases. The radioactive waste products are much less long-lived than the ones produced by current nuclear reactors, and unlike nuclear reactors, there's no meltdown risk -- if a fusion reactor loses energy, the reactions simply stop. Deuterium can be found in ordinary water, so if fusion's potential is realized, one gallon of water could provide the energy equivalent of 300 gallons of gasoline, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

For decades, scientists have struggled to reach "ignition," the point at which the fusion reaction starts producing more energy than the power put into it. Turns out it's difficult to heat something to 100 million degrees! In stars, fusion occurs thanks to the intense pressures of gravity; here on Earth, scientists have to find a different approach. In a recent paper appearing in the journal Physics of Plasmas, the staff from the National Ignition Facility at the U.S. government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reports on their progress toward the ignition point using ...using [frickin'] laser beams.

I'm sure that they haven't overlooked the Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm) question, right scientists? (i.e. "...so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they SHOULD...")

[Tom]

Sadly the NIF isn't really studying fusion for altruistic purposes, and isn't actually going about it in an optimal way for uses in power stations. For one, the mass of lasers they have setup is incredibly inefficient.

Its a military funded project, meant to study its potential for military uses.

The us also pulled much of its support for the two big fusion projects that were under way. I think they had their own, and may have had a hand in the one in Europe, but afaik, there's no funding in the US for that.

[Mr. Analog]

The thing is we have nuclear power today but it's been controversial since the 60s, so old plants (which are well overdue for shutdown) are still running.

Modern reactors could be replacing coal fired plants right now if people in power didn't think it would harm their political career (either directly through voter backlash or through pressure from the coal industry).

It's worth mentioning anyway that the first reactors were created specifically by the Military to further the development of the Manhattan Project, nuclear power may have come without WWII but it certainly got put on the fast track out of fear.

[Tom]

So after catching up on the history of ITER again, it turns out the US had been a major partner of ITER after all (I could swear it terminated its involvement years ago, interesting note, /canada/ did in 2005, stupid ass canada). But this year theres a big chance that the US funding for it will dry up as the senate has zeroed out the budget for the ITER project because the DOE can't figure out what they'd be spending on it.