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| Europe |
| EU 'declaration of war' over fusion |
| 2004-11-27 |
| Japan said today it would continue with its bid to host a global nuclear fusion project and warned the European Union against going ahead without Tokyo. However, EU ministers agreed in Brussels to continue seeking Japan's backing to build the world's first thermonuclear reactor in France - but to go ahead without Tokyo if there was no deal by the end of the year. "It is regrettable that they are talking about taking unilateral action," Satoru Ohtake, director for fusion energy at Science and Technology Ministry, told Reuters. "There is no change in Japan's policy to seek to host the project." Nuclear fusion has been touted as a long-term solution to the world's energy problems, ,but 50 years of research have so far failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor. The EU would prefer an agreement with all six parties in the project: itself, Japan, China, Russia, the United States, and South Korea. But if no deal was reached, the EU would press ahead and build the 10bn euro reactor in Cadarache, France, with as many partners as possible. "The two sides have different ideas, and therefore we should take time to have good discussions," Ohtake said. "The fact that they are setting a deadline for their rival to make a concession is something like a declaration of war..." "EU Declares War On Japan". Now *that's* a headline. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #12 phil_b - Ah - there's an entire "school" of psychology about when to stop betting on a bad hand. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-27 10:30:10 PM |
| #11 On a historical note, back in the 70s stopping nuclear power (fission) development was justified on the basis that cheap safe unlimited fusion was on the horizon. Stopping fusion research (or restarting on a new path) would be tantamount to admitting that 'decison' was wrong. Therefore money continues to be poured into this very hot hole. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-27 4:10:47 PM |
| #10 "Japan" + "multi-billion $$$ state-directed investment" = disaster |
| Posted by: ObL 2004-11-27 3:16:20 PM |
| #9 Let the EU continue to waste their money on tokamak "research" -- aka welfare for physicists. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-11-27 3:15:50 PM |
| #8 I agree with Phil F., it aint gonna work. The Japanese would be better off spending the dough on ways to harvest methane hydrate. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-11-27 2:50:19 PM |
| #7 Other alternative fusion concepts I've thought interesting in the past were: Paul Koloc's "Plasmak," the Spheromak, magnetized-target inertial-confinement fusion (or whatever they're calling it these days; I _think_ that's what it was called way back when), and Philo Farnsworth's various electrostatic fusor designs. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-11-27 1:56:15 PM |
| #6 It's going to be built in mah home state. Gonna call it the Byrd Burner Boiler, so as I will go down in history as KKK BBB. LSMFT. |
| Posted by: Robert the B KKK WV 2004-11-27 12:28:43 PM |
| #5 Phil - You'll like the info at the bottom of the first item, Magnetohydrodynamics, then... "These studies are motivated by the recent shift in emphasis in the US Fusion program towards research in alternate concepts (i.e., non-tokamak)." |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-27 11:56:02 AM |
| #4 Doh! A better analogy just popped into my head: They're the space shuttle of fusion energy research. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-11-27 11:46:01 AM |
| #3 Tokamaks are a dead-end unlikely to produce an industrially useful reactor, but it seems to have been very good at draining funding from all other approaches over the last fifty years. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-11-27 11:34:02 AM |
| #2 Ah, those unilateral French are at it again, lol! Spot-on, Tony (UK) - I like your approach and agree with your assessment... and mebbe the UK will rebel against the unilateralism, heh, and split off. After all, this is clearly the French, again, pretending they speak for and run the EU. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-27 11:22:22 AM |
| #1 Why don't the US, Japan and South Korea just set up another fusion program in competition to the French one? 10 billion euros (roughly 5 billion quid) isn't that much for that triad of nations - and my money is on US, Japanese and Korean technology to win out. Also, all this is doing is re-iterating to the US that its future is looking to the pacific rather than the atlantic. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-11-27 11:14:02 AM |