ITER Pitch - and recruiting Australians
(2) CommentsThanks to member AndyL for drawing our attention to a lecture given by Dr. Barry Green at the Australian National University. It’s a detailed description of the ITER approach to fusion. The “ITER Pitch” so to speak. Here’s the actual mp3.
The lecture explains the current state of ITER’s research, and the heroic scientific and political efforts required to make it happen. The lecture includes a pitch to students to think about a LONG career with ITER should Australia decide to be involved with the project.
The interesting bit for us is the question time at the end. Listen for an anonymous person making a comparison with focus fusion! [For the Focus Fusion take on ITER and the Tokamak, here is a comparison of Conventional vs. Focus Fusion, and a look at barriers to the development of fusion. ]
In answer to the Focus Fusion question, Dr. Green acknowledged that there are other materials that can fuse, and his basic objection to Boron/Hydrogen was the high temperatures required. The questioner raised the matter of the billion degree breakthrough but the moderator cut in with �this is too detailed a discussion - let�s have the next question.�
The next question was:
Does the potential of fusion mean we give up on fast breeder reactors?
To which Dr. Green said:
Absolutely not. ...I think you will do everything. the energy problem is so big, so severe that you will just do everything. ... fission is here. Fission works. Fission works well. If you want to start making an impact in the energy production game you use what you have. We�re [fusion is] a gleam in the eyes as it were. But as I keep pointing out, if you don�t continue with this work, one thing is absolutely certain, you won�t produce anything.
The irony being, the defacto state of affairs is to “do everything but try out the Boron Hydrogen fusion and other non Tokamak approaches.”
Despite this omission, very inspiring to hear the lecture. Focus Fusion is a better product than ITER on every level. No more or less likely to work, but with a lot shorter and simpler proving time (In the lecture Dr. Green points out that the physics itself may be a barrier for the ITER project as plasmas are a tricky species. I forget the exact quote and it’s a long lecture to go through again to find it, but you’ll see if you listen to it).
The upshot is that Focus Fusion just needs better marketing - to polish our act and take it on the road as effectively as the ITER community has. And we�re doing that now, with, among other things, random unnamed people in Australia raising the issue in a clear and eloquent way.
As concerned citizens, we need to make sure that the “everything” our policy makers consider for the solution of the energy problem includes “fusion alternatives”.
Discuss this topic in the forums.
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After the lecture one of the ANU professors gave me the email address of a Masters student in plasma physics. In email communications he expressed frustration at running up against an overly theoretical approach to plasma physics which discounts the value of basic empirical research. The inherently unreliable theoretical models say an experiment is pointless, so it is never funded - hence theory is constraining our understanding, the very opposite of scientific method.
He is not sold on focus fusion but is impressed with the results obtained so far.
Hopefully the problems with the mainstream approach to plasma research, and the possibilities for alternative approaches will become more and more widely recognised.
I also wrote a short submission to the Australian Government’s nuclear taskforce. Although preoccupied with Uranium, it is headed by a nuclear astrophysicist, so I thought it might be worth trying:
http://www.pmc.gov.au/umpner/submissions/182_sub_umpner.pdf
Alex;
Any developments in the last year and a half?
Please update us!
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