Russia Reaffirms Commitment To ITER Fusion Project
Russian energy giant Rosatom is extending its participation in a global nuclear fusion megaproject currently being developed in southern France, the company’s CEO Aleksey Likhachev has said
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, also dubbed the world’s largest ‘artificial sun,’ is being developed jointly by companies from China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US.
The project’s goal is to create a safe and almost limitless supply of electricity.
On Tuesday, Likhachev held a meeting with the project’s Director General Pietro Barabaschi, who had arrived in Russia on a work visit. They discussed issues related to Russia’s fulfilment of its obligation to manufacture and supply equipment.
“We are grateful to the ITER leadership, which is demonstrating not just a fair and honest position, but is also keenly engaging and expanding Russia’s participation in this project,” Likhachev told journalists following a meeting which took place at Rosatom headquarters in Moscow.
In turn, Barabaschi described the discussion as “very productive,” saying that “after some difficulties, we are getting now again on track, we have a new plan ahead.”
“Russia’s contribution, like that of all other ITER members, is very important, demonstrating a common commitment to the development of fusion energy that will exist for the benefit of the entire world. This contribution covers all areas – from critical components to key technological innovations,” ITER’s director-general stressed.
ITER was proposed as far back as 1985, after a summit between then-US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but nothing was done until 1992, when the Joint European Torus (JET) project in England showed recreating the temperatures and pressures inside stars was possible.
The ITER tokamak is projected to become be the world’s most powerful fusion device, capable of generating large-scale nuclear reactions.
The multibillion-euro project has faced a series of technical challenges and cost issues over the years, including due to Ukraine conflict-related sanctions.
Russia is a key supplier of 25 sophisticated high-tech systems for the future facility. The delivery of this unique equipment is being carried out on time, in full compliance with the reactor’s construction schedule, according to Rosatom.
Site construction began in 2007 in southern France. Equipment is now being installed in the buildings, and the latest estimate for completing the project is around 2033.
See more here rt.com
Editor’s note: it should be remembered that ITER, like JET, is an experimental proof-of-concept machine. It will not export electricity into France’s power grid. Recreating the processes that take place in the heart of a star is probably the most difficult engineering challenge we have ever undertaken. It will take one, possibly two, successively larger machines before we can be certain we can produce fusion reactions for extended periods of time. Only then will we be able to start building fusion power stations. It is hoped the first deuterium-tritium experiments at ITER will commence in 2039.
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Herb Rose
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It’s good to see that Russia and China waste money on bad science too. E does not equal mc^2. There is no fusion, only fission.
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Andy Rowlands
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E=mc2 is a long-established fact, and if there was no fusion there would be no stars.
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Herb Rose
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The and Lot is long established (and is what Planck used to come up with E=mc^2) and either it is false or the law of conservation of momentum is false. Stars burn from fission where energy splits electrons from protons and creates atoms.
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Andy Rowlands
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What rubbish. Protons and electrons are separate particles. I reiterate that if nuclear fusion did not exist, there would be no stars, and the JET machine in England would not have worked.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Andy,
A neutron will spontaneously split into an electron, a proton, and energy in the form of gamma radiation. This is fission producing energy and the end result is a hydrogen atom plus energy. You may call it rubbish but that is reality.
Herb
Ken Hughes
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E = mc^2 is the energy used to move a mass “m” through time., or, the energy of time expended on a static mass “m”.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ken,
Time is a unit of energy. We use the energy of various objects to provide a reference but there is no basic unit of time like there is for mass or electricity.
Herb
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Wilson Sy
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All elements are created from primordial hydrogen by fusion in the stars called nucleosynthesis.
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Andy Rowlands
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That’s right, elements up to nickel were created during the Big Bang, and heavier elements were later created through the Rapid Neutron Capture process which occurs in supernova explosions.
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Seriously
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I assume you refer to The Big Bang ‘theory ‘….emphasis intended…
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb. Andy and Ken,
Which one of you three has ever followed the assumptions that Einstein clearly as he proposed a REALISTIC thought problem which begins with two observers at two clearly defined locaions and one experiment. One location is stationary relative to the other–a railroad car moving at a constant speed. The experiment is the dropping of a mass by each observer by the assumed (clearly stated) same time when the moving observer is exactly abreast the stationary observer; again clearly stated assumption. The two obsevefs were assumed (clearly stated( to see the same thing as they watched their mass fall with the same speed. And the final assumption was that light had a constant speed and the problem, was to find the one equation which described what both observers saw (observed) as the other observer’s mass fell.
Back when I we taking Atomic and Nuclear Physical we solved this mathematical problem just as Eisenstein did and the one equation was “E=mc2”.
Einstein never claimed to know this was going to be the solution to his thought problem. I ask; Has anyone of you three ever taken a physics classs which solved his clearly stated thought problem. And I have not heard (read) of any mathematician or physicists, who claims to have gotten a DIFFERENT SOLUTION.
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
My thoughts are while there are controlled nuclear fission reactions; there are no controlled nuclear fusion reactions, only the ones that go BLOOM!!!!!!
Have a good day
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Herb Rose
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Why is the corona around the sun, hotter than the surface of the sun??
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ecm
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Because the Sun’s plasma is held “back” by the corona, raising the temperature (just as many planetary bodies with atmospheres have an affect on the surrounding energies).
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ecm,
The sun’s corona doesn’t seem to hold back solar winds or solar flares.
Herb
ecm
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Hi Herb,
True, the Sun’s atmosphere is selective just as the Earth’s Van Allen belts are.
Herb Rose
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Jerry,
You’ve got the wrong experiment. The experiment you’ve described shows that gravity causes objects to fall at the same rate, despite other motion. It can be done by having an object suspended in the air with a dart in a air gun aimed at it. The object is dropped as the air gun is fired. The dart will hit the object as it descends because both the dart and the object are falling at the same rate.
The train experiment showing the constant speed of light involves a moving train triggering a stationary light to shine along the path it is traveling. A millisecond later a light on the train directed forward is turned on. The light from the train will never catch up to the light from the stationary source, no matter how fast the train is going. Einstein took this to mean the speed of light is constant and nothing can go faster. What it shows is that light is a wave whose speed is determined by the medium it travels in.
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Wilson Sy
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Fusion has been proven in Tokamaks all the time; putting hydrogen isotopes in and getting helium and neutrons out. The problem is energy output is less than input, until breakeven achieved only recently. Therefore fusion is still uneconomic.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Wilson,
You can change the direction of reactions by changing the energy flow. It is possible to split water into hydrogen and oxygen by adding enough energy but the energy you get from recombining the atoms will never be greater than the energy consumed. There is no activation threshold where fusion will become an exothermic reaction, producing more energy than it consumes. If it were true than you could split a helium atom into two deuterium atoms then use the binding energy to convert the deuterium atoms into a helium atom and produce more energy by fusion or create energy.
Herb
herb
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Wilson Sy
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Too much theory, not enough facts.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Wilson,
What do we observe? We never see fusion in nature, only fission. The theory is that the sun is a fusion reaction but there is no supporting evidence. What we observe is elements breaking apart into smaller elements and giving off energy fission. When a neutron is not within a nucleus of an atom (and some times when it is) it spontaneously splits into an electron and a proton releasing energy as a gamma ray. The electron combines with a proton to produce a hydrogen atom, just as an alpha particle gains a pair electrons creating helium. These are the observable facts and they indicate that hydrogen and helium are not the fuel producing energy but the ashes resulting from the release of energy by matter.
Herb
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ecm
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We simply do not know enough of the Sun to claim it is fission but not fusion.
If we are to speak of “natural observations”, everything in micro to macro Life is formed by fusion, while fission is a secondary effect in its development and multiplication. Examples include: sperm and ovum/pollination; ocean eddies; merging jet streams; and of course the most common galaxy–the spiral. Thus fusion is also a good contender for the Sun’s power.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ecm,
Actually in nature fission is the norm, whether it’s meiosis to form sperm, ovum, or pollination or mitosis where cells split making 2 identical cells. We do not see giant creatures formed from organisms combining their features but organisms reproducing offspring with their features. When galaxies collide they just pass through each other, not combine to form dual spirals or a giant galaxy with one center.
We see lots of examples of fission where elements become other elements (even larger elements in the case of beta decay) or combine to form molecules but we do not see their nuclei combining to form larger elements. It’s all theory based on extremely improbable occurrences. If the sun nearest us exploded how much of its matter would reach our sun to be reprocessed into larger elements? Now consider you need this to happen 5 times to form the heavier elements and the matter is not coming from nearby stars but stars exploding in distant galaxies. Not possible to produce the amount of matter greater than iron.
Herb
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ecm
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Hi Herb,
As initially mentioned by me, mitosis does occur BUT first the organism which hosts the cell or pistil must be created (born), and thus this is always a COMBINATION of 2 units that merge. Regarding the formation of galaxies (not collisions as you mention) you can notice 2 or more spiral arms merging to form the nucleus of the galaxy which powers it (unlike the myth of the Black Hole); same is true with hurricanes.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ecm,
We don’t see a cow, a horse and three dogs combining to form an elephant which is how fusion produces the larger elements. You understand that the same bad theory, e=mc^2, that created fusion also brought us black holes.
Herb
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