Talk-Polywell.org

Steven Cowley has written a short article called Bottling the Sun where he argues for increased funding for fusion research. I think that the article is a concise very general summary of the state of affairs in fusion research. Increased funding for the field would be of course very welcomed to speed up the development of alternative concepts.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... ey-2015-07

The 'main stream' fusion articles do their best to try to save ITER when they bring up the dark horse, order of magnitude lower cost, fusion projects. In this article this is done by characterizing ITER as 'low risk' and 'one step away' from commercialization. The problem is ITER is neither, and that is why the dark horse fusion projects exist despite the frequently vicious, politically connected blow back from ITER supporters that continuously kills any serious Gubbermant funding.

As long as none of the alternative fusion concepts has not surpassed the performance of JET it is correct to say that the tokamak path presents the lowest scientific risk to break even, because all the knowledge to do that was gained already in the 1970s. The tokamak plan is to demonstrate a burning DT-plasma with ITER and study the remaining technological issues and use that knowledge to design the demonstration fusion power plant DEMO. It spherical tokamaks (NSTX-U and MAST-U) deliver good performance then it could be that DEMO would designed as a spherical tokamak, which could well be smaller in physical dimensions than ITER. Obviously if any of alternative fusion concepts reaches break even then the situation will be very much different.

At the moment nobody can say which is the best way forward, so it is wise to continue with as many concepts as possible. The tokamak dominance of the previous decades has not been healthy, but it is also too early to say that the alternative devices will be superior because the scientific evidence to do that does not exist.

Yet, the issue truly is a commercial one. How many ideas work, but are not commercially realizable? Too numerous to count, hence, the term 'risk' is not properly framed, and why the dark horse fusion projects have drawn so much interest. The sheer size of ITER is mind boggling, and a single event with its magnets is frightening. It is a monument to projects conceived by scientists, run by bureaucrats, and funded by a consortium of Gubbermants.

Still, it is a great science project and much has been learned. Hopefully, the high priced science will spill over to some other successful fusion project.