

In Hot Pursuit of Fusion (or Folly) - physcab
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/science/26fusi.html?_r=1&8dpc

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Retric
Anyone that suggests this project is capable of being scaled up to produce
useful amounts of energy is lying to you. Its goal is to explore how H bomb's
work which might be useful but it's got little to do with civilian power.

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physcab
They've been trying to make fusion sexy for 50 years. In my opinion (as an
average physicist), it's got about 50 more years before it becomes practical.
Maybe.

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Retric
I don't know about practical, but I think an Apollo style investment in
tokamak's could have a useful power plant up an running inside of 15 years.
However, I have no idea if it would end up being cheaper than spending that
much cash on say wind or solar.

JET was close to break even and it's an old and small design. They have steady
state tokamak's by not operating at the outer limits of the device. So IMO the
only real challenge is building a sufficiently large scale device. And getting
a steady supply of Tritium.

So scale it up to 3 or 4 times the size of ITER and build 4 of the things and
I expect we would have at least one fusion power plant. Granted, 4 plants at 4
times 6 billion a pop = ~100billion which is stupid amounts of cash, but it
would get it done IMO.

PS: The real question is how much less than that can you spend and build a
working system.

