![]() That condition requires that the fusion power be at least five times the external heating power applied to the plasma. Plasma physicists regard ITER as the first magnetic confinement device that can possibly demonstrate a “burning plasma,” where heating by alpha particles generated in fusion reactions is the dominant means of maintaining the plasma temperature. As the New York Times wrote, this facility “is being built to test a long-held dream: that nuclear fusion, the atomic reaction that takes place in the sun and in hydrogen bombs, can be controlled to generate power.” This important milestone offers considerable confidence in the eventual completion of what will be the only installation on Earth that even remotely resembles what is supposed to be a practical fusion reactor. In December 2017, the ITER project directorate announced that 50 percent of the construction tasks had been accomplished. Even if actual operation is still years away, the ITER project is sufficiently advanced that we can examine it as a test case for the doughnut-shaped design known as the tokamak-the most promising approach to achieving terrestrial fusion energy based on magnetic confinement. Now, however, we are at a point where, for the first time, we caninvestigate a prototypical fusion reactor facility in the real world: the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), under construction in Cadarache, France. But that discussion largely involved the characteristic drawbacks of conceptual fusion reactors, which fusion proponents continue to insist will somehow, someday, be surmounted. ![]() Last year’s essay made the case that the endlessly proclaimed features of energy perfection (usually “inexhaustible, cheap, clean, safe, and radiation-free”) are all debunked by harsh realities-and that a fusion reactor would actually be close to the opposite of an ideal energy source. ![]() ![]() So I feel obligated to dispel some of the gee-whiz hyperbole that has sprung up around fusion power, which has been routinely heralded as the “perfect” energy source and touted all too often as the magic bullet solution to the world’s energy problems. ![]()
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