What exactly are the worse case scenario "risks" referred to here when the Chinese perform a plasma discharge in their fusion device next month?
http://science.monstersandcritics.co...ificial_sun%60

As far as I know, western experiments work with a small quantity of matter (only a few grams). They need to be very fine tuned to keep the plasma stable during some seconds. There is no risk of a catastrophic explosion, since the lesser instability can disassemble the plasma, halting the process. The risks generally relate to induced radioactivity. The Chinese experiment is said to be the first 'all-superconducting' tokamak, meaning that perhaps it can keep the plasma for longer periods.

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

What? Chienese made their own ITER version?
and when we only talk about making it work, they are already concerned about radioactivity.

that will be funny if they blow the earth with future tecnology.

At the risk of gettign political, the worst case risk may well be a China independent of oil imports

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"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Well, no one uses oil for electricity anymore and it will be a long while to convert their transportation infrastructure to all electric. Also, I would be surprised if China's industry uses more plastic stock per dollar than any other country.

The risks shouldn't be too bad... I hope.

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-The Wolf
http://www.ryanmercer.com

Dont you feel shame that china soon will be independed from oil imports and rest of world expects first working fusion reactor after 50 years.

The Chinese are part of the International Consortium building and paying for the ITER. ITER is sized large enough to be both the LAST major fusion physics experiment, and also the first engineering prototype fusion power station. It costs billions of dollars,was proposed originally in 1988; redesigned in 1997-8; stalled and potentially killed by the Clintonian solar/windmill lovers in 1998; resurrected by the "anti-Science" Bushies; and painstakingly agreed to by the nations representing most of the world's population including the USA, EU, Japan, S Korea, China, India among others.

It represented the best fusion technology possible in the early 1990s when it was first suggested. You could even say that the ITER is becoming obsolete. It has taken so long to find the governments to fund it, and to make the political compromises in allocating the goodies, that technology advances have almost passed it by.

Like most advanced countries all fusion research is not centered just on ITER. There are existing fusion research devices on a smaller scale at at Princeton, MIT, Wisconsin, and San Diego as an example. And others are being built.

Great progress is being made. too. The "DIII" at San Diego just revealed how to overcome a major limitation, called "Edge Limited Modes" of instability that arise as the power is turned up. That would allow any fusion device incorporating this improvement to run at a higher energy output.

The National Compact Stellarator Experiment is being constructed at Princeton even now, and a bigger Next Step Spherical Tokamak is being discussed to be constructed based on the great technological advances made in the present National Spherical Tokamak Experiment. NSTX was suggested, designed, funded, constructed, tested, and made operational and functioning at Princeton, and even drawing to a close on its scientific usefulness after great progress, in the interval since the ITER was first proposed, and the official ground breaking will occur.

The Chinese have merely constructed a small device for training. The only thing novel about it is that all the magnets, not just the big power gulping Toroidal ones, are constructed with superconducting, supercooled magnets.

No big deal.

Except it reveals that they are able to build a superconducting magnet. They get the technology to build those from the research already done elsewhere, and even from the open ITER superconducting magnet research. Or maybe ordered them from a Sear's & Roebuck catalogue.

You don't understand. The Chinese fusion device is no big deal. It doesn't equal the large tokamaks operating around the world today, and in lots of places in the USA, and the gargantuan ITER, that the World (including China!) is getting ready to build in Cadarache France.

The Internationasl Themonuclear Fusion experiment is BIG. It is able to not only generate fusion energy, that many devices can do; it produces megawatts of fusion energy, that only a few can do; it can also operate for more than a few minutes, that only the world's current largest fusion reacors can do; and produces 10 times the amount of energy that is needed to operate the Plant that only the EU's JET reactor can do but only momentarily.

The Chinese fusion rector is a tiny training+/research reactor that will merely educate students who can then go on ot work on the ITER or other bigger devices such as the NSST or JET in America or Europe.

Then why anyone cares about radiation risks?
maibe we talk about risks for students who play with this reactor?

The nice benefit of fusion is that while there are a radiation risks when operating , they are tiny compared to a fission power plant. Fission makes dirty radioactive materials that are highly radioactive for a few hundred years and still dangerous if eaten for a thousand or more.

Fusion only makes the materials the reactor is made of radioactive for a short time and produces no real waste. If you use the worst materials to construct it from, it could be radioactive for 75 years; if you use the best materials you could take it apart in a few months after turning it off, and scrap and recycle the reactor like a junk car or an old hospital x-ray machine.

More research will produce safer and maybe cheaper materials but silicon carbide that is used for cutting tools and jewelry as "fake diamonds" and nontarnishable jewelry rings would do just fine. You only need a couple hundred square feet of material per reactor fro the first wall which gets the highest neutron flux. This stuff you could scrap in a few months after the last time you operated the plant.

Wrong. I have already called you out on this twice. I have shown you the historical facts that the Clinton administration supported ITER, and it was killed by the Republican Congress. Why do you continue to perpetuate demonstrably false claims in the face of proof to the contrary?

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The Galilean Library

If i know correctly, breeder fision reactor does not produce any significant waste, and can even break other long living isotopes and even make some energy from exsisting nuclear waste.
fusion reactor radiation is much higer than fision afterall 80% of energy is radiated by neutrons.

Davidm,

No matter how many times you say the Clintonian *** wipes were nominally for the ITER project, the fact remains that they DID NOT fight hard for it at all. Why ? Because there was a significant body of Clintonian pseudo-scientists who wanted to divert the ITER money onto their pet windmill, or wave energy, or solar collector boondoggles. I was there.

The ultimate fact remains that ITER was killed in the US, and the international consortium fell apart. When? When the Clintonian administration and its ineffectual tree huggers at DOE were in power.

They DID NOT fight hard for it. When it became apparent there was bucket of money to be had, politicians being politicians, all the politicians of BOTH Parties went after the moneypot like bees drawn to honey.

When the Bush administration came in, they started to negotiate to bring back together all the countries that had given up on building ITER without the USA.

The Bush Administration SUCCEEDED where the Clintonians FAILED! Sorry if the facts get in your way.

It took six years until 2006 to get those nations to agree collectively contribute, and to spend the $12 billion USD required for ITER. We are getting ready to break ground almost ten years later. Clean limitless fusion power will be up to a decade late in arriving to solve the energy crsis.

As a side benefit of wasting a decade the ITER that will be built is only about 80% as large as it was originally designed to be. To get a compromise it had to be down-sized, so some of the aims will not be met. Thank You.

I don't give a ruddy damn what a bunch of pantywaist Democrats say as excuses, as they try to cover up either their ineptness, or alternatively their deviousness.

Those are the facts.

I think this is one of the cases where discussion of politics is (just barely) allowable, since we're discussing how it affects science and technology. However, phrases like "*** wipes" and "pantywaist" are definitely inappropriate. Natural-Philosopher, please try to make your arguments without unnecessary and inflammatory pejoratives in future.

EDIT: After reviewing this thread more thoroughly, I've changed my mind. A discussion of who was to blame for what eight years ago does not meet the limited exceptions under Rule 12 of this forum for discussing politics. Davidm, you and Natural-Philospher are both cautioned accordingly. N-P, your latest post in particular is way out of line under both Rule 12 (no political discussion) and Rule 3 (appropriate language). Please watch yourself in future.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

To Seek

I apologize. But having spent time fighting for ITER at the time that davidm tries to alter the history of events at which I was present rises concern. I was a eyewitness, saw the ieptness, ineffectualness, and some but not all cases, outright deviousness, in action. I admit I have a bias in this regard as I invested several years of my scientific career that Iconsider wasted, in the events that led to the ITER collapse.

I will force my self to be careful in this regard.