Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on June 4, 2020
The Big Boy Fusion Reactor
Engineers have installed the first and largest piece of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion project in France. The gigantic assembly begins with this piece, the steel base, which weighs more than 1,200 tons.
ITER has been in the works for 30 years. The experimental tokamak fusion reactor—a nuclear fusion plasma reactor where extremely hot, charged plasma spins and generates virtually limitless energy—is one of a handful of extremely costly “miniature suns” around the world. The tokamak is on track to switch on in 2025, and then the reactor will begin to heat up to temperatures hot enough to induce nuclear fusion. That will take years.
So … baby steps. Making this single part, which is 30 meters high and 30 meters wide, has taken 10 full years by itself. It’s the base of the cryostat, which is the supercooling chamber that enables the rest of the reactor to function. The life of the cryostat began in India, where massive tech conglomerate Larsen & Toubro Ltd began fabricating and welding portions of it under ITER’s Indian Domestic Agency’s supervision.
In 2015, the partial assemblage was brought to France, where more assembly and work began in 2016 and lasted until late 2019. At that point, the ITER home team took over. Now, the chamber is ready to begin assembly, starting with the base. The whole thing will be 3,850 tons, with mostly hollow—but absolutely gigantic—steel cylinder sections that form the outside of the cryostat.
It’s all put together and sealed with welds. From ITER’s website:
“In total, the Indian Domestic Agency estimates that one kilometre of full penetration weld joints will have to be carried out to exacting standards for the sub-assemblies in the site workshop, followed by several hundred metres of weld joints to assemble the cryostat sections in the Tokamak Pit.”
On May 26, a crane slowly lifted the base of the cryostat from its support frame to a height of 24 meters, according to World Nuclear News. “It was then transported 110 [meters] from the entrance of the Assembly Hall, passing above and over the two 20-[meter]-high sector sub-assembly tools, eventually reaching the circular opening of the machine assembly pit,” per the report.
Putting the base in place is a landmark for ITER, but it’s also a huge engineering feat unto itself.
“We trust the materials science,” ITER’s director general Bernard Bigot said on site. “We trust the metrology. But my confidence today is because I trust you to work as one committed and highly professional team, convinced as we all are that failure is not an option.”
The remaining pieces are already assembled and elsewhere on site, and they will be installed later. They’re stored outside under several layers of plastic to help insulate the pieces further and keep dust and detritus out.
One reason the ITER team chose its location in southern France is the short trip to the nearest shipping waterway. Even so, ITER had to build a custom heavy-duty road to carry parts over the roughly 40-mile distance. If the steel base were traveling on a U.S. interstate highway, the truck carrying it would need 120 axles. (Just to be clear, that’s not physically possible, plus the federal limit is “just” 40 tons.)
12 Comments on "The Big Boy Fusion Reactor"
Richard Guenette on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 7:07 pm
This project is very expensive to build and maintain and economically unfeasible.
Anonymouse on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:14 am
“ITER has been in the works for 30 years”
Fusion has been in the ‘works’ for about 70 years.
Progess-to-date. Not 1 watt of usable power generated.
For those interested, that 1200 ton piece they are talking about, is what what would, in an actual reactor, need to be changed out constantly (how often?), due to neutron embrittlement. That big reactor chamber, in a actual working reactor (lol), would be intensively radioactive and would need to cut down into manageable sized pieces and sent for long-term disposable. Which France of course, at this time, completely lacks. Which also means given the industry’s current practice, means that clean-safe-and unlimited fusion creators chamber’s radioactivce pieces, would likely be stored on site.
Naturally, while that reactor wall was being swapped out for a new one, at immense cost I would add, that reactor would be producing exactly zero power. Which would not be at surprising given fusions inability to produce any power at all.
Iter will probably still be in the works 30 years from now. If not shut down due to lack of resources, funding, and or interest at some point.
Go Speed Racer on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 5:13 am
What a great big
pile of shit.
How about lets set tires and old mattresses on fire. At least a tire fire will produce some energy.
Go Speed Racer on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 5:17 am
One of the biggest problems with ITER is how to get rid of it, once it doesn’t work and
everybody is tired of looking at it.
The answer, ironically, is Fusion.
We need to put a hydrogen-fusion bomb into
the base of ITER and set it off. That will
make the whole complex disappear, and after 30 years we can look at the pretty crater
and ride dirt bikes around the rim.
That way get it all cleaned up in a day,
rather than chip apart all that scrap
metal which would take 80 years to haul away.
Mick on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 5:21 am
Hey Gsr you still setting those tire and mattress fires ?
Anonymouse on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 6:14 am
GSR, instead of ITER, you could call your next-Gen power plant, TIRE.
Because, ITER > TIRE. TIRE = ITER.
However, unlike ITER with its decades long, and still not even remotely close to producing anything, your *TIRE* system is proven off-the-shelf tech, now. More than capable of producing excess heat to run a steam turbine, or an 8 track cassette at a minimum, and at far lower ignition point than 100m degrees centigrade am I right?
What would a TIRE power plants average operating temp be, like maybe 200 degrees centigrade?
Kick starting a sustained reaction at a GSR TIRE plant would only require at most, a cup of gasoline and a wooden match. Try doing that at ITER. Not…..
Davy on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 6:41 am
“Spanish Porn Star Arrested After Participant In “Mystic Ritual” Dies After Inhaling Psychedelic Toad Venom”
https://tinyurl.com/y7c7u88o zero hedge
“Spanish porn star Nacho Vidal, who likes to advertise his aromatic candles shaped like male genitalia on Twitter, has been arrested on manslaughter charges following a man’s death during a mystic ritual in which he inhaled psychedelic toad venom.”
JuanP on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 6:55 am
Spanish Porn Star Arrested After Participant In “Mystic Ritual” Dies After Inhaling Psychedelic Toad Venom
Spanish porn star Nacho Vidal, who likes to advertise his aromatic candles shaped like male genitalia on Twitter, has been arrested on manslaughter charges following a man’s death during a mystic ritual in which he inhaled psychedelic toad venom.
https://tinyurl.com/y7c7u88o zero hedge
I be Hipspanic and proud of it. Wees like stuff like this.
Not Anonymouse on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 6:58 am
Anonymouse on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 6:14 am
“GSR, instead of ITER, you could call your next-Gen power plant, TIRE.”
probably juanPee
Go Speed Racer on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 11:05 pm
Hi Mick and Anonymouse,
Ya i did not stop by this chat board
in awhile, esp as it usually just
has a bunch of cheap shot
flame wars going on.
But ya Mick I still doing the tire
and mattress fires.
NASA says we just hit 418 ppm
CO2 measured in Hawaii and
hey, we wouldn’t have broken
415 if not for what’s
been going on in my backyard
all of last year.
That is awesome anonymous
although let me help with
terminology.
There is 8-track cartridges and
there is cassettes.
but is not any 8-track cartridges
Ya i love it, if the energy producing
system delivers energy it should
at least run an old Realistic
Radio Shack 8-track cartridge player
AND also should run the waterbed heater
and lava lamp in that same bedroom.
IF it don’t do that, it must be a fusion
power generation system.
Ya I M serious when we are tired of
ITER just blow up the whole thing with
military weapons.
Somewhere around 2060 people will
find solitude by hiking around the crater.
Have a great day enjoying the
fake pandemic, and the fake race war.
Trump 2020 ! Need more coal plants.
Go Speed Racer on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 11:07 pm
not any 8-track cassettes.
only is
8-track players
8-track cartridges
cassettes
and
cassette decks.
for unknown reasons,
there is no terminology
for 8-track cartridge deck.
Deck has to be cassette deck.
8-track is always 8-track players
peakyeast on Tue, 9th Jun 2020 9:18 am
Imagine If we had used as many scientists, effort, money and resources all this time time on making batteries and solarcells…
Then we would already have a functioning alternative energy grid.