Fusion: Now Only 15 Years Out!

Fusion’s always been thirty years out, or so say the cynics. Today slashdot passes on a Christian Science Monitor article about the fine folks at ITER, the next generation, internationally-funded fusion research reactor, who tell us that we’re closer to commercial fusion power plants than ever before.
Oh, sure, you can snarkily observe that the backers are too busy squabbling over siting to actually get anything done.

In fact, one of the reasons ITER hasn’t even seen a shovel lifted yet is because most of the sponsors want to site the thing in France, but the U.S., stinging from French opposition to the Iraq war, has sided with Japan as the principle site. (It should be noted that the research facility will be in the south of France, in Cadarache. Not only do researchers like a vacation, they like to stay on vacation. The Japanese site, on the other hand, was to have been in Rokkasho-Muro, Japan, where the winters get to -5 C.) Still, the report has some room for optimism; we’ve got a good idea of how to make a stable plasma, and (not in this report, but I’ll throw in the link for free) the Japanese were able to get their JT-25 tokamak reactor to Q = 1.25, i.e., energy positive. ITER isn’t going to solve our problems tomorrow, but the research is promising. The nitwits who hold the purse strings should lay off the silly squabbling and get things moving. We have precious little time.