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Page added on January 20, 2017
Former ITER Spokesman Confirms Accuracy of New Energy Times Story
From the ITER Web site: “At nightfall, when buildings, work areas, roads and parking lots light up, the ITER site looks like an alien spaceport. Drenched in the yellow glow of sodium lights, with its cranes reaching for the sky, the Tokamak Complex is like a launch pad minutes before a shuttle’s departure; towering above, the Assembly Hall resembles a giant hangar for some mysterious spaceship bound for the confines of the galaxy.”
On Jan. 12, 2017, New Energy Times published “The Selling of ITER,” which reported that the largest fusion research project in the world, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), may have been sold to the public and elected officials using misleading information. In a telephone interview on Jan. 18, Michel Claessens, the former head of communications for ITER, confirmed that the Jan. 12 New Energy Times ITER article is accurate.
Claessens said that he saw no errors, significant omissions, or misrepresentations in the article.
“On the contrary,” he said, “I read it with interest because I did not know that the input power of JET in 1997 was as high as 700 megawatts.”
Claessens sent an e-mail to New Energy Times on Jan. 16, 2017:
I read with interest your paper on fusion power. You are right to stress that we should be clear and define the terms that we use (especially if we want to maintain public trust). I am the former head of communications at ITER (before Laban Coblentz), and I always said that the ITER Web site does not use correct figures regarding “fusion power.” We can’t compare the input of 50 MW with the output of 500 MW because the former is electric and the latter is thermal. Also, I was told that the average electricity consumption on the site will be 110 MW with peaks of 600 MW during the shots.
The 1997 experiment at the Joint European Torus (JET) reactor in the U.K. has been reported by some fusion spokesmen and the news media as the best-ever fusion experiment. Previous news reports have stated that, in the JET experiment, 16 million Watts of power output were produced by 24 million Watts of power input, rather than the actual 700 million Watts of input power.
Claessens had worked for the European Commission before being recruited to ITER in 2011. In August 2015, he returned to Brussels to work for the European Commission again. He now provides policy support on the ITER project as part of the Directorate-General for Energy for the European Commission. He told New Energy Times that the estimated cost for ITER is now €22.6 billion ($24 billion).
The Jan. 12 New Energy Times article explains how some fusion spokesmen have hidden the real input power for the JET experiment and how they used the phrase “fusion power” in a misleading way when communicating with the public and elected officials.
“I like your argument about ‘fusion power’ and how we should be clearer about it,” Claessens said. “One of my concerns is that, if you go on the ITER Web site, they claim it will have a power gain ratio of 10 because it will produce 500 megawatts for an input power of 50 megawatts. But there is a big problem there because the input power is electric power and the output is thermal, so you cannot compare the two.”
I told Claessens that the problem is worse. The actual input power of “50 megawatts,” as claimed on the ITER Web site is not 50 MW electric: It is 50 MW thermal. When I conducted a survey among fusion physics professors in December 2016, a professor from the University of California at San Diego, who requested anonymity, explained this to me.
“To generate 50 MW of the power which goes into ITER as radio frequency waves and energetic neutral beams, you need to spend at least 150 MW electric!” the professor wrote.
A Dec. 24 e-mail from Laban Coblentz, the current head of communications for ITER, also confirmed this fact.
“The 50 MW requires roughly 150 MW of electrical input to the heating systems,” Coblentz wrote. “For a 400-second pulse, the output of 500 MW fusion power to 150 MW electrical power to the heating and current drive systems yields a factor of about three times more energy than is input to the H&CD systems.”
Coblentz did not say whether that 150 MW electrical input power included the electrical input power required for the magnetic subsystem. The fact that the 50 MW input was thermal, rather than electric, had been so deeply obscured by some ITER personnel that even Claessens had not known about it until I told him.
During my phone interview with Claessens, after confirming the distinctions between the terms “reactor,” “site,” and “facility,” I asked him about his first e-mail he had sent me. “Did you mean that the average consumption on the site will be 110 megawatts or the average consumption of the reactor will be 110 megawatts?”
“As I received the information from colleagues,” Claessens said, “that’s the average consumption, electric consumption, of the site, so including, all the subsystems, not just the reactor.”
In a follow-up e-mail, I asked Claessens about this again. He replied that he was not sure and needed to check with his colleagues. If the electrical input power for the heating systems is 150 MW, then Claessens was given incorrect information by ITER staff or management.
Misrepresentations were going on long before Claessens got there. In 1998, the ITER Web site said, “ITER will be the first fusion reactor to produce thermal energy at the level of a commercial power station.” Claessens was aware of this, and he told me that he had attempted to correct the public communications for ITER.
“While I was in Cadarache,” Claessens said, “I asked my colleagues to be a little bit more cautious and modest. I passed the message on to management. There are so many uncertainties, particularly because this is a research project and we don’t know the outcome yet. We still have to do the experiment. My predecessor when I arrived in 2011, Neil Calder, was very optimistic about fusion and ITER; he thought it could solve all the problems in the world.”
In this video and his slides, Calder behaves like an evangelist, portraying ITER as the solution to global climate and energy crises. His message was “The world must react — ITER is the reaction.” In his outreach program to other ITER promoters, he gave them incorrect information: “The energy coming out of ITER will be 10 times greater than the energy going in. Input power 50 MW – output power 500 MW.”
ITER’s actual input power could be as much as 600 MW. (Calder did not make energy claims in his slides, and he incorrectly used the term “energy.”) Claessens is not certain what the real projected power requirements and power gain factor are for the reactor. He intends to contact David Campbell, the director of science and operations at ITER, to get accurate information.
If ITER consumes 600 MW peak input power, and it produces 500 MW peak power, then it will produce no net thermal energy “at the level of a commercial power station.” In fact, the power coming out of ITER will not be greater than the input power. Instead, it will consume the equivalent of 1 million 100-Watt light bulbs.
This revelation about the real value for ITER’s input power explains why Coblentz told New Energy Times recently that the total amount of power produced by the reactor — accounting for all power input — was no longer important. He wrote that it was “completely irrelevant to the success of ITER.” Rather than concede that ITER likely will not achieve the publicly implied performance goal, given the misleading information — as revealed by New Energy Times — Coblentz, on behalf of ITER management, has changed the character of the stated goal to be a large-scale, publicly funded scientific experiment.
After $24 billion, 35 years, the support of 35 countries, and the efforts of thousands of researchers and scientists, what may be humankind’s final attempt to prove that controlled nuclear fusion is possible on Earth faces an uncertain future. ITER has major unsolved technical issues that include the challenge of efficiently harvesting the high energy of neutrons emitted by the D+T fusion reaction. Moreover, government bureaucrats in countries funding ITER may decide to reconsider the decisions they have made because they relied on ITER’s misleading public statements about technical progress in achieving the goal of “fusion power.”
27 Comments on "Former ITER Spokesman Confirms Accuracy of New Energy Times Story"
penury on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 5:23 pm
Who would have ever believed that people who need large gobs of your money would possibly obfusticate and do all they could to mislead. Almost as if they know that the truth would mean the permanent end to this project.
Cloggie on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 5:27 pm
ITER, Global Luke Warming/Climate Change… all potentially lucrative research subjects that attract flies like a blob of shit.
#SendMoreMoney
joe on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 5:46 pm
I think they know exactly what they are doing. Does anyone seriously think they are building a power plant? Whatever it is, it takes in more electrical energy and gives out a tiny portion thermally. To sustain a stable flame, burning two light objects to make a heavy one means that they are absorbing energy not freeing it. Why? Whats useful in it? Geoengineering, global cooling? Are they experimenting with a system so far fetched that it does not justify the money being spent? Who knows.
makati1 on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 6:42 pm
joe, it is a paycheck for a lot of techies, nothing more. A huge scam on the ignorant public.
antaris on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 8:40 pm
I’d bet it is a very toxic place to be involved with. Yes a paycheque , but tech nerds infighting, contractors dog fucking and a pile of investors breathing down necks.
jjhman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 9:51 pm
joe:
I don’t think a single word of what you said makes sense. You should study a little physics before you make such statements.
(Hint: Fusion bombs put out more energy than fission bombs)
jjhman on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 9:55 pm
It seems odd to blame the techies for something like this. There is huge social and political pressure to make something like this successful.
I would call the technical people working on this boondoggle just a bunch of guys and gals trying to fulfill a job they were asked to, and trained to, do.
I worked on a small piece of this nonsense over 35 years ago. I laughed reading the above article because the 14Mev neutrons were considered a potential showstopper then and apparently still is.
Hope springs eternal.
Sissyfuss on Fri, 20th Jan 2017 11:43 pm
I hope this doesn’t mean that I have to wait another ten years for my fusion powered electricity.
joe on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 1:07 am
In a fusion reaction, energy is released when two light atomic nuclei are fused together to form one heavier atom.
http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/How_fusion_works.aspx
if you take a cloud of hydrogen and condense it down into a sun, then the mass of that sun will be lighter than the original cloud at the end of that suns life. Its physics jj, its part of Entropy, I hope you heard of that, its important.
How iter work’s have a loom.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17950-iter-how-it-works/
They are building somthing that uses SEA WATER, huh, what, sea water? Thats right, far less carbon (global cooling), just messing with the water cycle now!
Go Speed Racer on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 3:42 am
what a phucking scam.
with all that money, they could have built
a great big steam engine, and generate some
electricity with it.
run the boilers on tires, old couches and garbage.
Cloggie on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 4:24 am
Agree with jjhman that fusion has the potential to work, in the very long run. But it requires an unprecedented concentration of capital, the developed world is running out of.
With solar and wind we at least have something that works, not just in the West, but elsewhere as well. And there is still a lot of potential to lower cost in the coming few decades, just like happened to IT, where in a matter of 30 years the computing power of entire data centers shrank to the size of a single smart phone.
Fusion, perhaps in 200 years.
Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:35 am
Clarg kunt, I hope you’re reincarnated as a polar bear. Either that or an African slave.
Cloggie on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 11:49 am
Fuss, I hope we can keep you out of the Gulag… or more likely, from keeping you becoming a Gulag overseer, considering your self-admitted socialist credentials.
http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/work-src/images/belbaltlag_detail.jpg
But I understand, the grapes are sour after yesterday. Life must be hell for you.
On a positive note, you can always escape to North-Korea. Say hello to Kim from me.
JuanP on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 12:28 pm
I will be amazed if this place ever generates more energy than it consumes. Look at all those lights illuminating the night sky. You could probably see this crap from another solar system.
Go Speed Racer on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 1:50 pm
Thinking what Juan said.
tk on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 2:32 pm
How much energy and what energy is required to “make” the fuel (deuterium, tritium, helium) and get it there?
Humankinds attempt to get the sun down here.
Unfortunately based on the premise of an
infinitely growing, centralized money(oil) ponzi.
Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 8:05 pm
Clargocult, I find Nero and his 37% following delightfully humorous in a Schadenfreude sort of way. His trickle down( no, not the golden one) economy won’t succeed and the canaille that worship him are armed to the teeth ( not their own, those are missing). As far as the gulag awaiting me, that’s a European delight (and I promise I’ll write). And now that Kim Dum One has discovered McDonald’s he will be exploding soon causing a massive EMP that will wipe all communications from Cloggieland.
jjhman on Sat, 21st Jan 2017 8:34 pm
Cloggie:
I don’t think I actually said it had the potential to work. What I would say is that it is theoretically possible and that the people working on it, on average much smarter than most, probably think it will work too.
I agree that, most simply said, it isn’t worth the effort when there are more probable success stories. Pick just about any of the upcoming renewables.
When I worked on fission reactors we used to say we could have produced more energy burning all the documents we created. fusion is obviously way past that already.
SA on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 5:59 am
Herewith some Alternative Facts:
Future fusion reactor designs aim at delivering competitively priced electricity. They are based on science that predicts that an ITER-like machine should achieve ten times as much fusion power, as the net power injected into the ITER fuel.
ITER has the goal of confirming this prediction and thus providing key input towards validation of fusion reactor designs.
Other types of power gains (e.g. fusion power / total electrical consumption) can be defined but they are less relevant to the design basis of fusion reactors.
Perhaps this could be better explained on the ITER website – but this article shows a misunderstanding of the purpose of ITER, which was never intended to generate power for consumption. Rather, it is for the exploration and validation of the underlying science.
Cloggie on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 6:46 am
Renewables = Over 50% New Electricity Capacity & 16% Of Energy Investment
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/24/renewables-50-new-electricity-capacity-16-energy-investment/
That figure of 50% will increase with every passing year. The battle has been won, as far as electricity is concerned.
Peak fossil demand will vastly outpace peak fossil supply (as far as electricity is concerned).
Cloggie on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 6:53 am
The main reason why renewables have won is not because of “green-leftist idealism” but because of cost:
https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2017/01/Renewable-Energy-Cost-Renewables-Cheapest-USA-e1485132831107.png
Expect the cost of renewable to decrease (spectacularly) over the coming few decades and at the same time the cost of fossil to increase. Certainly if a CO2-tax has to be taken into account.
#ItIsNotRocketSciene
Davy on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 6:57 am
Clog, please, this is all wonderful but still from such a low base that your back slapping is comedy. In 5 years and with a market penetration over 40% and still growing then I will join your party. Right now it is your type who are misleading people. We need honesty and sobriety now for a really tough world ahead. What we don’t need it false hopium of a techno deception that you represent. Give us a message of hope but don’t jump to the conclusion we are saved. You sound like as Easter Sunday preacher.
Cloggie on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 7:38 am
Give us a message of hope but don’t jump to the conclusion we are saved.
Didn’t say that were are “saved”.
Just said that as far as electricity is concerned the battle has been won and that in most places on this planet, after the old fossil power generation infrastructure has been written off in 30-50 years, it will have been mostly replaced by renewable energy.
That’s a prudent conclusion based on the cost data in my last link.
Davy on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 8:16 am
Clog, many things need to fall into place for that statement to have traction. This traction is needed in a time of great uncertainty. I am very happy we have at least this bright spot in our dark future. I am not ready to join your parade but I am hopeful these changes will leave us less exposed to a hellish future. This is still little comfort for much of the poorest of the world who will never see these benefit. I am speaking about them too.
GregT on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 9:27 am
Cloggie on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 6:46 am
Renewables = Over 50% New Electricity Capacity & 16% Of Energy Investment.
Fossil fuels still account for the other 50% and 84% respectively. Alternate electric power generation is adding to our global energy mix, not replacing fossil fuels, and so called “renewable energy”, is still being manufactured, transported, and maintained with fossil fuels, as is the entire grid and all of the goodies that we use that electricity for.
I have also embraced alternate electric power generation cloggie, and as I have mentioned before, our electric here is 100% hydro. As renewable as it gets. I am all for building out alternate electric power as much as possible while we still have the fossil fuels to do so, but they are a bridge to a vastly reduced a energy future, nothing more.
Cloggie on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 9:54 am
I am all for building out alternate electric power as much as possible while we still have the fossil fuels to do so, but they are a bridge to a vastly reduced a energy future, nothing more.
Since your children are eating from your wallet now, they will continue to do so when they have become adults.
That’s your “logic”.
They won’t.
You are being held hostage by your own erroneous opinions of the past. Sometimes you have to admit you are wrong. I admit now I was wrong with my obsolete 2012 “peak oil 2015 we’re f*” beliefs.
The rest of the world is moving on and preparing itself for a renewable future.
GregT on Tue, 24th Jan 2017 10:36 am
“The rest of the world is moving on and preparing itself for a renewable future.”
Sorry cloggie, but my part of the world already has alternate electric power generation, 100% from renewable sources, and has had for the better part of a century. It is your part of the world that has a lot of preparation and moving on to do. Our 100% renewable source of electricity runs 24/7, 365 days of the year, and does not have any need for storage and/or back up during periods of intermittency.
If all goes as planned in your part of the world, you too might have the same, but in all likelihood, not until after both you and I have long since been dead and buried. If that day ever does come, then perhaps the people might be able to wrap their heads around far more pressing issues, such as over population, medicine, food production, transportation, and water security.