Jacques Foos, honorary professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, in an article in L'Expansion . Com highlights doubts about the international project ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), starting from the statements of the Nobel Prize Georges Charpak to pull a surprise in the relevance of the dance project that seeks to achieve controlled nuclear fusion, carried out by international teams of researchers. The questions arise from the fact that some alleged benefits of the merger does not now seem so obvious but the technical difficulties while making the enormous price and considerable delays in its implementation.
Proponents of the merger as an argument using the fact that it does not produce radioactive fission as classical. But the process is free of tritium, a radioactive element that is difficult to confine to its small mass with the consequent risk of falling into non-negligible amount. In addition, the fusion reactions produce high energy neutrons that induce radioactivity in all the materials and structure within the perimeter of the reactor, which practically does not happen in current reactors. In terms of radioactivity created, you can say that there are as many kilowatt-hours produced becquerel created for fission.
Another topic: the merger is an inexhaustible source of energy. However, the fusion reactor requires for its operation of significant amounts of lithium, which is a relatively rare metal. Above all, the argument is now with the advent of more sustainable, now very close, the fourth generation of reactors, particularly in fast neutron reactors that make the conventional fuel, uranium and plutonium, a source of energy for several millennia.
We can therefore legitimately question, "says Foos, on a project, given its cost in the past year, from 6 to 16 billion euro. 45% percent of this amount is charged to Europe, though it should be seen as an international project in a broader sense, as if the project succeeds, it is certain that technological implications of it will benefit the whole world or where it has funded or not. And, therefore, Foos says, it is logical that everyone pays "to see" something that does not happen today, while some, including France, pay a very heavy. And nothing indicates that this budget is not revised true-up in the future, having almost tripled in recent years. And given the delays, the fuel will not be charged prior to 2026, Foos wonders how many of those now participating in the experiment, will present at the first trial.
Certainly the merger is a formidable challenge for scientists. The history of fusion is as old as the universe, since the first nuclear reactions began a millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Even today 80% of the shining stars in the universe for fusion reactions, such as the sun consumes 460 million tons of hydrogen per second for a power loss of 4 billion billion kW. The fusion reactions, then, produce a greater amount of energy, 7 times more than fission reactions used in nuclear reactors. However, because the atomic nuclei can fuse, we need temperatures of the order of a billion degrees, temperatures that occur naturally inside the stars. Another question is if the man wants to recreate these conditions and especially to control the reaction.
The first use was made of the merger, was the military by building a bomb. A use which does not control the reaction. Furthermore, to obtain the required temperature using a classical fission bomb. The control of the reaction is much more complicated, since the merger appears to be a way to produce energy giant in solid state materials that can not withstand temperatures above a few thousand degrees. Hence the idea of \u200b\u200bconfining the hot plasma with magnetic fields. The first experiments were made in the USA in 1938 and the first experimental reactor, the tokamak, were developed during the years 1958-1968, and are working in different countries. The ITER project is not just another prototype should demonstrate the industrial feasibility of a fusion reactor. For this reason, must be able to produce more energy than is needed to achieve the fusion process and to monitor this process for a period of about 5 minutes.
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