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ITER Costs Give Partners Pause
Daniel Clery, Science
Last week, ITER scientists revealed a new cost estimate for the multibillion-dollar fusion reactor that was 30% higher than earlier calculations. Now the project’s seven international partners must decide whether they can afford it.
ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is designed to show conclusively that fusing together hydrogen isotopes at extreme temperatures–the process that powers the sun–can be harnessed on Earth as a practical energy source. Fifteen years of discussion and experiment led in 2001 to a “final” design for the 20,000-ton ITER reactor, twice the size in linear dimensions of the world’s current largest.
… Fusion experts say that it’s notoriously hard to keep such large projects within budget. “When they actually go out and build things, they always cost more,” says Stephen Dean, president of Fusion Power Associates, a lobby group in Gaithersburg, Maryland. But ITER scientists believe that the design changes are crucial to the project’s chance of success and that the partners should approve the new cost estimate.
… The panel tasked with assessing the new cost estimate will be led by Frank Briscoe, former operations director of the JET fusion reactor near Oxford, U.K. The European Union, which as host must bear nearly 50% of the cost, declined comment on the new estimate beyond saying, in the words of research spokesperson Catherine Ray, that “we’re happy [Briscoe’s] group has been set up.” Meanwhile, the partners in the world’s most expensive experiment will be debating its future.
(27 June 2008)
Original behind a paywall.
Contributor shane writes:
“Meanwhile, the partners in the world’s most expensive experiment will be debating its future.”
As I’ve said before, the worlds most expensive experiment is the uncontrolled injection of CO2 into the Earths atmosphere.
Nuclear Cost Estimates
Pam Radtke Russell, EnergyBiz Insider, Energy Central
The rising cost of materials and labor has the potential to put an end to the nuclear renaissance before it ever gets started. Company estimates that have been released show costs for an individual unit could be as high as $12 billion, and one consultant expects those estimates could rise if material prices continue to escalate.
Florida Power & Light told the Florida Public Service Commission late last year that the cost for building new units at Turkey Point in south Florida could be up to $8,000 per kilowatt — or $24 billion for two units. Earlier this year, Progress Energy pegged its cost estimates for two new units on Florida’s west coast at about $14 billion plus $3 billion for transmission and distribution. While Progress’ estimates are lower than FPL’s, they are more than twice as much as the $2,000 per kilowatt that industry contractors promised for new nuclear plants just two years ago.
(23 June 2008)
From an industry publication.
Carbon sequestration: bury the idea, not the CO2
Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine
… Real solutions, please
Why introduce yet another expensive, energy-intensive and risky technology if there are so many other and better ways to solve the energy crisis? If we chose to build a completely new infrastructure of pipelines comparable to that of the existing oil and gas industry, why not build something like an extensive underground tubular freight network instead? This would be a real solution, which would considerably lower transport energy use and CO2-emissions.
Why not channel the huge amount of money needed for the development of CCS to countries with tropical rainforests, so that they have a very good reason to protect them fiercely? Stopping deforestation, especially in tropical forests, would contribute more to the fight against global warming than carbon capture technology could ever do. Tropical forests store enormous amounts of carbon and they are not prone to natural forest fires.
Why not put into force a regulation that prohibits the construction of any more power plants that burn non-renewable energy sources? There is already an enormous energy capacity in the world, why don’t we chose to do it with the energy plants that we have? This would at last make energy efficiency useful (because progress in energy efficiency is now always again nullified by new and more energy hungry products and services). Still want more energy? Build a solar plant or plant a windmill.
These are just 3 ideas that would be effective without the need to adapt our lifestyle (which is, of course, also the attraction of “clean coal”). They would not solve everything, but at least they would be very welcome steps into the right direction, the direction of a solution.
All high-tech carbon storage strategies described in this article are no solutions, they are just attempts to limit the problem. Let’s hope that the next appeal of the International Energy Association and of the Science Academies of the world (an awful lot of brains there) will contain a trace of innovative thinking.
(29 June 2008)
Long article; the excerpt is just the conclusion. Recommended by JMG at Gristmill.
