International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor | Alternative Energy | Forums

I hope this doesn't get shelved

On a patch of land in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, in the South of France, cranes recently installed two massive electrical fixtures, industrial gray and 87 tons each — the first components of a plant that will house the world’s biggest scientific project.

If it succeeds, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, will turn hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, into virtually limitless clean energy. But success is far from assured, getting results will take years, and construction is behind schedule.

Now Congress has split on whether to continue supporting the enterprise at all. This summer, the Senate is expected to vote on an appropriations bill that would kill America’s planned $150 million contribution to ITER for next year. The House, meanwhile, wants to keep paying. Last month, the chamber passed spending that leaves next year’s ITER money intact.

Ambitious science projects frequently crash into funding rocks, and nuclear fusion is a particularly vexing problem for politicians. More than four decades have been spent trying to turn the reaction that fuels stars and H-bombs into a viable source of energy. Is it worth shelling out ever more on a very risky bet with a big potential payoff — a step towards securing the world’s, not to mention the country’s, energy future? Or is it yet another boondoggle science project recklessly spending taxpayer money?

For fusion’s believers, ITER may seem worth the price tag, now estimated at $19.4 billion. Billed as “a new model of international scientific collaboration,” it boasts 35 countries contributing money, products, and expertise. First proposed at the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev Geneva summit, it began as a partnership intended to lessen Cold War tensions. Europe, Japan, and others later joined. Its acronym is a Latin word meaning “the way.”

But like many “big science” projects, it has a record of overrunning its cost estimates. Americans pulled out of the consortium before, in 2000, due to worries about expenses and premature technology. Better science and a slimmed-down budget projection eventually wooed Congress to rejoin in 2006. Yet money was nearly eliminated two years later, when the tab began growing again, even as government budgets tightened.

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