Princeton is doing well, but JET is where it's at.. The world's largest nuclear fusion research facility:
EFDA-JET, the world's largest nuclear fusion research experiment Quote:
Q:What would be the soonest fusion power could be operable in Europe if funding were increased, and energy funding diverted from fossil fuel energy research, and finally, if the fusion research projects of the USA, EU, and Japan were combined, what is the soonest fusion power could be efficiently operated?
A: The next step from JET (and the other tokamak research being undertaken around the world) is a device called ITER, an international tokamak project, 2-3 times bigger than JET, costing several billion pounds and capable of producing significantly more fusion power for longer periods. This will demonstrate the feasibility of the plasma physics and fusion engineering of a potential power plant and, given the present funding, is planned to be built in the next 10-15 years - an eventual commercial power plant probably being 30-40 years away. However, if the present international funding for fusion were increased, ITER could definitely be built more quickly and fusion power could be a reality much more quickly - in possibly half the time if the present funding levels were increased significantly.
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Yes.. usable fusion power is within our grasp.. and possibly.. probably.. could be in 15 or 20 years, IF we could get funding.
At their site (above) you will see how.. again.. we are continuing to slip away from the leading edge of anything.. except maybe opening the most Walmart stores.
"JET is presently the only machine in the world able to operate with plasma currents above 5,000,000 amperes. Recent operations of JET have investigated plasma scenarios with toroidal plasma currents up to 3,500,000 amperes in preparation for performing experiments at even higher currents." (excerpt from site)
Yeah.. NASA was the can-do org.. but then along came the repub's (tricky-Dick) -- et al..
