UK politico proposes site for prototype nuclear fusion plant UK business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has proposed building the UK’s first nuclear fusion power plant in a center of industrial decline. His government has selected the site of West Burton power station in Nottinghamshire to house Britain's first Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype fusion energy plant, to …
Like me, I suspect you have no real idea if it requires funding levels of $250bn or not.
The one thing I do know is that setting the funding at $250bn would mean that is the minimum that will be spent, regardless of the outcome. As it is, $250m as first stage funding between now and 2024 is more than enough to show intent.
The basic point remains - if you don't set ambitious targets, you don't make the dramatic gains needed.
Why not spend that money on the existing ITER project instead? You also get the pooled expertise from international collaboration, and the economy of scale of having multiple contributors.
It's almost as if that sort of model of international cooperation is anathema to Rees-Mogg and his friends in Tufton Street.
While I wholeheartedly agree that would should collaborate internationally, that can also be seen as putting all your eggs in a single basket.
250M is not a lot to say, what about this way.
I admit, I've not looked into ITER fully but surely looking at multiple ways of doing things is better that trying one and potentially failing.
Fusion isn't the brand new unexplored area a lot of people seem to think it is. There's been a lot of study in the area and using modelling we can be pretty sure we know what will work and want won't. What we're not sure about are those intermediate cases but they would make poor power reactors anyway.
When the design for ITER was drawn up every design they could think of was looked at and the best was chosen. I don't know if the exact geometry of STEP was looked at but I'd put money on them looking at something very similar. The ITER design was selected because it was about the only one that stood a reasonable chance of being net positive in power and was also buildable. The big problem when they were designing ITER was predicting the power of the magnets they would commission. They had to guess because the world had never built magnets that large and powerful before. One of the key goals of the project was to set up a global supply chain for this type of magnet and in this respect it's been wildly successful.
In hindsight we can see they underestimated how powerful magnets would get. If they were designing ITER now they would spec much more powerful magnets and it would definitely be able to achieve a net gain in power output. The increase in magnet strength is why we are seeing an explosion in other reactor designs. Suddenly designs that didn't work or were marginal fall into the category of buildable. The basic rules of plasma physics haven't changed though so the design of ITER is still sound.
Another key issue with fusion power is where we'll get the tritium from for DT fusion. Current it almost all comes from Canadian CANDU reactors but they won't be around forever and they don't produce anywhere near enough to run a commercial fusion reactor. ITER is the only project, AKAIK, that has plans to investigate breeding tritium. There are other possible fusion reactions but none are anywhere near as advanced and all have issues that make them less appealing.
It's not that we shouldn't try other things it's that (many of) the other things look more like a high tech way to move large quantities of money into peoples bank accounts than genuine fusion research.
@Furious Reg reader John
Maybe you did not interpret my comment how they were intended.
I said research is (nearly always) a good think.
But was sceptical the stated outcome would be achieved.
Maybe* its my scientific training but I dislike the way it is is being pimped as we will have a viable fusion power station prototype..I prefer honesty, describe it as what it is - a research project, say that the ideal outcome would be a working 24/7 net positive energy generation prototype .. but emphasise that that outcome is highly unlikely i.e. Don't raise false hopes.
*.. also might be because I'm old enough to have seen what a struggle it has been to reach the few brief minutes of sustained fusion that is currently possible - the upscaling to 24/7 net positive energy output is going to be phenomenally difficult even though fusion research is now doing a lot better than it was decades ago.
Oh dear. Conservative Party Vapourware on Steroids. Is there an annual conference taking place? Are popular polls showing them trailing spectacularly?
Is Jacob fond of an occasional hit to help him feel superhumanly and pull rabbits out of top hats?
As a well known local toff politician, what do you think the chances are of him being able to deliver anything of what he says? Both history and recent form of most all outspoken politicians exercising themselves in the genre are certainly not kind to them and would have more than just a few asking if, before he rendered those few lines, had he partaken of a few, so vast and expensive and experimental is the aspiration.
Why are so many comments ad hominem?
There does seem to be progress in nuclear fusion, as Nature reported only in February this year, JET at Oxford (that will be Joint European BTW) seems to have made some significant achievements.
Would we rather that nothing was done?
That it is a 17 year project is surely to be commended. No one is going to win or lose an election based on their position regarding nuclear fusion. Energy security is a long term problem.
If it creates some jobs in an area with industrial decline that seems OK too. No-one is going to win a seat in Cornwall because some jobs were created in the old industrial heartlands.
Do any of the disparagers have any better ideas?
Always reminds me about the joke to the effect that all the people that should be running the country are too busy cutting hair or driving taxis. (I'm sure that list is extensible)
Regarding your downvote (one at the moment) I wonder if it was because they disagree with your description of the tories or because you were not singing from the hymn sheet of acceptable opinion
Because they are not serious, frequently corrupt people making ridiculous promises that very recent experience tells us they will not even start let along actually complete simply to get column inches in the few newspapers that still happily parrot their lies to their gullible readers.
Well, quite. A large part of the reason for the lack of progress with fusion is that the funding started to badly dry up as early as the mid '60s; I've mentioned before that my father-in-law worked on JET (I still have piles of his design documents for stuff like "ion thrustors" lying around and don't understand any of it) but it was with a decreasingly generous budget and most of his colleagues consequently departed for jobs with better prospects. Not even in the same field, I think a lot of them left nuclear physics to work in the burgeoning computer sector. I think his greatest regret was not doing the same. And the lack of funding was thanks to JRM's chums, in common with the trifling amount he thinks will get things moving again.
gerryg: "Why are so many comments ad hominem?"
Unfortunately Mr Rees-Mogg is rather unpopular, often due to his public pronouncements, and his attitude towards people who disagree with him. His reclining in the House of Commons when 'Leader of the House', for example was seen by many as treating the House with disrespect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCNwXHaTDik). His boasting that although the father of 6 children he had never changed a nappy (and recently complained that the British worker lacks 'graft') suggests a disrespectful attitude towards less well-off people than himself.
He was also, again as Leader of the House, partly responsible for the unlawful proroguing of parliament by Boris Johnson in an attempt to prevent the debating of anything in the run up to the UK leaving the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_controversy).
A recent (4th October 2022) article on the front page of the FT was headlined "No10 quashes Rees-Mogg's 'half-baked' work reforms'. It seems that he wanted to remove employment protection from people paid over GBP50,000 a year and various other things bound to alienate the workforce and union members.
@gerryg you make some good points and i am fully in favour of spending money on ambitious projects.
My issue is this being sold as a a answer to energy dependence and a done thing. It is not. No one has any idea whether this will work, whether it is the correct approach and if it does, it will still only be a prototype and a long way from a working production power source.
Yes, lets spend the money, but lets not ride the Mogg hype train (Steam powered of course) and call it what it is. A fusion power plant research project
I read an article in one of the early computer mags (in the 80s, so on paper!) where they were satirically bemoaning (a precursor to El Reg perhaps?) how the software specs will always be in the most inconvenient units possible and casually threw out the example of acceleration in furlongs per square fortnight ...
(approximately 0.137 nm/s^2 in case you wondered)
JRM said the benefits of Brexit would not be seen for 50 years, so 17 years to see a working fusion reactor means that fusion will be achieved well before any Brexit benefits.
https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a22513246/jacob-rees-mogg-claims-we-might-not-see-benefits-of-brexit-for-50-years/
@trevorde
"JRM said the benefits of Brexit would not be seen for 50 years, so 17 years to see a working fusion reactor means that fusion will be achieved well before any Brexit benefits."
It was amazing to see how wrong he was. I doubt he could have foreseen the instant benefits.
@Loyal Commenter
"I suspect your up-votes there are from people who assumed you were being ironic."
You hope. I do want to let you know I am appreciating your other comments on this topic making great arguments for smaller government-
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/10/05/reesmogg_proposes_site_for_prototype/#c_4542978
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/10/05/reesmogg_proposes_site_for_prototype/#c_4542971
You may read it that way, but then again, you seem to be wilfully conflating that argument with one for not wasting money. I'm not against spending money on nuclear fusion, I am against wasting it on vanity projects.
Anyway, back to your original comment. Please list those immediate benefits.
I know I've asked you this before, and you've failed to do so every time, but hope does spring eternal.
For reference, opinion pieces from right-wing think-tanks, the opinions of Patrick Minford vs those of every sane economist on the planet, and the blogs of UKIP members don't count as factual evidence.
@Loyal Commenter
"You may read it that way, but then again, you seem to be wilfully conflating that argument with one for not wasting money."
Yup thats the way I read it. A good argument for smaller government so they are not wasting money. In your comments you complain about them putting future governments on the hook for spending-
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/10/05/reesmogg_proposes_site_for_prototype/#c_4542978
And you complain about them funnelling money to the unproven technology- https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/10/05/reesmogg_proposes_site_for_prototype/#c_4542971
"I'm not against spending money on nuclear fusion, I am against wasting it on vanity projects."
So your assuming this is a vanity project instead of spending money on nuclear fusion, although this is spending money on nuclear fusion but you class it as a vanity project?? How do you tell the difference?
"Anyway, back to your original comment. Please list those immediate benefits.
I know I've asked you this before, and you've failed to do so every time, but hope does spring eternal."
It seems the last time we discussed this was February so maybe thats why your recollection is 'off'.
>The easiest immediate benefit was Covid vaccinations. Unless you believe the UK is somehow better run than every member government and the EU government itself then the speedy vaccination is an immediate win.
>Also we are not paying for the EU covid fund.
>We were much quicker to support Ukraine and are not tainted by EU infighting which is making up for the taint of being in the EU when it caused problems in Ukraine.
How do you tell the difference?
How do you tell the difference between facts and bullshit? I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. It seems that many people can, and some can't. Others may be taken in by it, but come to their senses after a while.
I think the key is probably in spotting the warning signs. Something coming from the mouth of Jacob Rees-Mogg is certainly one of those as far as I am concerned. I'd like to be proven wrong on this occasion, because practical cost-effective nuclear fusion would be a boon for the whole human race, but I'm deeply cynical about this one, sorry. Not just because who is saying it, although that does play a big part of it in this instance, but because of the long and torturous history of nuclear fusion research in general. I can almost guarantee that I know more about the subject than a man who doesn't even have a computer on his work desk, and whose job appears to revolve around leaving sarcastic post-it notes on people's desks. Unlike JRM, I have two degrees in the physical sciences, and have been following the progress of fusion research over the last thirty or so years.
@Loyal Commenter
"Something coming from the mouth of Jacob Rees-Mogg is certainly one of those as far as I am concerned."
So has this come from the mouth of some other figurehead it would have seemed better to you? Still throwing money at the same problem with the same millstone around the next government (as you aptly put it)? Which one would you trust to say it? From any party?
So you didn't read the following sentence that started with the words "not just" which explicitly says the opposite of the words you just tried to put in my mouth?
I've noticed that this is a tendency with your comments; deliberately arguing against what you would have liked me to have said, rather than what I actually write. It belies a deceitful nature, and an inability to honestly answer a question. I'd ask whether you've considered a job in politics, but I fear that you may already have, and that's part of the problem.
@Loyal Commenter
"So you didn't read the following sentence that started with the words "not just" which explicitly says the opposite of the words you just tried to put in my mouth?"
Sorry if I misunderstood your comment when you said-
"Something coming from the mouth of Jacob Rees-Mogg is certainly one of those as far as I am concerned"
"Not just because who is saying it, although that does play a big part of it in this instance"
So while you said not just I also quoted the rest of that line from your own mouth (fingers). Which is why I asked- "So has this come from the mouth of some other figurehead it would have seemed better to you?". Since according to you who says it makes a big part of it (in this instance).
"I've noticed that this is a tendency with your comments; deliberately arguing against what you would have liked me to have said, rather than what I actually write."
I tend to stomp on your comments using your own comments. Sorry if you dont like it but you wrote it. Or do you disown what you write once you submit it? What does that say about your nature and suitability for politics?
If you copy and paste every other sentence from a paragraph, you can radiacally change the meaning conveyed. Whodathunkit?
To sum up what I was actually saying; I don't trust a thing that comes out of JRM's mouth, but even if you put to one side the person who is saying it, what is being said is still deeply suspicious.
Is that succinct enough for you?
For starters, the amount of money being spent, whilst a large number, is orders of magnitude smaller than that being spent on the ITER plant at Cadarache. Admittedly, that is a research plant, but pretending that the research has been done already won't make this thing cheaper, especially when it is based on a different type of reactor to ITER (a spherical tokamak, rather than toroidal, which is not something with the long research track record of toroids).
As I said, I'd like to be proven wrong, but going from the history of both fusion power research and large government development projects, this is almost 100% guaranteed to be a money sink with no result at the end. At least not a working nuclear fusion power plant, demonstrator or otherwise.
@Loyal Commenter
"If you copy and paste every other sentence from a paragraph, you can radiacally change the meaning conveyed. Whodathunkit?"
Exactly which is why when you selectively posted "not just" I posted your entire sentence- "Not just because who is saying it, although that does play a big part of it in this instance". Because your attempt to again change the meaning of your posts can be resolved by quoting your actual post. Whodathunkit?
"To sum up what I was actually saying; I don't trust a thing that comes out of JRM's mouth, but even if you put to one side the person who is saying it, what is being said is still deeply suspicious.
Is that succinct enough for you?"
Sure. I dont care if what you wrote was hyperbole or a dislike of the man/party. I was genuinely asking if there was a single politician of any party you would feel better coming out with this stuff. Somehow this ended up down the rabbit hole of you denying you wrote what was in your comment and complaining I selectively quoted your comment by you selectively quoting your own comment.
> False. Any EU country could have done the same. You're claiming that a member of a cricket club can only buy beer at the club bar.
> Assuming you mean the Covid recovery funding, it's money the UK could have actually received if it had still been an EU member. Though as it's impossible to know whether the UK would have been a net recipient, I'll give you a "possibly" on this one.
> Mostly False. The EU arguments have been about applying sanctions on gas and oil, not the material support of military hardware being provided by the UK, USA and several EU member states. The UK would have been able to provide far more help if still a member of the EU, due to the gas terminal infrastructure and could have been very helpful in the argument. But it's not in that room so can't help Ukraine in that way.
@Richard 12
"> False. Any EU country could have done the same. You're claiming that a member of a cricket club can only buy beer at the club bar."
Actually I did not say anything remotely close to that. Go back and read.
"> Assuming you mean the Covid recovery funding, it's money the UK could have actually received if it had still been an EU member. Though as it's impossible to know whether the UK would have been a net recipient, I'll give you a "possibly" on this one."
Really? You dont know if a net contributor would be one that is a net contributor?
"> Mostly False. The EU arguments have been about applying sanctions on gas and oil, not the material support of military hardware being provided by the UK, USA and several EU member states. The UK would have been able to provide far more help if still a member of the EU, due to the gas terminal infrastructure and could have been very helpful in the argument. But it's not in that room so can't help Ukraine in that way."
Eh? You mention EU member states which of course provide as much or as little assistance as they choose (Germany taking some criticism for backing down on offering tanks and such) but the EU, that is the EU itself was imposing partial bans on Russian oil and gas. I think they finally toughened it eventually. A bit of financial support but the UK response has been firm and reliable.
"I doubt he could have foreseen the instant benefits."
What instant Brexit benefits? {Blue passports don't count - especially when you're in the queues for EU border contriol.} You've still not been able to identify one of these supposed benefits, instant or not. And you always run away in a smokescreen of bullshit and whataboutery whenever you're challenged about this..
Brexit benefits my arse.
