h/t Peta of Newark; The British Government is seriously telling people in working class areas they will have jobs at an operational, power producing nuclear fusion plant by 2040.
The story below is over a month old, but I decided to cover this anyway, for reasons which will become apparent.
Another STEP towards near limitless, low-carbon energy at West Burton
FEATUREDGENERAL NEWS
8th February 2023
Updated: 8th February 2023The future of abundant low-carbon energy without the need for fossil fuels could be in sight after Science Minister George Freeman announced the creation of a new delivery body for the UK’s fusion programme, named UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd.
…
On the visit to the future site of the UK’s first prototype fusion energy plant at West Burton, near Retford, the minister urged energy companies and investors to recognise the vast potential fusion energy could have for both the UK and the wider world.
The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) plant will be constructed by 2040 to demonstrate the ability to use fusion energy to generate electricity for the UK grid.
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Read more: https://www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk/mag/news/another-step-towards-near-limitless-low-carbon-energy-at-west-burton/
Is the Spherical tokamak a world leading design? Absolutely. Spherical tokamaks, like Stellarators, are a promising attempt to address the topological defects which afflict traditional donut shaped fusion plasmas, to reduce the opportunity for energy loss and a fusion plasma flameout.
But there are still enormous obstacles to overcome. For example, even if they manage to create a self sustaining plasma, there is the unsolved problem of creating materials which can survive the radiation emitted by the plasma. It is not just the heat, which is manageable, the particle radiation emitted by the plasma is so intense it causes the supporting structures to break down at the molecular and atomic levels, leading to rapid embrittlement and structural failure.
But I think there is another reason these over optimistic promises are being made.
Nottinghamshire’s lost mining jobs ‘could be replaced’ by nuclear site
An inquiry will look into why the UK’s former mining areas are ‘lagging behind’
By Oliver Pridmore Agenda Editor
04:00, 3 DEC 2022MPs in Nottinghamshire’s former coalfield communities say the construction of the UK’s first nuclear fusion site in the county could replace some of the jobs lost from coal mining. A national inquiry has launched to consider questions such as whether the job losses from the coal industry have been fully replaced and whether these jobs are adequate in terms of pay and opportunities.
A devolution deal to give more power to Nottinghamshire councils has also been highlighted as something which could improve long-term opportunities for people living in former coalfield areas. Nottinghamshire was home to several pits in areas such as Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Mansfield, but most of them closed in the 90s and early 2000s, with the county’s last working colliery at Thoresby closing in 2015.
Since then, studies have shown people in these former mining areas find it harder to get good jobs than in other areas of the country. A 2019 report by Sheffield Hallam University found the former coalfields have only 55 employee jobs per 100 residents of working age, compared to a national average of 73.
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Read more: https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/nuclear-site-could-replace-nottinghamshires-7877382
We already know why former mining regions and other deprived areas in Britain are not advancing. High taxes are deterring investment. In recent years you can add high energy prices to this witches brew of economic despair. If you want a detailed discussion of this issue, and why such once wealthy areas fell into poverty, I recommend you watch The Trillion Pound Horror Story.
So why promise fusion jobs in the near future, to people in working class areas who have suffered decades of severe economic hardship and broken promises?
In my opinion, the fusion hype is a cynical political campaign tactic.
The British Conservatives know they face a difficult general election in 2025. They would really like to hang on to working class areas they snatched from Labour in 2019.
To promise an operational reactor by 2040, while glossing over the enormous and near term likely unsolvable engineering challenges, to toy with people’s hopes, promising people they’ll have jobs to replace lost fossil fuel and mining jobs, in my opinion is an act of political contempt. In my opinion the nuclear fusion hype is a vile political deceit whose sole intention is to retain political support amongst demographic groups who understandably feel let down by the complete failure of British Conservatives to improve the lives of ordinary working people.
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”…….in my opinion is an act of political contempt”. This is what politicians do, regardless of party!
WUWT reader ‘Yooper’ points to a promotional video from Helion. That firm and its senior managers aren’t the only ones claiming they are on the cusp of a transformational fusion power breakthrough.
Helion is one of several fusion developers who claim they can have a commercial-scale fusion power plant in operation within a decade’s time using their own flavor of breakthrough fusion technology.
As these claims go, the only bottleneck to progress is access to money. If enough money can be invested in their technology ASAP, then the promise of limitless energy from fusion is at mankind’s doorstep in a decade’s time or less.
In addition to being its own brand of energy promise scam, the promotion of fusion power has another purpose which will become more apparent as the vendors for small modular nuclear reactors get closer to placing their first SMR designs into production operation.
The argument will be made that since the SMRs have already been made obsolete by these new fusion technologies, and because the costs of the oncoming SMRs are continuing to rise, no further money should be spent on fission reactors.
Which is exactly the same claim that the advocates of wind and solar are now making about new-build nuclear.
Do you know how many people have said “here is an idea, all I need is a lot of money” and then taken it and nothing happened? Take our high speed railway in the UK. A significant length of it connecting several cities was estimated to cost £30 Billion and be ready in 5 years. So far only part of it has cost £100 Billion and is expected to cost a lot more. Just the interest on this money will cost £1000 per seat even if 5 million people a year use it, which they won’t. These seats will save about 20 minutes journey time. The they decide to not connect a mainline station at the London end, needing a 30 minute journey by subway to get to the start point. Stupid or what?
It’s not precisely accurate to say that nothing happened. Billions of pounds were handed to people whose participation in the high speed railway project benefited them personally, but at what cost to the long-term productivity of the UK economy?
This looks like a non-solution to a non-problem.
Good for some .Great salaries and conditions with out actually producing any thing useful. When will they ever learn?
“An inquiry will look into why the UK’s former mining areas are ‘lagging behind’”
No comment.
No, it’s 2053. Fusion is thirty years away. Didn’t they get the memo?
Seriously … it is gaslighting to tell Joe Q. Public that he will have a job working at a fusion plant, or even ON one down the pike. All the juicy construction jobs will be jobbed out to a water-starved army of transnational consultants with fancy certifications, and the actual operations of the thing(s) will be as dummy-proof as the proverbial nuclear reactors that Homer Simpson enjoys employment at.
Well, maybe there’ll be a lot of high-risk jobs of very short duration, scraping the walls of the Fusor to suck up the unobtainium bits.
But overall employment? I hardly think so at all.
FIRST … we need to get ANY POWER from fusion at all.
Then we need to get a LOT of power from it.
Then we need to rubber-stamp the things cheaply.
And lastly, import the last unicorn horn magic fairy dust to keep em publicly hot.
Just saying…
Even NATO’s think-tank Atlantic Council has woken up :
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/what-to-know-about-fusion/
“Fusion energy could eventually underpin the entire US energy system, but it cannot do so without solid policy backing and regulatory clarity. The private capital-fueled fusion boom and international policy headway proves that the time to engender that support is now.”
What the Atlantic Council has done is to get on the bandwagon of giving the near-term delivery of fusion an aura of technical and economic credibility which it most certainly does not actually possess.
Sez you.
NATO knows what a Manhattan Program actually means, they keep rabbiting on about B61’s.
Sez me. And with gusto. Put that in your magnetic field and plasma it.
Have a chat with NATO Sec. Stoltenberg – oh wait , Ursula van der Leyen reported as next chief.
Popcorn!
Fusion power made a big progress. We will get it in 17 years, not 50 as usual.
Please tell us how to :
Look at the Sun’s surface, what do you see? I see chaotic reactions with a huge spectrum of products, in obviously random patterns of magnetic fields, none of which can be predicted. This is exactly what happens in our test “reactors”, without the constraint of a huge gravitational field holding everything down!
Plasma focus achieves a billion degrees, a miniature version of Sun plasma pinches, plus quantum effects.
Look at the Sun again, and for that matter Quasars.
One thing I didn’t see here is how much money is being spent on this fusion experiment. My guess is you could take that same money and build a brand new clean burning coal burning power plant, open the closed mines and most important have energy and jobs now.
Fusion News, March 22, 2023 Fusion Industry Association
Act now and receive your first free shipment of bugs and 10 percent off your Paul Ehrlich cemetery plot.
“The disconnect between politics and reality has never been greater in this country”. Oh that it were only a disconnect between politics and reality. Step back and look at the entirety of our civilization. Close to a majority believe that reality is just a suggestion and Man controls everything.
No matter how many times you point out that all of modern civilization, from roads to medicines is dependent on oil, the faithful believe that we can merely find cost effective alternatives. No matter how many times you point out that solar panels cannot generate more energy, and actually far less, than the energy of the sunlight that falls on it, they think Moore’s law will apply ad infinitum. Regardless of a straightforward analysis of battery technology showing the limitations of energy densities, a breakthrough of super batteries will happen any day now. batteries.
Then add in social issues. Some believe if you suppress some hormones and boost others you can override a person’s biological sex, as though that is the only difference.
Move on to random acts of crime. Pushing an innocent unsuspecting person onto the tracks as a train approaches has no consequences in the perpetrators world.
Some do not see that the real world precludes socialism ever working.
I would guess that close to 40% of voters hold beliefs that deny reality. We are in a world of trouble.
Here’s today’s nice tidbit to add to this thread:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-company-signs-deals-europe-small-nuclear-reactors
An absurd opening sentence “the future of abundant low-carbon energy without the need for fossil fuels could be in sight”
· Low carbon energy, i.e., renewables and fusion, only generate electricity. Wind, solar, and nuclear manufacture nothing for humanity, they only generate electricity.
· Fossil fuels, on the other hand, manufacture everything for humanity, products and transportation fuels.
In fact, all the parts and components for wind, solar, and nuclear are made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil!
Thus, ridding the world of oil will eliminate wind, solar, and nuclear!
Fusion by 2040? Someone has been working the pipe too long.
I think we will eventually have workable fusion, and that will resolve all the electricity problems of the world (except those caused by politics). But we cant set a date until we have workable experimental fusion — then we can predict scietally functioning fusion power plants.
JFK set a date for the Moon, FDR et al set a date for the Manhattan Program. Looks like it all about setting dates.
Then when the going gets tough the tough get going and deliver.
It was the British who claimed to have fusion int the bag back in the 50’s, when the phrase “too cheap to meter” became popular.
Back during the Fukushima disaster, I remember looking up the number of nuclear power plants active or under construction. I seem to remember finding 3 (or 4) plants under construction that were designated “fusion” plants .. in France, I seem to remember.
story tip :
Pentagon fake news about Chinese fast breeder reactors
Assistant Secretary of Defense John Plumb knew better when characterizing Russia-China reactor cooperation as a nuclear weapon threat
https://asiatimes.com/2023/04/pentagon-fake-news-about-chinese-fast-breeder-reactors/
…
“.achieving a “closed” fuel cycle, increasing by a factor of 100 the amount of energy that can be extracted from uranium, and creating a basis for fission reactors to potentially supply the world’s energy needs for hundreds or even thousands of years. ”
Fusion does not mean fission nor oil is finished – The Bronze Age did not mean we had run out of stones.