Sabine Hossenfelder
How close is nuclear fusion to break-even? If you trust the headlines we’re getting close and the international project ITER is going to be the first to produce energy from fusion power. But not so fast. Scientists have, accidentally or deliberately, come to use a very misleading quantity to measure their progress. Unfortunately we’re much farther away from generating fusion power than the headlines suggest.
Phillip Ball’s article in the Guardian is here: https://www.theguardian.com/environme…
The one in Science Magazine is here: https://www.science.org/lookup/doi/10…
The document from the European Parliament Assessment is here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/10593…
The interview with Holtkamp is here: https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/…
The numbers for JET quoted at around 9 mins can be found here: http://aei.pitt.edu/88591/1/1982.pdf
Walkden’s TED talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Kof…
Footage at 11 mins 14 seconds from Steven B. Krivit’s video “ITER, The Grand Illusion” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnikA… which is worth watching in full length if you want to know more about the problem. You find more information on Krivit’s website: http://news.newenergytimes.net/iter-f…
Ivone Benfatto’s numbers about the ITER power consumption are here: https://cds.cern.ch/record/987554/fil…
My review of Turrell’s book is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/bo…
Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video http://jordibusque.com/ You can support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sabine
0:00 Intro 0:35 Sponsor Message
1:33 Two different energy gains
4:44 The problem
7:28 How close are we to break even?
10:00 Scientists who spread the confusion
11:40 What are we to make of this?