[profound (OP)]

The ITER is a huge failure and will continue to be no matter what they do.The cost has ballooned to 40 billion...what a expensive joke.

Australia is a fairly small country (population 24 million), but Australia is spending $50 billion (AUD) on submarines.
The USA uses nuclear submarines, at about $5 billion each (not including the nuclear missiles).

ITER is a consortium of at least 20 countries, totalling over 2 billion population. On a per-capita basis, ITER is very economical, and will do more for humanity than all the world's submarines.

As you can see in a spherical shape you cannot have these kinks but in a circular ribbon of plasma it's impossible to stop the kinking no matter how much you try.

There is more to it than just the shape.
- The JET project did manage to produce 16 Megawatts of fusion energy. This was with a torus-type design, but smaller than ITER.
- There are devices called "spherical Tokamaks", but they still use toroidal magnetic fields
- It is very hard to contain plasma in a sphere using magnetic fields - that is why most of the recent research has been based on the Russian Tokamak design, with a toroidal magnetic field.

If you want to contain a plasma, you could imitate the Sun and surround it with 400,000km of insulating gas - but then it becomes impractically large for use near cities.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus#Future

A spherical shaped fusion reactor can be made easily and the electric/magnetic fields used to contain it by using a large number of external magnetic fields.They do it already using polywell test reactors.

ITER is totally useless and even if they get containment for 90 seconds (which i totally doubt by the way) HOW are they going to get any energy OUT of it bearing in mind how fragile the whole thing to even the slightest magnetic field imperfection???

There is simply no way you access the torus as the the containment coils must not be disturbed even slightly.

Have any of you thought of that?

[Bored chemist]

actually i have.

Do you mean that you have spotted the contradiction?
I hope so.
Anyway, there are practical reasons for using a torus- it's possible to put energy into it easily.
I'm not saying you can't do that with a (roughly) spherical geometry.
I even hope to try it some day.- like this  http://www.fusor.net/
But  all you have done is come up with a flawed reason why something can't work- even though the experiments show that it does work.

You will have to do a lot better than that to convince anyone.

[evan_au]

actually i have.in a sphere the particles only have 2 main DEGREES OF FREEDOM.... outwards and inwards.

I am afraid that "outwards and inwards" is only 1 degree of freedom (in a sphere, using radial coordinates).

However, there are many oscillation modes you can get in a spherical plasma.
- There are Alfvén waves in the body of the plasma
- Wherever there is a magnetic field, you get the ions spiraling around the magnetic field lines
 

in a sphere there can be no kinks..using a large number of external magnetic fields

The pressure of a plasma is continually changing, based on all those oscillation modes.
In a static magnetic field, when the pressure is momentarily higher than average, the magnetic field kinks out of the way, weakening the field in this area, which pushes more plasma into the gap, weakening the magnetic field - and immediately fails. It doesn't matter that these magnetic fields are organized in a sphere.

The problem with "a large number of" magnetic fields is that there are "a large number of" gaps between the separate fields, where plasma can "leak out". The beauty of the toroidal fusion reactor is that the magnetic field has no "edges", so there are fewer leaks.

HOW are they going to get any energy OUT of it bearing in mind how fragile the whole thing to even the slightest magnetic field imperfection???

Getting energy out is actually fairly easy: The plasma radiates uncharged particles like photons (X-Rays and above) and neutrons. These are absorbed by the surrounding containment walls, where it heats the coolant, and the coolant can be used to drive a turbine (except ITER will just passively dissipate the power; it won't turn a turbine).

Part of the problem is reflecting enough heat back into the plasma to keep it at the millions of degrees needed to maintain fusion. This is helped by keeping impurities out of the plasma, which reduces radiation with a line spectrum.

One of the (many) challenges is actually extracting "burnt" fuel (Helium-4 ions) from the plasma, while retaining the "unburnt" fuel inside the plasma (Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3 ions), while maintaining the plasma electrically neutral.

the outward pressure gas radiation pressure is balanced by gravity.

It is estimated that a practical fusion reactor would only have a few grams of plasma at any instant. So the gravitational attraction of the plasma is negligible.

If you are talking about power stations on Earth, Earth's gravity will provide a small containment force for plasma ions moving away from the Earth, but no containment for ions moving horizontally, and will actually accelerate dispersion for ions moving towards the center of the Earth.

Even for ions moving upwards, the velocity of ions at a temperature of millions of degrees will exceed Earth's escape velocity. So even Earth's gravity is insufficient to contain a plasma.
You need a much stronger gravity field - solar power uses the Sun's gravity field to contain the plasma.

[Bored chemist]

The Sun is not, in fact, spherical.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/02oct_oblatesun

[profound (OP)]

actually i have.in a sphere the particles only have 2 main DEGREES OF FREEDOM.... outwards and inwards.

I am afraid that "outwards and inwards" is only 1 degree of freedom (in a sphere, using radial coordinates).

However, there are many oscillation modes you can get in a spherical plasma.
- There are Alfvén waves in the body of the plasma
- Wherever there is a magnetic field, you get the ions spiraling around the magnetic field lines
 

in a sphere there can be no kinks..using a large number of external magnetic fields

The pressure of a plasma is continually changing, based on all those oscillation modes.
In a static magnetic field, when the pressure is momentarily higher than average, the magnetic field kinks out of the way, weakening the field in this area, which pushes more plasma into the gap, weakening the magnetic field - and immediately fails. It doesn't matter that these magnetic fields are organized in a sphere.

The problem with "a large number of" magnetic fields is that there are "a large number of" gaps between the separate fields, where plasma can "leak out". The beauty of the toroidal fusion reactor is that the magnetic field has no "edges", so there are fewer leaks.

HOW are they going to get any energy OUT of it bearing in mind how fragile the whole thing to even the slightest magnetic field imperfection???

Getting energy out is actually fairly easy: The plasma radiates uncharged particles like photons (X-Rays and above) and neutrons. These are absorbed by the surrounding containment walls, where it heats the coolant, and the coolant can be used to drive a turbine (except ITER will just passively dissipate the power; it won't turn a turbine).

Part of the problem is reflecting enough heat back into the plasma to keep it at the millions of degrees needed to maintain fusion. This is helped by keeping impurities out of the plasma, which reduces radiation with a line spectrum.

One of the (many) challenges is actually extracting "burnt" fuel (Helium-4 ions) from the plasma, while retaining the "unburnt" fuel inside the plasma (Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3 ions), while maintaining the plasma electrically neutral.

the outward pressure gas radiation pressure is balanced by gravity.

It is estimated that a practical fusion reactor would only have a few grams of plasma at any instant. So the gravitational attraction of the plasma is negligible.

If you are talking about power stations on Earth, Earth's gravity will provide a small containment force for plasma ions moving away from the Earth, but no containment for ions moving horizontally, and will actually accelerate dispersion for ions moving towards the center of the Earth.

Even for ions moving upwards, the velocity of ions at a temperature of millions of degrees will exceed Earth's escape velocity. So even Earth's gravity is insufficient to contain a plasma.
You need a much stronger gravity field - solar power uses the Sun's gravity field to contain the plasma.

i was referring to the sun when i mentioned gravity.

how will photons travel through opaque walls?
x radiation? how you turn it into heat? what about the contamination of the walls from x ray radiation
the containment vessel will be contaminated.
you cant use any method at all because the containment is enclosed by coils WHICH CANNOT BE DISTURBED  as the whole thing is so fragile.

you people remind of fans of star trek the motion picture which was so bad that the fans looked for any excuse to avoid saying how bad it was,

[profound (OP)]

actually i have.in a sphere the particles only have 2 main DEGREES OF FREEDOM.... outwards and inwards.

I am afraid that "outwards and inwards" is only 1 degree of freedom (in a sphere, using radial coordinates).

However, there are many oscillation modes you can get in a spherical plasma.
- There are Alfvén waves in the body of the plasma
- Wherever there is a magnetic field, you get the ions spiraling around the magnetic field lines
 

in a sphere there can be no kinks..using a large number of external magnetic fields

The pressure of a plasma is continually changing, based on all those oscillation modes.
In a static magnetic field, when the pressure is momentarily higher than average, the magnetic field kinks out of the way, weakening the field in this area, which pushes more plasma into the gap, weakening the magnetic field - and immediately fails. It doesn't matter that these magnetic fields are organized in a sphere.

The problem with "a large number of" magnetic fields is that there are "a large number of" gaps between the separate fields, where plasma can "leak out". The beauty of the toroidal fusion reactor is that the magnetic field has no "edges", so there are fewer leaks.

HOW are they going to get any energy OUT of it bearing in mind how fragile the whole thing to even the slightest magnetic field imperfection???

Getting energy out is actually fairly easy: The plasma radiates uncharged particles like photons (X-Rays and above) and neutrons. These are absorbed by the surrounding containment walls, where it heats the coolant, and the coolant can be used to drive a turbine (except ITER will just passively dissipate the power; it won't turn a turbine).

Part of the problem is reflecting enough heat back into the plasma to keep it at the millions of degrees needed to maintain fusion. This is helped by keeping impurities out of the plasma, which reduces radiation with a line spectrum.

One of the (many) challenges is actually extracting "burnt" fuel (Helium-4 ions) from the plasma, while retaining the "unburnt" fuel inside the plasma (Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3 ions), while maintaining the plasma electrically neutral.

the outward pressure gas radiation pressure is balanced by gravity.

It is estimated that a practical fusion reactor would only have a few grams of plasma at any instant. So the gravitational attraction of the plasma is negligible.

If you are talking about power stations on Earth, Earth's gravity will provide a small containment force for plasma ions moving away from the Earth, but no containment for ions moving horizontally, and will actually accelerate dispersion for ions moving towards the center of the Earth.

Even for ions moving upwards, the velocity of ions at a temperature of millions of degrees will exceed Earth's escape velocity. So even Earth's gravity is insufficient to contain a plasma.
You need a much stronger gravity field - solar power uses the Sun's gravity field to contain the plasma.

The entire point for a spherical plasma is to compress it by heating it and containing it by fields to enable fusion to occur at the center..CENTER CENTER CENTER...just like the sun.


ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

[profound (OP)]

The Sun is not, in fact, spherical.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/02oct_oblatesun

Are you a lawyer who lets of murderers on a technicality?? who cares if its oblate slightly?

ITER is not going to work i guarantee it.

its a failure.

[Bored chemist]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

[Bored chemist]

The Sun is not, in fact, spherical.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/02oct_oblatesun

Are you a lawyer who lets of murderers on a technicality?? who cares if its oblate slightly?

ITER is not going to work i guarantee it.

its a failure.

No, I'm just a scientist who tries to point out things that are observed to be true.
I doubt anybody cares, but it invalidates your implication that a reactor needs to be spherical.
If it was oblate enough it would look a bit like a torus.

"ITER is not going to work i guarantee it."
It already did, which gives us an insight into the worth of any guarantee you offer. (and also into your ability to make observations).

"its a failure."
That would still be wrong if you use the correct spelling of it's

[profound (OP)]

The Sun is not, in fact, spherical.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/02oct_oblatesun

Are you a lawyer who lets of murderers on a technicality?? who cares if its oblate slightly?

ITER is not going to work i guarantee it.

its a failure.

No, I'm just a scientist who tries to point out things that are observed to be true.
I doubt anybody cares, but it invalidates your implication that a reactor needs to be spherical.
If it was oblate enough it would look a bit like a torus.

Its not oblate enough.so there.

"ITER is not going to work i guarantee it."
It already did, which gives us an insight into the worth of any guarantee you offer. (and also into your ability to make observations).

it did not.so there.

"its a failure."
That would still be wrong if you use the correct spelling of it's

i dont used apos/commas for speed.

[profound (OP)]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

it never will.in any case i have been proved right by others which i can show you.

in other words others agree with me.

[Bored chemist]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

it never will.in any case i have been proved right by others which i can show you.

in other words others agree with me.

It already did work. So you and the "others" are wrong.

Your claim is just as silly as if you were saying that the atom bomb or heavier than air flying machines couldn't work.

[evan_au]

how will photons travel through opaque walls?

They don't have to. To get the energy out, you just need to absorb a small fraction in the walls (and reflect the rest back into the plasma).
The point is that photons easily travel through magnetic fields, without disturbing them - which contradicts your claim that you can't get energy out through the magnetic fields.

x radiation? how you turn it into heat?

Like all electromagnetic radiation, X-Rays carry energy, and that energy is absorbed in anything that absorbs X-Rays (like the containment vessel), turning it into heat. This then heats the cooling fluid.

what about the contamination of the walls from x ray radiation. 
the containment vessel will be contaminated.

High levels of X-Rays are dangerous to humans, because they are ionising radiation which mutates DNA. They will be much less dangerous to the carbon or metal walls of the reactor vessel.

In fact, there is radioactive contamination, but it comes from the neutrons produced by the deuterium/tritium fuel, which reacts to produce helium-4 + a neutron. This is why all the early experiments will use Hydrogen-2 as the fuel - that tests all of the systems, but without producing the neutron flux.

Once you start using tritium fuel, you must use remote-handling equipment for maintenance.

you cant use any method at all because the containment is enclosed by coils WHICH CANNOT BE DISTURBED  as the whole thing is so fragile.

I agree that the magnetic fields around a plasma are fragile.
But in fact, the magnetic fields must be modified, because a plasma is so dynamic that it cannot be contained within static magnetic fields.
So current research is aimed at monitoring plasma instabilities, rapidly detecting potential plasma break-out, and dynamically modifying the magnetic field to compensate and control the break out.

[profound (OP)]

how will photons travel through opaque walls?

They don't have to. To get the energy out, you just need to absorb a small fraction in the walls (and reflect the rest back into the plasma).
The point is that photons easily travel through magnetic fields, without disturbing them - which contradicts your claim that you can't get energy out through the magnetic fields.

x radiation? how you turn it into heat?

Like all electromagnetic radiation, X-Rays carry energy, and that energy is absorbed in anything that absorbs X-Rays (like the containment vessel), turning it into heat. This then heats the cooling fluid.

what about the contamination of the walls from x ray radiation. 
the containment vessel will be contaminated.

High levels of X-Rays are dangerous to humans, because they are ionising radiation which mutates DNA. They will be much less dangerous to the carbon or metal walls of the reactor vessel.

In fact, there is radioactive contamination, but it comes from the neutrons produced by the deuterium/tritium fuel, which reacts to produce helium-4 + a neutron. This is why all the early experiments will use Hydrogen-2 as the fuel - that tests all of the systems, but without producing the neutron flux.

Once you start using tritium fuel, you must use remote-handling equipment for maintenance.

you cant use any method at all because the containment is enclosed by coils WHICH CANNOT BE DISTURBED  as the whole thing is so fragile.

I agree that the magnetic fields around a plasma are fragile.
But in fact, the magnetic fields must be modified, because a plasma is so dynamic that it cannot be contained within static magnetic fields.
So current research is aimed at monitoring plasma instabilities, rapidly detecting potential plasma break-out, and dynamically modifying the magnetic field to compensate and control the break out.

Well no matter how many excuses you make for it it did not work for the last 50 years and wont work for the next 50 either...

its a white elephant designed to keep these 'scientists' in a job with nothing to show for it.None will admit its just a train wreck with no end in sight...

It's the wrong shape.For it to work it MUST be a sphere.

[profound (OP)]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

it never will.in any case i have been proved right by others which i can show you.

in other words others agree with me.

It already did work. So you and the "others" are wrong.

Your claim is just as silly as if you were saying that the atom bomb or heavier than air flying machines couldn't work.

This is not an atom bomb or heavier then air machine.its a political and group boondoogle.

it cant work to produce net energy because its the wrong shape.

[profound (OP)]

how will photons travel through opaque walls?

They don't have to. To get the energy out, you just need to absorb a small fraction in the walls (and reflect the rest back into the plasma).
The point is that photons easily travel through magnetic fields, without disturbing them - which contradicts your claim that you can't get energy out through the magnetic fields.

x radiation? how you turn it into heat?

Like all electromagnetic radiation, X-Rays carry energy, and that energy is absorbed in anything that absorbs X-Rays (like the containment vessel), turning it into heat. This then heats the cooling fluid.

what about the contamination of the walls from x ray radiation. 
the containment vessel will be contaminated.

High levels of X-Rays are dangerous to humans, because they are ionising radiation which mutates DNA. They will be much less dangerous to the carbon or metal walls of the reactor vessel.

In fact, there is radioactive contamination, but it comes from the neutrons produced by the deuterium/tritium fuel, which reacts to produce helium-4 + a neutron. This is why all the early experiments will use Hydrogen-2 as the fuel - that tests all of the systems, but without producing the neutron flux.

Once you start using tritium fuel, you must use remote-handling equipment for maintenance.

you cant use any method at all because the containment is enclosed by coils WHICH CANNOT BE DISTURBED  as the whole thing is so fragile.

I agree that the magnetic fields around a plasma are fragile.
But in fact, the magnetic fields must be modified, because a plasma is so dynamic that it cannot be contained within static magnetic fields.
So current research is aimed at monitoring plasma instabilities, rapidly detecting potential plasma break-out, and dynamically modifying the magnetic field to compensate and control the break out.

'''The point is that photons easily travel through magnetic fields, without disturbing them - which contradicts your claim that you can't get energy out through the magnetic fields'''.

how are photons going to travel from the plasma through the opaque containment vessel?

just admit you are making excuses for a dead end engineering design which should be cancelled and replaced with a spherical containment fusion design.

[Bored chemist]

how are photons going to travel from the plasma through the opaque containment vessel?

They don't need to.
They will reach it, be absorbed and warm it up.
Then you can harvest that heat, boil water make steam and turn a turbine to make electricity.

Perhaps you should
"just admit you are making excuses for a" dead end successful engineering design which should be cancelled and replaced with a spherical containment fusion design. upgraded."

[Bored chemist]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

it never will.in any case i have been proved right by others which i can show you.

in other words others agree with me.

It already did work. So you and the "others" are wrong.

Your claim is just as silly as if you were saying that the atom bomb or heavier than air flying machines couldn't work.

This is not an atom bomb or heavier then air machine.its a political and group boondoogle.

it cant work to produce net energy because its the wrong shape.

Can you possibly get to grips with the idea that it's a research project and isn't meant to produce net energy?

[Bored chemist]

It's the wrong shape.For it to work it MUST be a sphere.

Oh dear! the Sun just went out because it's not a sphere.

Oh! false alarm; it's just that Profound is talking bollocks.

[profound (OP)]

ITER is never going to work and i will eat my hat on live tv if it ever does and produces net energy for 24 hours costing less than 0.1 pence per killowatt.

ITER already works.
It was never intended to produce commercial electrical power.

it never will.in any case i have been proved right by others which i can show you.

in other words others agree with me.

It already did work. So you and the "others" are wrong.

Your claim is just as silly as if you were saying that the atom bomb or heavier than air flying machines couldn't work.

This is not an atom bomb or heavier then air machine.its a political and group boondoogle.

it cant work to produce net energy because its the wrong shape.

Can you possibly get to grips with the idea that it's a research project and isn't meant to produce net energy?

Thais what I said.ITER will never produce net energy.