[Manah]

Ogromne problemy i opóźnienia reaktora ITER

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-fusion-project-is-in-big-trouble-new-documents-reveal/

In response to this stonewalling, earlier this year I initiated a lawsuit under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act seeking to reveal the extent of ITER’s expected schedule and cost troubles. So far, the lawsuit has been partially successful. It has extracted partially redacted documents revealing that in November 2021 ITER’s internal estimates showed the project already facing about 17 months of delays. By the time of the June 2022 ITER Council meeting, the number had doubled to roughly 35 months of delays—enough to easily add billions of dollars to ITER’s already bloated budget. But this timeline didn’t reflect other events bound to introduce even more delays.

(…)

On top of that difficulty, in January 2022 the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) put a stop to ITER assembly entirely. ASN is unconvinced that, among other issues, the planned amount of radiation shielding around the machine will be adequate, and the authority won’t let the assembly go forward until ITER can prove that it can keep personnel safe.

(…)

ITER has become the Gothic cathedral of our time: a beautiful but immensely complex structure that we pray will help us find salvation from our energy and climate woes.

Then again, perhaps a cathedral is the wrong metaphor: while Notre Dame took a century to complete, it became an active structure much more quickly, one that was used for its intended purpose less than a generation after construction began. Nobody can say when that will be true for ITER. With each passing decade, this record-breaking monument to big international science looks less and less like a cathedral—and more like a mausoleum.

#technologia #fizyka #energetyka