Big science

The experiments get bigger, the bill always rises and the delivery date keeps slipping. This paper discusses the advantages of fusion power, which has been soaking up UK´s government funds for decades, while payback from the technology never appears to get any closer. It offers the potential to provide a new major source of energy using basic fuels which are abundant and widely available (hydrogen/deuterium from water and lithium). A fusion power station would create no greenhouse gases during its operation and no long-lived radioactive waste. The goal of the international fusion research programme, starting with the construction of ITER - the experimental fusion reactor to be built in France - is the demonstration of full-scale power generation in a prototype power plant within 30 to 35 years.