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.