I've done engineering work throughout most of my career maybe that is why I have been following nuclear power for about the last 30 years. I have always believed that this was the source of power for the future. Specifically, FUSION atomic power. Other forms are just too dangerous and expensive to use.
Fusion power has been in the lab for about 60 years now ; and under the last Republican administration president George Bush signed on to help finance the world's first thermonuclear FUSION full scale generating plant. This was the first significant effort to produce a realistic source of safe, stable, dependable, and cheap electrical power. The cost is being carried by less than a dozen countries (including the EU) the cost is 13 billion euros in total.
This project began in southern France in 2008 and it is still on schedule as far as I know. The reactor is a Tokamac magnetic containment plasma type and it operates (once started) entirely on heavy water Deuterium. The major cost of this heavy water is the separation of the Deuterium (H3O) from ordinary water (H20). The supply of Deuterium in the oceans is inexhaustible. The reaction that takes place is between Tritium and Deuterium. Once the plasma has been ignited the reactor is designed to produce its own Tritium. Tritium is radioactive but not nearly as dangerous as Plutonium; and the present fuels used in conventional FISSION reactors. Plasma temperatures operate at about 10 times that of the sun.
The advantages are...
cheap non toxic fuel.
No dangerous by products the only by product of this process is helium.
No possibility of melt downs just shut off the flow of Deuterium and the plasma dies out.
Not nearly as dangerous as FISSION reactors. And you can read for yourselves more of the details on their website.
The reactor itself is presently being built and it is scheduled to be assembled in 2015. In 2018 the first plasma stream will be ignited. Next comes experimentation to determine the best fuel combination for the process.
Recently one prophetic person stated that there was soon coming a very cheap source of electrical energy. He didn't know what or where but I did. God is going to take care of us so don't buy in to all this the sky is falling doom and gloom "global warming" stuff. The main theme of the book of Revelation to the first century Christians was No matter how bad things seem to be - God is still in control. That's for us today as well.
Because I have followed the development of FUSION power all these years I was aware of this project in southern France since 2008. During these last five or so years I have not seen one item of news on this project in any of our media. To me this is such an important project you would think that the environmentalists would be waving flags. The silence of the media is suspect. I think they will try to destroy the credibility of this endeavor because it does not fit their agenda of control by fear and dread. We will see won't we. Maybe EN's response will be an indicator of how they are going to discredit and negate the positive attributes of this process.
And finally this cheap electrical power will be the catalyst that will bring in the day of the electric car - which is the car of the future. When people have to decide whether to buy a $200 tank of gas or charge their battery in the car for $6 - it will not be any decision at all. The present front runner is the Tesla - this is the new "Apple corporation." They seem to be doing everything right and have a great car. They also have a backup of sales of one year - last I checked. These cars will become cheaper as more of them are manufactured - the battery of course is the greatest problem with the electric car.
Larry
ITER - the way to new energy pronounced eeter
www.iter.org/mach